Tics and Their Treatment

PREFACE

NOTHING could be less scientific than the establishment of a hierarchy among medical problems based on the relative severity of symptoms. Prognosis apart, there can be no division of diseases into major and minor.

Hitherto no great importance has been attached to those reputedly harmless "movements of the nerves" known as tics: an involuntary grimace, a peculiar cry, an unexpected gesture, may constitute the whole morbid entity, and scarcely invite passing attention, much less demand investigation. Yet it is the outcome of ignorance to relegate any symptom to a secondary place, for we forget that difficult questions are often elucidated by apparently trivial data. A fresh proof of the truth of this remark is to be found in the accompanying volume, to which MM. Meige and Feindel have devoted several years of observation.

To begin with, they must be congratulated on having done justice to the word tic. No doubt its origin is commonplace and its form unscientific, but its penetration into medical terminology is none the less instructive. If popular expression sometimes confounds where experts distinguish, in revenge it is frequently so apt that it forces itself into the vocabulary of the scientist. In the case under consideration Greek and Latin are at fault. The meaning of the word tic is so precise that a better adaptation of a name to an idea, or of an idea to a name, is scarcely conceivable, while the fact of its occurrence in so many languages points to a certain specificity in its definition.

Yet till within recent years tic had all but disappeared from the catalogue of diseases. A closer study of reflex acts, however, has led to the grouping together of various clonic convulsions of face or limbs, including "spasms" on the one hand, and, on the other, conditions of an entirely different nature, for which the term "tics" ought to be reserved. The separation of "tics" from "spasms," properly so called, has been the object of various experiments and observations made by the authors and by myself, the practical value of which is evidenced by their disclosure of efficacious therapeutic measures.

Among the confused varieties of spasm, clonus, hyperkinesis, etc., it is impossible not to recognise the obvious individuality of certain motor affections – certain movements of defence, of expression, of mimicry, certain gestures more or less co-ordinated for some imaginary end – all readily distinguishable from spasms, fibrillary contractions, and choreiform or athetotic movements. It is only logical to attribute a somewhat more complex origin to these varying gestures, in which the influence of the will, however unperceived in the end, is always to be detected at the beginning.

While some convulsions and spasms are the product of special changes in muscle fibre, or motor nerve, or spinal cord, in medulla, pons, or basal nuclei, the synergic and co-ordinated muscular contractions of tic imply cortical intervention. The will may not play a conscious role therein, but the cortex alone is capable of initiating such acts. What part does it take in their genesis?

For an instance, a simple blinking of the eyelids may form a tic. Considered in itself, it is a movement of defence against dust or light; but in the absence of irritation it becomes meaningless. How then are we to explain the abruptness and intensity of contraction of the orbicularis palpebrarum, and of this muscle alone? If it were due to stimulation at some point on the reflex facial arc, other facial muscles ought to be involved; if referable to isolated excitation of the orbicularis filaments of the facial nerve, why is the contraction bilateral? It is evident we are dealing here not with a simple reflex of bulbar origin, but with a movement at once premeditated and purposive, and it is this purposive element, presupposing, as it does, co-ordination of contraction, that indicates the cortical nature of the phenomenon. Such co-ordinated movements, however causeless and inopportune they may appear, cannot be identified with mere pathological reflexes or spasms. They are tics.

Such, since the days of Trousseau and Charcot, has been the teaching of the Paris School of Medicine. Nevertheless, confusion remains, and in many text-books the unfortunate sacrifice of analytical accuracy to a premature desire for the schematic classification of disease has not tended to lessen it.

The authors of this volume have been resolute in their reference of the pathogeny of tic to a mental process. It is true, recognition of the psychological aspect of the affection is ready enough where the tic corresponds or is superadded to other "episodic stigmata of degeneration"; but the task is infinitely more delicate should the sole indication of an abnormal psychical state be the tic itself. Even in these cases examination always reveals insufficiency of inhibition, to which are due the inception and the persistence of many "bad habits." We can thus appreciate the rôle of habit in the evolution of tics, and recognise the analogy they offer to all functional acts. A tic is frequently nought else than the ill-timed and inapposite execution of some function. We may even conceive a sort of functional tic centre, formed by nerve elements corresponding to the functional grouping of the muscles involved in the tic. In advanced cases we may imagine some sort of hypertrophy of this functional centre, which may be reduced by suppression of function – that is to say, by certain methods of immobilisation.

This is the secret of the treatment of tics, and to ignore it would be disastrous. As a matter of fact, tic is not merely a neurosis, but a psycho-neurosis, or, to be more exact, a psychomotor encephalopathy. The degeneration whose first manifestation in a child is the development of a tic may reveal itself later by more disquieting signs. This word "degeneration" is employed either too indefinitely or too explicitly by those who are ignorant of its true meaning in medicine. To-day the physician's diagnosis is often anticipated by the parents, who are willing to own their child "nervous" because of his tic; but they are not so ready to admit he has a tic because he is nervous, as they would infer immediately that they have begotten a degenerate. The consolation of "superior degeneration" does not exclude a certain degree of humiliation.

No doubt superficial study is content to characterise children thus afflicted by the simple epithet "nervous," on the ground that their tic does not constitute a menace to life. But a tic in itself can never be a negligible quantity. The more it is repeated the more inveterate it becomes, and the greater the likelihood of its becoming generalised; at the same time the influence of the neuropathic diathesis is intensified. An analogy might be drawn between the tics and chorea. Prognosis, even in a mild case of adult chorea, should always be guarded, inasmuch as once the ordinary limits of the duration of the disease are over-stepped, we find ourselves face to face with the dreaded chronic variety.

The same attitude might be adopted in reference to the distressing neurosis described by Charcot and Gilles de la Tourette as the "disease of the tics," which is no more than the superlative expression of a neuropathic and psychopathic disposition entirely akin to that favouring the development of the most harmless tic. Its earliest exhibition is a series of apparently insignificant bizarre convulsions; but its indefinite prolongation, its gradual involvement of one limb after another, its association with grave mental symptoms, and its frequent termination in dementia, are reason enough for eyeing the first little premonitory tic with mistrust, and combating it with vigour.

From the motor aspect a tic is only a "bad habit," and the checking of bad habits, especially in the predisposed, must be our goal from the outset. And, should we succeed, there will be reason for congratulation, not on the happy issue of appropriate treatment for a particular tic, but because the result is a step towards the habit of correcting bad habits. Reinforcement of the will is the prime therapeutic indication, but the physician has no need to resort to mysterious subterfuges or occult practices; let him borrow the virtues of the successful teacher. The amelioration consequent on this procedure is seen not only in the recovery of lost aptitude for work, but also in the simultaneous restoration of self-confidence and will-power in patients who had appeared deprived of them for ever. The treatment of tic is evidence of its nature and curability. Since 1893 MM. Meige and Feindel have subjected their cases to the educational discipline of systematised movement and of immobilisation. In contrast to the tendency of ordinary exercises to render certain useful acts automatic, this method aims at the suppression of automatic acts that have become useless. The development of the general principles of the method, as well as an exposition of recent modifications and their application to particular cases, will be found in the volume. Suffice it here to say that the results have been favourable enough to discountenance the prevalent idea of the incurability of tic, and to prove that persistence in treatment, as has been demonstrated in many other neuroses, will assuredly be crowned with success. Common misconception represents therapeutics as helpless in the presence of nervous disease; but if the doctor may count on the collaboration of his patient, he has no right to despair.

I should like, in closing, to be allowed to praise the authors' production; but I can do so only under great reserve, for after so many years of co-operation I can no longer distinguish the work of MM. Meige and Feindel from my own. I think, however, that from many points of view the book which they have written is a most useful one.

AUTHORS' PREFACE

OUR object in publishing these studies has been twofold: first, to make known various facts of clinical observation, which will always possess at the least an intrinsic value; secondly, to endeavour to assign to the tics their due place among the numerous motor affections consequent on nervous or mental disease. With this end in view we sought to free ourselves of preconceived notions, avoiding at the same time the other extreme of eclecticism. Independently we have been led to adhere to the doctrine hallowed by the authority of Charcot, and since advocated by Professor Brissaud – a doctrine that seems to us to be in harmony with accepted clinical data.

We have thought it advisable to indicate, by the way, more than one misconception whose perpetuation is but a stumbling-block in the path of progress.

Since the eighteenth century the word tic has faced the perils of definition many a time, and has as often all but succumbed. The limits of its application have been alternately enlarged and narrowed to an excessive degree; its original signification has been so obscured that the inclination to-day is either to hesitate in the use of the word at all, or to employ it indiscriminately through ignorance of its real meaning. But if its interpretation be not specified, everything that is said or written on the subject will remain fatally open to dispute. Want of precision in words leads inevitably to confusion of ideas and endless misunderstanding. In this respect the word tic is a great culprit; its promiscuous use implies looseness in its connotation – a fruitful source of controversies which, when all is said and done, are nothing more than regrettable quid pro quos. On fundamental points there is almost complete unanimity of opinion; any divergence is purely superficial, and to be ascribed to disagreement in terms.

Hence it has seemed to us essential to adopt a vocabulary, and to employ any term only after clearly particularising the sense we attribute to it. Our verbal conventions will not meet with universal acceptance, it may be, but we shall be the first to abandon them if common consent assign to the expressions that replace them the exact shade of meaning we meant to convey.

Our work will not be superfluous if we succeed in allotting to the word a definite position in medical terminology, or if any information we have amassed prove of service to future observers. And should we be enabled to demonstrate how unmerited is the reputation the tics enjoy of being irremediable, how they may, on the contrary, be mitigated and sometimes even cured under appropriate treatment, the practical value of the conclusion will, we hope, justify the importance we have attached to the subject.

NOTE BY THE TRANSLATOR

OWING to the kind co-operation of M. Meige, it has been possible to embody in this English version of Les tics et leur traitement his latest definitions and views, as expressed in his monograph Les tics (July, 1905). The passages thus derived are enclosed in brackets. In the making of the translation some of the clinical cases have been slightly abridged, and one or two omitted. The Bibliography has been revised, largely supplemented, and brought up to date. In a short Appendix reference is made to various matters in regard to tic on which discussion has recently centred, subsequent to the publication of Meige and Feindel's book. Indices of names and of subjects have been added.

CHAPTER I

THE CONFESSIONS OF A VICTIM TO TIC

AT the time when the plan of our book was being sketched we decided to introduce the subject with several characteristic clinical documents, since it appeared to us indispensable to preface our definitions with an illustration of the type of affection and of patient that we had in view. The choice was rather bewildering at first; but towards the close of 1901 one of us was put into communication with an individual who is a perfect compendium of almost all the varieties of tic, and whose story, remarkable alike for its lucidity and its educative value, forms the most natural prelude to our study. The history is neither a fable nor an allegory, but an authenticated and impartial clinical picture, whose worth is enhanced by no less genuine facts of self-observation.

O. may be said to constitute the prototype of the sufferer from tic, for his grandfather, brother, and daughter have all been affected, and he himself has not escaped. His grandmother and grandfather were first cousins, and the latter, in addition to being a stammerer, developed tics of face and head; his brother stammers too, while both his sister and his daughter have facial tics, and one of his sons was afflicted with asthma as a youth. The family history therefore more than confirms 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 movements 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 immediate 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."

O.'s tics were at the first confined to the eyes and lips, but others were not long in appearing. He happened to be out one day for a walk with his sister during a snowstorm, and a flake entering his nostril made him sneeze and sniff half a dozen times. Long after the snow had ceased falling and the tickling sensation had vanished he repeated the performance, till it passed into a sniffing tic that continued for some months. His sister thoughtlessly set herself to mimic him, and speedily evolved an identical tic, which still persists.

In their turn, neck and shoulders were implicated in the affection. The most inveterate of all his tics is a somewhat complex twist of the head, whereby the occiput is depressed jerkily, and the chin advanced and elevated, occasionally to the right, though more commonly to the left. Such is the clonic form of the tic, at once frequent and obvious; but it may assume a tonic form, distinguished by an almost permanent retrocollic displacement of the head, the chin being carried in the air.

If, now, we approach these tics in greater detail, we notice, first of all, a blinking tic, more marked on the left side. Apart from abrupt and intermittent contractions of the orbicularis, which close the eye completely and wrinkle the skin in the neighbourhood, the same muscle sometimes passes into a state of tonic contraction, whereby the eye remains only half open, while the rest of the face is in repose, and so continues for a minute or more. Frontal and eyebrow tics also are frequently to be remarked.

Of his own accord O. has supplied us with a pathogenic and etiological analysis of these tics, which for accuracy and insight is truly astonishing.

A large number of my head and face movements owe their origin to the annoyance caused me by my seeing the tip of my nose or of my moustache from time to time. The former organ appears to make a sort of screen in front of me, to avoid which I turn or raise my head: I can now see the object I am facing, but at the same time, naturally, I see my nose again at the side, whence one more tilt of the head, and so on. I am well enough aware how nonsensical all this is; but it fails to deter me from my desire of playing at hide-and-seek with my nose. It is for an identical reason that each moment finds me blinking one eye or the other, or both; I wish, and yet I do not wish, to see my nose, and so I bring my hand up to cover my face. Vain delusion! for if I conceal my nose thus, it is my hand I see next, and I escape from Scylla to fall into Charybdis!

Here, then, is a tic springing from an ordinary visual impression. Any one can see the point of his nose if he wishes, but it does not come in his way should he be looking at something else; whereas our patient divides his attention between the end of his nose and the object of his regard, and his volatile will passes lightly from one to the other, incapable of concentrating itself on either. Force of repetition changes the voluntary act into an automatic habit, the initial motive for which is soon lost; and the patient shows the weakness of his character by making little or no effort at inhibition.

Resort to a pince-nez, in view of advancing age, has contributed materially to the elaboration of a host of absurd jerky movements, from which more tics have been recruited.

No sooner have I put on my pince-nez than I long to alter its position in innumerable ways. I must needs push it down or raise it up, must set it farther on or farther off; sometimes I tax my ingenuity in attempts to displace it by tossing my head. Instead of looking tranquilly through the glasses, my eye is continually attracted by the rim, some point on which I try to focus or to get into a line with the object at which I am gazing. I want to see the object and the pince-nez at the same time; as soon as I no longer see the former I wish to see it again, and similarly with the latter. My tics upset my pince-nez, and I have to invent another tic to get it back into place. The absurdity of this vicious circle does not escape my observation, and I know I am its author, yet that cannot prevent my becoming its victim.

When the pince-nez is not in use I toy with the spring or with the cord, and a day seldom passes without my breaking the one or the other. As I wear spectacles at home one might suppose their relative stability would check my tricks; but their pressure on my temples and ears only serves to provoke fresh movements in a search for comfort.

And so the thing goes on. I was perfectly well aware of it at first, and was wont to imagine it was remediable; eventually, however, these grimaces of mine took place without any attention on my part, and then in spite of it, and I was no longer their master. There seem to be two persons in me: the one that tics, the son of the one that does not, is an enfant terrible, a source of great anxiety to his parent, who becomes a slave to his caprices. I am at once the actor and the spectator; and the worst of it is, the exuberance of the one is not to be thwarted by the just recriminations of the other.

In his accidental discovery of a "crack" in his neck originated other tics. As a matter of fact, these "cracks" do exist, and can be heard at a little distance; but it always requires a brisk toss of the head to elicit them. This is O.'s account of their evolution:

One day as I was moving my head about I felt a "crack" in my neck, and forthwith concluded I had dislocated something. It was my concern, thereafter, to twist my head in a thousand different ways, and with ever-increasing violence, until at length the rediscovery of the sensation afforded me a genuine sense of satisfaction, speedily clouded by the fear of having done myself some harm. The painlessness of the "crack" induced me to go through the same performance many and many a time, and on each occasion my feeling of contentment was tinged with regret: even to-day, notwithstanding that I ought to be persuaded of the harmlessness of the occurrence and the inanity of the manœuvre, I cannot withstand the allurement or banish the sentiment of unrest.

One could not desire a more lucid exposition of the pathogeny of so many of these head-tossing tics. The fundamental importance of the psychical element that precedes the motor reaction, with the secondary psychical reaction in its turn, the impulse to seek a familiar sensation, and the illogical interpretation of it under the influence of a tendency to nosophobia, are all admirably illustrated in O.'s description.

In addition to such "cracks" as are perceptible to others, O. is conscious of various bizarre subjective sensations that he refers to the same region – "bruised," "dragging," "crackling" feelings, not at all dolorous, to which he devotes an inordinate share of his attention. There is nothing abnormal about these, of course; not only may we notice them in ourselves, but, with a little effort, we may even reproduce them. Our indifference to their presence is the exact opposite of the interest they arouse in the patient's mind; his fickle will is, for no adequate motive, concentrated on a commonplace event, and on this slender basis delusions are fostered and tics are shaped.

The insight into the close association between the state of the mind and the development of tic yielded by a study of the foregoing narrative will enable us to appreciate the perspicacity of what follows:

I suppose that we who tic make a great number of voluntary movements with the deliberate purpose of withdrawing attention from the tics we already exhibit; but step by step they become so habitual that they are nothing less than fresh tics appended to the old. To dissemble one tic we fashion another.