The Biology of Multiple Sclerosis: Introduction: the biological basis
A large amount of research has been carried out on this disease, and much progress has been made in understanding its pathogenesis, however, the primary cause of the disease still remains elusive.
Abstract
History of discovery Throughout the course of history, people have been ill with diseases affecting their mobility. This could take the form of increasing paralysis over time. For many, this was associated with other symptoms, such as numbness, dizziness, and blurred vision. In the eighteenth century, physicians began to classify such cases into broad groups. The term paraplegia was used for people who had progressive paralysis. A major advance was made in 1868 by the physician Jean-Martin Charcot and his colleague Edmé Vulpian. They studied the tremors of younger patients and differentiated a condition from that described by James Parkinson in 1817. At autopsy such patients were found to have grey patches (plaques) scattered throughout the spinal cord and brain. Charcot gave a series of lectures on the features of this disease, which he termed sclérose en plaque disseminée and which we now know as multiple sclerosis (MS). Since then, a large amount of research has been carried out on this disease, and much progress has been made in understanding its pathogenesis. However, the primary cause of the disease still remains elusive (1).