ME/CFS:DIRE, Epidemic as Long Ago as 1956

"1956 EPIDEMIC NEUROMYASTHENIA" reported in The New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM)

by Helen Borel,RN,MFA,PhD

   In their 1957 "Epidemic Neuromyasthenia" article, physicians D.C. Poskanser, D.A. Henderson, E. Charles Kunkle, W.B. Clement, J.O. Brown and S.S. Kalter,PhD, reporting in the NEJM about a 1956 "CFS" epidemic "An Outbreak in Punta Gorda, Florida," stated:

   "An obscure epidemic illness occurred in a small Florida community in the spring of
1956....characterized principally by fatigue, headache, nuchal pain, alterations in emotional status and mentation, nausea and vomiting, paresthesias, aching muscular pain and a prolonged, relapsing course.  Symptoms were protean...."

                  Different Labels for the Same Disease Worldwide
   They go on to state, "The entity is similar to that described by various authors, particularly in recent years, from many different parts of the world.  It has been termed
'Iceland Disease,' 'benign myalgic encephalomyelitis,' 'Akureyri disease,' and 'vegetative
neuritis.'"

   According to these medical authors, this disease reportedly occurred :
~ in 1948-1949 in Iceland
~ in 1949-1951 in Australia
~ in 1952 in Denmark
~ in 1954 in Alaska
~ in 1955 in Germany
~ in 1955 in South Africa
~ and they added that several outbreaks occurred in England, the first in 1953 in Coventry

and several occurred in the United States, the first in 1934 in Los Angeles.

   These facts, reported a long time ago, are a sorry reminder of how little has been done
- in the 60 years since this NEJM report - to provide comprehensive symptomatic treatment plans to patients suffering this obviously autoimmune disease that afflicts the Central Nervous System (encephalon and myelin sheath).We treat Multiple Sclerosis (MS) patients with much more sympathy (virtually none to ME/CFS:DIRE patients).  And we do provide targeted Rx medications from ongoing research plus various symptomatic treatments and care plans for MS patients.  ME/CFS:DIRE is similar in that MS is an autoimmune disease which attacks the myelin and cripples its sufferers to varying degrees, depending  upon the locations of demyelinization.  Is something similar going on in the
myelin of ME/CFS:DIRE patients?

   To access the full 1957 scientific report, you'll need a subscription to The New England
Journal of Medicine  here-> http://www.nejm.org

   The title of the 1957 article is 
"Epidemic Neuromyasthenia - An Outbreak in Punta Gorda, Florida"

   Finally, about this particular epidemic, the doctor-authors reported that a gradually increasing number of young and middle-aged adults were hospitalized with "prostrating symptoms".

   That description, so long ago, of "prostration" rather than "fatigue" is exactly what I described in my 1992 clinical compendium Living With and Recovering From CHRONIC FATIGUE SYNDROME: Debilitating Immunopathic Relapsing Encephalomyelitis (DIRE).

   The fact that the clinically broad, bodywide signs and symptoms, reflective of Immune System Decompensation and Central Nervous System Disruption that characterize this disease, and create such diverse miseries for its victims, were known so long ago is a cautionary tale.  

   I'm left distressed at why such patients are STILL not being offered a coherent regimen of Symptomatic Treatments to quell brain inflammation and to quiet down a run-amok immune system.  We healthcare professionals never, with other pathologies, withhold logical and empirical treatments because scientists haven't yet pinpointed any etiologies.

   Imagine a Nurse or Physician not providing extra fluid intake and ice packs to a febrile
patient just because we don't yet know what the fever is from...a virus?  a bacterium? heat stroke?  Nah.  Let's let the patient get sicker, the brain get hotter, while we await some lab reports.  Stupid, huh?  That's the kind of attitudes too many MDs have inflicted on
millions of ME/CFS:DIRE patients.  As a healthcare professional, I call for sensible, here-and-now treatment plans that attack basic symptoms to calm the immune system, to protect the brain and spinal cord.  

   Hurrah for ongoing research; but, we've got to get these patients out of bed and into
remission.  Treat the symptoms, doctors.  It could take another 60 years before we pinpoint any etiologic culprits.

(c) Copyright 1992 to 2018 by Dr. Helen Borel.  All rights reserved.