A family study of the late infantile and juvenile forms of metachromatic leucodystrophy.

Classification within the disorder formerly known as diffuse sclerosis has been much improved in the past decade. Lumsden pointed out in I95I that Schilder (I9I2, I913, I924) had described three distinct conditions, the one in his 1913 paper corresponding to what is now known as familial metachromatic leucodystrophy. In I957 Hirsch and Peiffer introduced a new stain for metachromasia (cresyl violet in I% acetic acid giving a golden brown colour), re-examined (Peiffer, I962) the necropsy material from several earlier cases, and reclassified them in the group of metachromatic leucodystrophy.