1400s - The biography of Lydwina of Schneider, the Dutch patron Saint of ice-skaters, was the first written record of someone with MS.
1838 - medical drawings clearly show what we today recognize as MS, but 19th century doctors did not understand what they saw and recorded.
1868 - French neurologist, Jean-Martin Charcot, University of Paris, first described multiple sclerosis as a distinct disease. Although MS was known to be neurological in nature, it was treated unsuccessfully with gold chloride, silver nitrate, zinc sulfate, strychnine, belladonna, ergot, hydrotherapy and electrical stimulation.
1878 - Myelin was discovered by Louis Ranvier. Later researchers discovered its role in nerve conduction and identified the cell that makes myelin (oligo-dendrocytes)
1880s - MS attributed to overexertion. Treated with bed-rest and electrical stimulation.
1890s - MS attributed to suppression of sweat.
1900s - MS attributed to an "unknown toxin" or to a metabolic abnormality, and was treated with purgative cathartics, stimulants, enzymes and tonsillectomy.
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. Equipped with this new technology, 1916 - Dr. James Dawson, University of Edinburgh, performed detailed microscopic examinations of the brains of patients who had died with MS. Dr. Dawson wrote a description of the inflammation around blood vessels and the damage to the myelin with a clarity and thoroughness which has never been improved upon. But so little was known about the brain's function that the meaning of these changes could only be guessed at.
1919 - Abnormalities in the spinal fluid were discovered in MS, but their significance remained puzzling for decades.
1920 - MS could be diagnosed reliably only by post-mortem examination of brain tissue. MS was thought at the time to be a "male disease". Women later discovered to have had MS (upon post-mortem exam) had typically been diagnosed with "hysteria".
1920 - 90's - MS attributed to various infectious agents, and treated with typhoid and other vaccines, anti-syphilis drugs, antibiotics and blood transfusions.
1925 - Lord Edgar Douglas Adrian (1932 Nobel Laureate in Medicine for his co-discoveries regarding the functions of neurons.) recorded the first electrical nerve transmissions, which helped prove demyelinated nerve cannot sustain electrical impulses. At this time, scientists suspected that some form of toxin or poison caused MS. Because most MS damage occurs around blood vessels, it seemed reasonable that a toxin circulating in the bloodstream leaked out into the brain, even though no researcher could find a trace of it.
1928 - The oligodendrocyte cell that makes myelin was discovered.
1930s - "Hot bath test" used to diagnose MS.
1935 - Dr. Thomas Rivers, at the Rockefeller Institute in New York City, demonstrated that nerve tissue, not viruses, produced an MS-like illness. This animal form of MS, called EAE or experimental allergic encephalomyelitis, paved the way to our present theories of auto-immunity, for it demonstrated the body can generate an immunologic attack against itself.
1930s - 40s MS attributed to poor circulation of blood in the brain and to blood clots. Treated with anticoagulants.
1940s - Abnormal immune system antibodies discovered in spinal fluid of patients suspected of having MS and other neurological problems. (Elvin Kalbat et al, 1948.)
1946 - NMSS founded.
1965 - White blood cells discovered reacting to a protein in the myelin of MS patients.
1950s - 70s - MS attributed to allergy and treated with antihistamines, vitamins and steroids.
1969 - 70 - ACTH first used in controlled treatment trials for MS.
1970s - Present - MS attributed to autoimmune reaction, possibly triggered by a virus. Treatment started to focus on curbing destructive immune responses with steroids and with immune system regulators.
1981 - MRI was invented.
1993 - Betaseron was approved by FDA for treatment of relapsing-remitting form of MS.
1996 - Avonex was approved by FDA for treatment of relapsing-remitting form of MS.
1995 - 1996 - Clinical trials began on use of Betaseron and Avonex for ambulatory secondary progressive MS.
1995 - 1996 - Clinical trials began on the use of bovine myelin, methotrexate, 4-AP, Cop-1, and several other drugs for the treatment of MS.
August 1996 - International research team announced the identification of 19 candidate DNA regions that may contain the genes that act in concert with each other and with environmental factors to cause MS. The study relied on statistical analysis of the genetic makeup of affected and unaffected members of 75 different families of which at least two members have been diagnosed definitely as having MS and not another disease with similar symptoms. While there is no single "MS gene", further research is expected to implicate certain genes in MS, which would then lead to identification of the proteins made by the implicated genes, and then of the biochemical pathway whereby a person begins to exhibit MS symptoms.
1996 - Researchers in Europe and in South America claim improvement in MS patients treated with Linomide, a derivative of Thalidomide.
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