Uveitis in association with multiple sclerosis.

Rucker (I944) was first to describe sheathing of retinal veins in patients with multiple sclerosis. This was supported by later observers (Treusch and Rucker, 1944; Haar, I953; Scott, I96I), but the incidence was found to vary from IO to 23 per cent. It was initially thought that this periphlebitis was not associated with other ocular conditions, and might indicate a possible pathological basis for multiple sclerosis, with areas of periphlebitis scattered throughout the central nervous system. Later reports, however, demonstrated an association between this retinal vein sheathing and a posterior uveitis in similar patients (Archambeau, Hollenhorst, and Rucker, I965), and more recently an association has been demonstrated between multiple sclerosis and the clinical entity of peripheral uveitis (pars planitis) (Breger and Leopold, I966; Giles, I970), which may include sheathing of