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Despite extensive virologic and immunologic research, a precise understanding of the etiology of multiple sclerosis continues to elude us. The peculiar epidemiologic characteristics of this disorder have long been considered to potentially contain a vital clue to its etiopathogenesis. In this book, one such epidemiologic peculiarity is discussed in detail—namely, the lower incidence and somewhat atypical clinical presentation of multiple sclerosis in Japan and other Asian nations.
The book consists of a collection of papers presented in 1975 at the Asian Multiple Sclerosis Workshop in Tokyo. The first two thirds of the papers are devoted primarily to detailing the clinical and pathological features of patients studied in various Asian nations. The remainder of the papers include studies of experimental allergic encephalomyelitis in the Orient and concise reviews of the general epidemiology of multiple sclerosis and its relationship to viral and genetic studies.
This book will be of interest primarily to