The above-named diseases and maladies are all different names for Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS). A patient with ALS has a body that can no longer deliver proper nourishment to the muscles on the side of the spinal chord. Lacking nourishment, those muscles become hard. Some medical texts speak of that hardening as “scarring.”
The muscles along the spine do not all harden at once. The hardening or scarring takes place over a long period of time. The loss of control that is caused by formation of the first muscle “scars” offers evidence that a patient has ALS.
In the 1930s a famous baseball player named Lou Gehrig noted a decline in his ability to control his muscles. Since a baseball player relies on his muscles, Lou Gehrig visited his doctor. What the famous baseball player learned from his doctor he then shared with a stadium of baseball fans. That was Lou Gehrig's famous announcement.
What announcement was made by that famous Yankee? Lou Gehrig told his fans that he would need to stop playing baseball. He suffered from ALS. He could expect his game skills to decline daily. That momentous announcement led to the identification of ALS with Lou Gehrig's disease.
Because of Lou Gehrig's announcement, the public came to understand that a diagnosis of ALS should not be seen as “just something to sneeze at.” Such a diagnosis is much more than that. Eventually the patient with ALS becomes as “sick as a dog.” Moreover, that sickness can not be treated. A diagnosis of ALS informs the patient that he or she has a fatal disease.
Coming face to face with a person who has ALS can be a challenging experience. The ALS patient often has become quite helpless. The scarring of the muscles along the side of the spine eventually leads to a total loss of muscle control. The patient can only control his or her brain cells.
The reader should know that those who must speak with an ALS patient frequently struggle to put “their heart in their mouth.” They try to find the right words to say to the bedridden patient. One young man encountered that challenge, and he wrote a book about his experience. His book, Tuesdays with Maury, was made into a Hollywood movie.
That book did not dwell on the history of ALS. It did not mention the fact that the symptoms associated with ALS were first recorded by a French doctor, Jean-Martin Charcot. Charcot recognized in 1869 that those symptoms should be viewed as the signs of a distinct illness.
Charcot’s publications eventually made their way to the U.S. A doctor familiar with the writings of Charcot was able to see the tell-tale signs of ALS in Lou Gehrig. That doctor then told the baseball player what challenges he would face. The doctor’s message pushed his famous patient to speak to his fans. Medical history was changed by Lou Gehrig’s big announcement.