These include a group of diseases of unknown cause that lead to a degeneration or disappearance of the myelin (insulation) around nerves, with an effect similar to stripping away the rubber insulation from an electric wire.

Demyelinated nerve fibers lose the power to conduct messages or impulses from the brain to the muscles, as well as messages of touch, pain, vision and hearing to the brain. In consequence, there may be paralysis or numbness in an arm or leg, or unsteady (ataxic) gait, blindness, loss of bladder and bowel control. Although some authorities speculate that an hereditary predisposition is responsible for the demyelination of the nerves, and others attribute the illness to some abnormal chemistry in the body, the actual cause remains unknown.

Multiple sclerosis is a strange disease that attacks any part of the brain, spinal cord and nerves with spots of degeneration, and is characterized clinically by paralysis, numbness, blindness, deafness, unsteady gait (ataxia), impairment of speech and mental changes. It usually begins during the early years of life, most often between 20 and 30 years of age.

The first sign of illness may be the sudden paralysis of a leg, or half of the body, or the sudden loss of vision in one eye. This could persist and slowly progress to add other symptoms, but usually the first symptoms disappear within weeks or months, to be replaced in the course of a year or years with a succession of the same or other symptoms, in various parts of the body.

The disappearance of symptoms is referred to as a “remission” and the reappearance as a “relapse.” These remissions and relapses may spread over a period of five, ten or more years, after which there is a tendency toward steady progression of the disease, until partial or total invalidism ensues.

There is no specific treatment as yet, nor any means of prevention of the disease. However, considerable research is under way in hope of reaching better understanding of the cause and the means to combat the illness. There is a Multiple Sclerosis Foundation that may be contacted for information as to the latest developments and prospects. Any person who develops sudden paralysis, numbness, blindness, or deafness, must obtain immediate study by a neurologist.

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis

Because this medical term is so difficult to remember, it has come to be known in popular language as “Lou Gehrig’s Disease”, after the famous ballplayer who became afflicted with it. This illness differs sharply from multiple sclerosis, in that the patches of degeneration are not as diffusely spread out through the entire nervous system, but tend to localize on bundles of motor nerves in the brain and spinal cord, causing a slowly progressive paralysis and wasting (atrophy) of muscles on both sides of the body, sometimes more on one side than on the other. The hands often manifest the first signs of wasting and weakness, and later the legs. There is never numbness or blindness here. No specific treatment is, as yet, available for this disease, just as there is none for multiple sclerosis, although injections of B-12 and other vitamins (B-6) prove of some ameliorating value.