Multiple sclerosis victims (about 250,000 in the U.S.) were anxiously wondering about a possible clue to their mysterious disease, which is marked by near-total loss of muscle control. (It happens when the myelin sheath, a fatty insulation around nerve pathways, degenerates for unknown reasons, thus short-circuiting nerve signals.) Philadelphia Bacteriologist Rose Ichelson, 59, reported success in cultivating an obscure microbe, Spirochaeta myelophthora, which she has found in the spinal fluid of MS victims. Inference: multiple sclerosis is caused by the spirochete, and early attack on it should lead to cure or alleviation.
Trouble is that nothing conclusive connects the germ with the disease. (A dozen better-understood diseases have been attributed to microbes that were later proved not guilty.) If MS is laid to infection, it becomes almost impossible to explain why it so rarely attacks both husband and wife, or both of identical twins. Said the National Multiple Sclerosis Society guardedly: now that Bacteriologist Ichelson has published her long-awaited method for cultivating the spirochetes, other scientists can check whether they are really found only in MS victims. If so, an effective treatment might still be years away.