The story
Named after the American physician Dr. W. Stewart Alexander, who was the first to describe the disorder in 1949.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.
Alexander disease
Today it means: A rare, progressive, and usually fatal neurological disorder; classified as a leukodystrophy, it is fundamentally a disease of the brain’s astrocytes; caused by genetic mutations that lead to the abnormal accumulation of proteins, known as Rosenthal fibers, which destroy the protective myelin sheath in the central nervous system. Full definition →