The Matka of the "Non-Existent" Disease

I remember attending a Monday morning medicine meeting in Sion Hospital, as a 3rd year medical student in the mid-80s, where a medicine lecturer presented a patient with neurological symptoms and signs that were typical of multiple sclerosis (MS). As soon as he finished, all hell broke loose and every senior physician (except his own boss who had asked him to present the case) castigated him, saying “multiple sclerosis does not occur in India and definitely not in the low income patient population that frequents Sion Hospital”. Funnily, the Multiple Sclerosis Society of India (MSSI) had just been founded, in 1985.

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