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An animated, cited guide for students, people with MS and their families. Educational only, not medical advice. Your place is saved on this device.

Not medical adviceMS Companion is an educational synthesis of published literature for study and patient understanding. It does not replace a neurologist or MS nurse. Doses, criteria and guideline statements are reported as published, not as instructions for any individual. Never stop or switch a medicine without your own team.

Part 6 · Context & review

History & people

Two centuries of multiple sclerosis, from a patient's diary in 1822 to Charcot, the first MRI, the first approved treatments and the 2024 McDonald criteria. Press play to run the timeline, or jump between eras.

The scene is a drawing of what changed in each era; each caption in it repeats a milestone below, with that milestone's sources in the note panel. The axis is stretched for the crowded decades (1960–1990 and after 1990). The bottom band is qualitative.

Every milestone

The dots on the timeline are also listed here, so they can be reached with the keyboard and read in order.

What it was called

Charcot's French name was sclérose en plaques, "sclerosis in patches". Dawson's 1916 paper used the name disseminated sclerosis. Click a dated name to jump the timeline. 112,507

Exam hookFive dates: 1868 Charcot, "sclérose en plaques" and the triad of nystagmus, dysarthria and ataxia with intention tremor · 1981 first MRI of MS · 23 July 1993 Betaseron (interferon beta-1b) approved by the FDA · 20 December 1996 Copaxone (glatiramer acetate) · 2001 McDonald criteria bring MRI into diagnosis. 132,133,305,505,507
In plain wordsPeople have recognised MS for about 200 years, first from a patient's diary and drawings of damaged brains. Scanners made the damage visible in life in the 1980s. Treatments that change the course of the disease only arrived in the 1990s.

MS Companion is an educational synthesis of the published literature on multiple sclerosis, made for health-science and nursing courses and for patient understanding.

It is not medical advice. It cannot diagnose, and nothing here should change a treatment without your own clinician. Criteria, doses and guideline statements are quoted as published. Please check the original sources, which are listed in full in the Sources module.

Part of Medical Companions, animated and cited guides to one disease each. Also there: Alzheimer's Companion and FMF Companion.