Neurological disorders have been diagnosed and treated with some success for many years now. Disorders ranging from Alzheimer's disease to Tourette's Syndrome have been catalogued, identified, and treated. New disorders are diagnosed all the time, however, and sometimes it seems we may never be able to wipe out these diseases of the nervous system.
             By far the most well known of the neurological disorders, at least in America, is a condition known as Alzheimer's disease. It is infamous not only for it's penchant for striking the elderly, but because we cannot fathom the cause or a working treatment. This disorder carries a certain mystique with it, because it has apparently been around since man could keep written records. In fact, Elaine Landau writes, "Shakespeare wrote about very old age as a time of "second childishness and mere oblivion," suggesting that the symptoms of Alzheimer's disease were known and recognized even then" (23). The only thing we know of Alzheimer's disease is that it attacks certain centers of the brain, namely the cerebral cortex, the basal forebrain, and the hippocampus. The cerebral cortex is usually the last thing to be effected, but the hippocampus and the nearby entorhinal cortex are the first victims, causing the classic memory loss associated with Alzheimer's disease. Alzheimer's disease often leads to other serious mental and social disorders, as the patient becomes less able to function, even in everyday conditions, and can even grow violent.
             Another well known disease which effects the nervous system is ALS, or Lou Gehrig's disease. This disease attacks the motor neurons in the peripheral nervous system, causing slow loss of control over the skeletal muscle system. The person's brain is still active and alert, but the stimulus to move the muscles never reaches those muscles, due to the deterioration of the motor neurons in ...