1960s During the 1960s, scientific research into the cause of MS came to focus on two main lines of inquiry that are still being explored today. The first emerged from analysis of the immune system. White blood cells that react against myelin, specifically against a component called myelin basic protein, were discovered in both EAE and human MS. This led scientists to consider the possibility that MS involves a direct immune-system attack on myelin. The second idea came from studies that showed that people with MS have altered antibodies against viruses. This revived the older thinking that MS could be caused by a virus. But rather than a viral infection directly damaging the central nervous system, viruses involved in MS were now thought to alter the immune system and trigger…

19th century Until the early years of the 19th century, physicians relied on superstition, hearsay, and “the wisdom of the ancients” to care for the sick. Medical ideas were not scientifically tested. Even so, physicians were often good observers and we can look back today and identify people who undoubtedly had MS from descriptions written as long ago as the Middle Ages. Drawings from autopsies done as early as 1838 clearly show what we now recognize as MS. Then, in 1868, Jean-Martin Charcot, a professor at the University of Paris who has been called “the father of neurology,” carefully examined a young woman with a tremor of a sort he had never seen before. He noted her other neurological problems including slurred speech and abnormal eye movements, and compared them…

20th century In the 19th century, scientists first learned that bacteria cause many diseases. As the 20th century began, they discovered even smaller organisms, viruses, and developed techniques for growing and studying bacteria and viruses in the laboratory. This later led to research on viral causes of MS. In 1906, the Nobel Prize for Medicine was awarded to Dr. Camillo Golgi and Dr. Santiago Ramon y Cajal, who perfected new chemicals to enhance the visibility of nerve cells under the microscope. With this new technology now available, Dr. James Dawson at the University of Edinburgh in 1916 performed detailed microscopic examinations of the brains of patients who had died with MS.