Tics and their treatment / Trans and edited by S.A.K.Wilson.

  • Meige, Henry.
Date:
1907
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Tics and their treatment / Trans and edited by S.A.K.Wilson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by UCL Library Services. The original may be consulted at UCL (University College London)

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    tics, and on© of his sons was afflicted with, asthma as a youth. The family history therefore more than con- firms the existence of a grave neuropathic heredity, an unfailing feature in cases of tic. O.'s fifty-four years lie lightly on him. His physique and general health are excellent, and devotion to bodily exercise and outdoor sports has enabled him to maintain a vigour and an agility above the average; nor is his intellectual activity any less keen. His earliest tics—simple facial grimaces and move- ments of the head—made their appearance when he was eleven years old; notwithstanding, his recollection of their mode of onset is very exact. I have always been conscious of a predilection for imitation. A curious gesture or bizarre attitude affected by any one was the im- mediate signal for an attempt on my part at its reproduction, and is still. Similarly with words or phrases, pronunciation or intonation, I was quick to mimic any peculiarity. When I was thirteen years old I remember seeing a man with a droll grimace of eyes and mouth, and from that moment I gave myself no respite until I could imitate it accurately. The rehearsals were not prolonged, as a matter of fact, and the upshot was that for several months I kept repeating the old gentleman's grimace involuntarily. I had, in short, begun to tic. In my fifteenth year I was at school with two boys whose hair was rather long, and who had acquired the habit of tossing it back by an abrupt shake of the head. It is true I cannot recollect endeavouring to ape this, but in any case it was at the same time that I found myself exhibiting an identical gesture, and I have little doubt it is the source of one of the tics from which I suffer at present. I enlisted at the commencement of hostilities in 1870, and had already begun my military instruction, when a personal review of the company was made by a new colonel. As he passed he came to a sudden halt before me, and proceeded to harangue me on my far from military bearing ; but his invective had no other effect than to aggravate my facial contortions, and the affair might have proved serious enough for me had not my captain come to the rescue and explained the involuntary nature of the spasms. The colonel, however, would have none of them and after a fortnight's sojourn in hospital I was discharged for choreic movements of the face.