Doctors have learned to make no rash claims about treatments for
multiple sclerosis. This baffling disease of unknown origin afflicts an
estimated 250,000 in the U.S. with varying degrees of incapacity,
usually in the legs and arms, often involving speech and vision.
Damaging the nerve sheaths in the brain and spinal column, multiple
sclerosis may take many forms, from a quickly fatal attack to a 30-year
lingering illness punctuated by long periods of relative freedom.
Histamine, vitamins and a variety of drugs have aroused high hopes in
some researchers and their patients, only to prove disappointing in the
long run.Knowing this, Drs. John Kurtzke and Louis Berlin jumped to no
conclusions when a multiple sclerosis patient, treated with isoniazid
for bed sores, began to speak so that they could again understand him.
Instead, they tested isoniazid, the TB wonder drug, on 30 patients at
the Veterans Administration Hospital in the Bronx. Three received no
benefit, but 27 improved, and by a wider margin than previous M.S.
patients who had been given other treatments. Most encouraging was the
fact that four patients improved when they were given the drug and
relapsed when it was stopped, then improved again when it was resumed.
Eight of the patients have been followed for a year or more since they
left the hospital, and none has had a new attack.
