Tics and Their Treatment Part 9

Consciousness is maintained in its integrity both before and after, but not during, an obsessional attack, and this is equally true of tic, as are the preliminary discomfort and subsequent satisfaction that attend the obsession. Noir makes the appropriate remark that idiots affected with krouomania, in whom sensory disturbance is awanting, so far from suffering pain through sundry self-inflicted blows and mutilations, seem, on the contrary, to be thus afforded a certain feeling of relief, if not of actual relish.

Whenever Lam., who exhibits incessant balancing and rotatory movements of the head, is seated in proximity to a wall, he knocks his head sideways against it until a bruise results, and appears to find therein a source of genuine satisfaction.[24]

If, then, an obsession provokes a motor reaction at all, it may originate a tic, and, in the case of tonic tics, this is a very common mode of derivation, as one may well understand how an obsession may occasion an att.i.tude.

Gra.s.set cites the example of a young girl who would never lean backwards in a railway carriage or on any chair or bench, preferring to sit bolt upright on the edge. In this instance the adoption of a stereotyped att.i.tude was directly attributable to an obsession.

Another example of an att.i.tude tic is furnished by the case of young J.:

Standing or seated, he always has his half-flexed left arm firmly pressed against the body in the position a.s.sumed by hemiplegics.

Its pose and inertia and the awkwardness of its movements unite to suggest some real affection, the existence of which the constant use of the right arm and the elaboration by the patient of intricate devices to obviate disturbing the other tend to substantiate. Nevertheless, the impotence is entirely imaginary. To order he can execute any movement of the left arm with energy and accuracy; his left hand will b.u.t.ton or unb.u.t.ton his clothes, lace his boot, handle a knife, and even hold a pen and write.

It seems that the position of the arm was chosen deliberately to alleviate a supposed pain in the shoulder, and unceasing resort to this subterfuge of his own inventing, which he considered a sovereign remedy, ended in its voluntary adoption being succeeded by its automatic reproduction.

The a.s.sumption of this position for his arm was at first attended with satisfactory results, but, as might have been foreseen, its inhibitory value decreased gradually, so he had recourse to other means. It was then that the right hand was made to grip the left and press it more energetically than ever against the epigastrium.

In this complex att.i.tude both arms simultaneously partic.i.p.ated, but again its efficacy was purely transitory. Evidently dissatisfied with his methods of immobilisation, and convinced that experimentation would end in the discovery of the desired arrangement, J. proceeded to employ the right hand in impressing every variety of pa.s.sive movement on the left hand, wrist, forearm, and upper arm, and soon there was no checking these gymnastic exercises. He would suddenly grasp the wrist and pull and screw it, while the left shoulder and elbow resisted n.o.bly; or he would bend, or unbend, or twist his fingers, or seize the arm below the axilla and knead it or rub it, forcing it against or away from the thorax; he would pound the muscles and pinch the tendons, sometimes in a brutal fashion; in short, the situation degenerated into nothing more nor less than a pitched battle between the left arm and the right hand, in which the latter endeavoured by a thousand tricks to bring the former into subjection. Victory rested always with the affected arm.

Each time that this absurd combat recommenced, the patient experienced a sensation of relief; resignation to the imperious motor obsession was even followed by a sense of well-being. On the other hand, resistance was accompanied by actual anguish--he would fidget desperately in his chair, cross and uncross his legs, sigh, grimace, rub his eyes, bite his lips and nails, twist his mouth about, pull at his hair or his moustache, he would look anxious or alarmed, would become by turns red or pale, and beads of perspiration would gather on his face. At length he would be compelled to yield, and the bloodless battle of his upper limbs would close more furiously than ever.

In this case the typical features of obsession are excellently ill.u.s.trated--its irresistibility, as well as the concomitant distress and succeeding content.

Conversely, however, a tic may be said to develop into an obsession if the exciting cause of the latter be the motor reaction.

In various psychopathic conditions (says Dupre[25]), especially where the genito-urinary apparatus is concerned, this pathogenic mechanism is encountered. Some source of peripheral irritation in bladder, urethra, prostate, etc., provokes cortical reaction, and a reflex arc is established with centrifugal manifestations in the guise of motor phenomena, which in their turn originate all sorts of fixed ideas, impulsions, and obsessions, forming an integral part of the syndrome.

There is frequently no direct or obvious connection between a patient's obsession or obsessions and his tics. The former may consist, both in children and in adults, in extraordinary scrupulousness, perpetual fear of doing wrong, absolute lack of self-confidence, sometimes simply in excessive timidity, exaggerated daintiness, or interminable hesitation.

We have often seen youthful subjects betray in their disposition weak elements such as the above, which at a later stage have proved the starting-point for more definite obsessions. Their intelligence and capacity for work earn the approbation of their teacher, yet they are for ever dissatisfied, haunted by the dread of having overlooked some iota in their task; they dare not affirm that they know their lessons, they stammer over their answers, mistrust their memory, make no promises and take no pledges, and thus bear witness to an absence of confidence in themselves which affects them profoundly, for they are well enough aware of its consequences.

An admirable instance of this is furnished by the case of young F., or by little G., ten years old, who suffers from a facial tic, and constantly hesitates when asked to give a measurement, an hour, a date, a figure, solely by reason of a conscientious fear of not being absolutely accurate in his reply.

In children the emotional excitement of their first Communion often favours the development of religious scruples. By a sort of metastasis, diminution of the convulsive movements goes _pari pa.s.su_ with aggravation of the mental phenomena, until such a time as the devotional exercises are done with, when there is a return to the previous state.

Arithmomania betokens an a.n.a.logous turn of mind. Certain patients are compelled to count up to some number before performing any act. One cannot rise from his seat without counting one, two, three, four, five, seven, leaving out six since it is disagreeable to him. Another must repeat the same movement two, three, ten times, must turn the door-handle ten times ere opening it, must take five steps in a circle before beginning to walk (Guinon). A patient of Charcot's used insanely to count one, two, three, four, used to look under his bed three or four times, and could not lie down until a.s.sured that his door was bolted. A further example is reported by Dubois:

A young woman twenty years of age first began to suffer from convulsive tics five years ago. Without any warning she used to bend down as if with the intention of picking up something, but she had to touch the ground with the back of her hand, else the performance was repeated. Twenty or thirty times a day this act was gone through; in the intervals she kept turning her head to the right, looking up at the curtains in a corner of the window, and at the same time making a low clucking sound that attracted the attention of those in the room. For nine or ten years these two tics have prevailed, and have been accompanied with certain obsessions, such as the impulse to count up to three, to regard any person or object three times, etc. With the generalisation of the convulsive movements various phobias have made their appearance--viz. fear of horned animals, of earthworms, of cats, of blight, etc.

Onomatomania is another form of obsession which may be mentioned, exemplified by the dread of uttering some forbidden word, or by the impulse to intercalate some other. The term _folie du pourquoi_ has been applied to the irresistible habit of some to unearth an explanation for the most commonplace of facts: "Why has this coat six b.u.t.tons?" "Why is so-and-so blonde?" "Why is Paris on the Seine?" etc. This mode of obsession is frequent among those who tic, and is curiously reminiscent of a familiar trait in the character of children, thereby supporting our contention of the mental infantilism of all affected with tics.

Prominent among the mental anomalies of the subjects of tic are found different sorts of phobia: fear of death or of sickness, of water, knives, firearms--topophobia, agoraphobia, claustrophobia, etc.

The following most instructive case has been observed by one of us over a period of several months:

S.'s earliest attack of torticollis, of two or three days' duration merely, occurred when he was fifteen years old, and was attributed by his mother--whose mental peculiarities, in especial her fear of draughts, are no less salient than those of her son--to a chill occasioned by a flake of snow falling on his neck. S. is so blindly submissive that he accepts this pathogeny without reserve. Five years ago a second torticollis supervened, which still persists to-day, and of which his explanation is that he was obliged, when standing at a desk, to turn his head constantly to the left for two hours at a time in order to see the figures that he had to copy, and was forced, after the elapse of some months, to relinquish his work owing to pain in the occipital region and neck. From that moment dates the rotation of his head to the left.

At the present time his head is turned to the left to the maximum extent, the h.o.m.olateral shoulder is elevated somewhat, and the trunk itself inclines a little in the same direction. The permanent nature of this att.i.tude necessitates his rotating through a quarter of a circle on his own axis if he wishes to look to the right. On the latter side the sternomastoid stands out very prominently, and effectually prevents his bringing the head round; nevertheless he is greatly apprehensive of this happening, and as he walks along a pavement with houses on his right he keeps edging away from them, since he is afraid of knocking himself against them. By a curious inversion, common enough in this cla.s.s of phobia, he feels himself impelled to approach, with the result that he cannons against the wall on his right as he proceeds.

Contrary to the habit some patients with mental torticollis have of endeavouring to ameliorate the vicious position by the aid of high starched collars, S. has progressively reduced the height of his until he has finished by discarding them altogether. As a matter of fact, it is the "swelling" in the neck caused by the right sternomastoid that is at the root of his nervousness, for he is convinced that it preceded the onset of the torticollis, and he has a mortal dread of aggravating it by compression.

Hence one may perhaps understand what line of erroneous reasoning has led to the establishment of the wryneck. The fear of draughts, instilled in his youthful mind by his mother, had the effect of driving him to half-strangle himself with a tightly drawn neckerchief, to hinder the inlet of air and minimise the risk of catching cold, and when he commenced to turn his head to the left at his work, the pressure of the band round his neck was felt most of all on the contracted right sternomastoid. A glance at a mirror convinced him that the unusual sensation was due to an abnormal muscular "swelling," whereat he was vastly alarmed; he hastened to change his collar, but all to no purpose. By dint of feverish examination and palpation of the muscle, he soon acquired the habit of contracting it in season and out of season, till at length an unmistakable mental torticollis supervened.

It sufficed to explain to S. the role played by the sternomastoid in head rotation, and to demonstrate the absurdity of his interpretation of the so-called "swelling": the gradual relaxation of the muscle and consequent diminution in the "tumour's" size not only satisfied him of its benign nature, but afforded such a sense of relief as was quickly made obvious by a notable improvement in his condition.

A singular tic of genuflexion occurred in a case reported by Oddo, of Ma.r.s.eilles:

The dominant note in the young girl's character is her cowardice; she is afraid of everything. Every evening before the return of her father she repeatedly looks into the corridor to see that no one is there; as soon as her parent arrives, she locks the door behind him hurriedly to prevent any one else appearing; every now and then in her fear of a footstep she listens at the door, and it is this gesture, this att.i.tude of listening, that has degenerated into a tic which no amount of remonstrance or derision seems to affect.

Phobias such as these are a.s.sociated with an evident tendency to melancholia and hypochondriasis. The majority of our patients are ridiculously preoccupied with the state of their health; the extraordinarily introspective nature of their minds is manifest in their meticulous observation, their laborious a.n.a.lysis of their most trifling sensations, the zeal with which they devise the most complex explanation for their simplest symptom, usually for the sake of making the prognosis seem more grave.

At the other pole from these silly fears and dislikes we meet with various absurd predilections and meaningless attractions: one can sit only on a certain seat, sleep only in a certain bed; another cannot enter a room except by a particular door; a third will make a long detour to pa.s.s along a certain street; in this street he will always walk on the same side, and lengthen or shorten his stride to step always on the same flagstones. We are acquainted with the history of a wretched commissionaire who could not go an errand in Paris without starting from the Place Clichy, and the interminable twists and turns on his route can be imagined when his duty took him from Montrouge to the Bastille.

Akin to the conditions we have been enumerating is an exaggerated love of order, somewhat unexpected in those whose mental disarray is often extreme. Some cannot sleep without previously arranging their clothes in an unvarying plan. One of Guinon's patients contrived to have one half of the objects in front of him to his right, and the other half to his left. In the case of a little nine-year-old hydrocephalic child with tics and echolalia, Noir[26] makes the following remarks:

The fundamental element in the child's character is an overweening vanity coupled with an excessive orderliness. Her desire of personal ornament is such that at one time she is lost in admiration of a new dress, at another, she is decking herself out with old pieces of tarletan. When going to bed she folds her clothes in the same exact order each evening. Her self-conceit makes her furiously jealous of the attention paid to any other patient in her presence.

A similar mental state has been observed by Noir in other hydrocephalics.

The same tendency is revealed in an inane search after precision in the most petty details, the natural result in the case of conversation, for instance, being that its thread is quickly lost in endless digressions and parentheses within parentheses.

A score of other mental peculiarities, commonly described as "manias" by the lay mind, are nothing else than fixed or obsessional ideas in miniature, as Gra.s.set says, and he narrates how for a time he himself used to be irresistibly forced, on entering a railway carriage, to divide the figure representing the number of the carriage by the number of the compartment. He further cites the case of an otherwise normal individual, who whenever one foot strikes on a stone raised a little above the level of the ground, is obliged to seek an a.n.a.logous sensation for the other, and who cannot let one hand touch anything cold without giving its fellow the opportunity of receiving an identical impression.

A common impulse is to count the windows in the house one is pa.s.sing, or the bars of the railings. Sometimes it is a "mania" for setting things straight, or for rubbing out marks in a book; but while these and similar psychical accidents are singularly p.r.o.ne to develop in the subjects of tic, they are not to be considered in any way special to them.

Hallucinations, too, and sometimes actual delusions, may form a basis from which springs a motor reaction that pa.s.ses into a tic.

If even the most sane among us (says Letulle) are conscious of a wellnigh invincible propensity to repeat a particular movement or expression or sequence of thought, we can understand how the temptation falls with overwhelming force on such as suffer from persistent hallucinations or fixed ideas. Take, for instance, this woman who utters a shrill cry and waves her hand before her face; the regularity of her action is a sequel to the delusion that possesses her, for in her imagination she is chasing away the birds that would pluck out her eyes. And when at a later stage these visual hallucinations are lost in a progressive dementia, the gesture becomes an incurable tic.

Here is another patient: his habits of continually washing his hands, of expectorating as he pa.s.ses any one, have their explanation in his dread of being poisoned by imaginary foes, and, though subsequent mental disintegration precludes the possibility of the delusion continuing, the trick remains to the end of life.

A case has been put on record by Wille,[27] under the name of "disease of impulsive tics," concerning a young man twenty-two years of age, who, in addition to the grave taint of a psychopathic heredity, exhibited early indications of irritability and a tendency to obsessions.

Systematised movements of face, shoulders, and arms, accompanied with coprolalia, were not long in appearing. It was noticed that the psychical symptoms were periodic, and that their nocturnal exacerbation coincided with the advent of hallucinations. Two attacks of mania came on, but a cure followed after four years' time.

It may be questioned whether we are not dealing here with a case of dementia praec.o.x, rather than with the true Gilles de la Tourette's disease; at any rate, tic may be a concomitant of grievous mental affections.

Another case of still more advanced mental deterioration may be quoted from Bresler:[28]

In this patient contractions of facial and limb musculature at the age of nine were succeeded by some years of epileptic outbreaks; and outrageous conduct towards his mother and sister, coupled with acts of wanton brutality and destruction, at length necessitated his removal to an asylum. He suffers from convulsive tic of face and shoulders, while his speech is drawling and syllabic, and interrupted by guttural e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns corresponding to the manifestations of his tic.

It is superfluous to dilate further on this part of our subject, and we shall take another opportunity of dealing with the question of tics in idiots and the mentally backward. For the present, the statements of the chapter may be summarised in a few words:

In the mental condition of the subject of tic there may be differentiated two elements: the one is fundamental, and is sufficiently described in the phrase mental infantilism; the other is superadded, and consists of a multiplicity of psychical imperfections which reveal, at the same time as they exaggerate, the inherent defects const.i.tuting the former, in particular volitional infirmity. By this means a useful clinical distinction may be drawn between various tics, according as they take their rise in one or other form of mental affection, and at the same time the practical gain is considerable, for treatment must be directed both to the physical and the psychical aspect of the malady, and its success in the former sphere is greatly dependent on intelligent recognition of and acquaintance with the nature of the latter.

Manias, obsessions, phobias, and other accompaniments of the disease known as tic (says Gra.s.set)--those abnormal phenomena that testify to the affection as the stigmata of hysteria confirm that neurosis--are nothing more than psychical tics; that is to say, special types of the disease. If their occurrence is frequent and indeed habitual, their absence in no way invalidates the diagnosis.

They resemble coprolalia, salutations, etc., in being accidental and not essential symptoms.

We are entirely at one with Gra.s.set on this last point; but if they do occur, are they to be denominated tics? We must beg to be excused for dwelling with such insistence on a question of words, but we are a.s.sured that the rigorous limitation of the word tic to conditions in which it is possible to recognise two inseparable and indispensable elements, one motor and the other mental, cannot fail to simplify matters. Otherwise, of course, we are merely adding to the meaning of a term already interpreted in far too liberal a fashion.

Abuse of language such as this leads to inevitable confusion. Noir, for an instance, in whose excellent thesis there is abundant evidence of painstaking observation and judicious discernment, is constrained to write:

_Tics of idea_ are exemplified by fixed and obsessional ideas, such as _folie du doute_, misophobia, arithmomania, etc., and are allied to motor tics in that they consist of isolated or complex psych.o.m.otor reactions, which may, however, a.s.sume a purely psychical form. They are mental affections clothed, in the case of convulsive tic, in a motor garb.