DIFFUSE PROGRESSIVE LEUKODYSTROPHY IN THE ADULT

Abstract

The observation which we record here concerns a case of diffuse leukodystrophy beginning in an adolescent and progressing for seventeen years clinically as pseudoparalytic dementia, with the addition of double athetosis and intense spasms of contracture. From the anatomic point of view this condition is indistinguishable from the familial forms of the disease. The brother of our patient was well, but we have no information concerning other members of his family. We cannot be certain, therefore, that his disease was not of the heredofamilial type. The presence of metachromatic degenerative products is another peculiarity of this case, and we shall return later to the particular value which Einarson and van Neel¹accorded them, as described in their recent monograph. REPORT OF A CASE History. —F. W., a man aged 38, concerning whom information was given by his family on May 19, 1937, had one brother who was well; no