“Trousseau's disease:” A description of the gilles de la tourette syndrome 12 years before 1885

Abstract

French neurologist Georges Gilles de la Tourette first described the syndrome which earned him eponymous fame in 1885. However, a publication dated 1873 by Armand Trousseau included a detailed account of what is currently know as Gilles de la Tourette syndrome (GTS). In Gilles de la Tourette's celebrated 1885 paper, there is a brief mention of the clinical picture described earlier by Trousseau, but Gilles de la Tourette somewhat disregarded it. We present the first English translation of Trousseau's description and argue that this description is more akin to modern conceptualization of GTS than the description of Gilles de la Tourette himself.

Tourette’s syndrome and its borderland

“…The report included the famous case of a cussing Marquise originally described by Itard in 1825. Trousseau, another Parisian physician, appears to have made a good description earlier than Gilles de la Tourette1 but the condition was long ago credited to the Salpêtrière school (figure 1). For about 90 years Tourette’s syndrome (TS) was recorded mainly as a bizarre footnote in psychiatric textbooks and worse, in psychoanalysts’ formulations.…”

Liver Sinusoidal Endothelium: A Microenvironment-Dependent Differentiation Program in Rat Including the Novel Junctional Protein Liver Endothelial Differentiation-Associated Protein-1

“…Tourette syndrome (TS) should be more appropriately named “Gilles de la Tourette syndrome,” after the French neurologist who described this neurological and behavioral disorder in 1885. In his initial monograph, Georges Albert Édouard Brutus Gilles de la Tourette, a 28‐year‐old student of Jean‐Martin Charcot, described 9 patients who exhibited brief involuntary movements (motor tics): 6 made noises (phonic tics), 5 shouted obscenities (coprolalia), 5 repeated the words of others (echolalia), and 2 mimicked others' gestures (echopraxia) 1. Traditionally credited with the first comprehensive report of this neurobehavioral disorder, Gilles de la Tourette actually was not the first to describe the disorder that now bears his name, as a detailed account of the most typical features was published 12 years earlier by Parisian physician Armand Trousseau 1.…”

“…In his initial monograph, Georges Albert Édouard Brutus Gilles de la Tourette, a 28‐year‐old student of Jean‐Martin Charcot, described 9 patients who exhibited brief involuntary movements (motor tics): 6 made noises (phonic tics), 5 shouted obscenities (coprolalia), 5 repeated the words of others (echolalia), and 2 mimicked others' gestures (echopraxia) 1. Traditionally credited with the first comprehensive report of this neurobehavioral disorder, Gilles de la Tourette actually was not the first to describe the disorder that now bears his name, as a detailed account of the most typical features was published 12 years earlier by Parisian physician Armand Trousseau 1. Although the hereditary nature of the disorder was recognized early, the etiology was initially ascribed to psychogenic causes until the 1960s, when the beneficial effects of neuroleptic drugs in the treatment of tics began to be recognized.…”

Republished review: Tourette's syndrome and other tic disorders

“…The same syndrome had in fact been previously described by Armand Trousseau 20 years earlier, but for some reason his description never caught on 1. Interest in this syndrome in Paris was heightened by contemporary descriptions of some culturally determined startle syndromes (latah, myriachit and the ‘jumping Frenchmen of Maine’), all characterised by echolalia, coprolalia and automatic obedience in response to startling stimuli.…”