MS Through History

Sir Augustus d'Esté (1794-1848)

The next known description of MS did not appear until the 19th century, when the first personal account of the illness was given through a diary kept by Sir Augustus d'Esté, the illegitimate grandson of George III of England.

D'Esté documented the course of his 26-year illness, retrospectively diagnosed as MS. This image shows two excerpts from the diary, above, an entry from the start of the diary, in 1822, and below, from January 1848, one of the last entries3. The marked decline in handwriting is clearly visible as the writer loses motor control.

Reproduced with permission from The case of Augustus d'Esté, D. Firth, 1948, Cambridge

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