Definition of "multiple sclerosis" [multiple sclerosis]

• A chronic autoimmune disease of the central nervous system in which gradual destruction of myelin occurs in patches throughout the brain or spinal cord or both, interfering with the nerve pathways and causing muscular weakness, loss of coordination, and speech and visual disturbances. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "Incidence (1988–97) and prevalence (1997) of multiple sclerosis in Vasterbotten County in northern Sweden."
• "Over the past fifty years multiple sclerosis rates: Midgard R et al."
• "Incidence of multiple sclerosis in More and Romsdal, Norway from 1950 to 1991."