Gilles de la Tourette: His Life, Work and World

The French neurologist Gilles de la Tourette (1857-1904) is remembered today for the syndrome named after him in 1885, a disorder which starts in childhood and among other symptoms produces tics, verbal repetitions of what others say, and uncontrollable outbursts of obscene language. Surprisingly, he would have considered that a very small aspect of his career, a project requested during his training years by his mentor Jean-Martin Charcot (1825-1893), who is often described as the father of modern neurology.  Charcot was a charismatic figure, whose demonstrations of dramatic behavior of patients with hysteria, whom he believed could be treated with hypnosis, drew the attention of not only the medical community, including Sigmund Freud, but also journalists and luminaries in the performing arts. 

 

Gilles de la Tourette devoted a large part of his career to further explorations of hysteria and firmly maintained Charcot’s medical viewpoints on a variety of subjects, for instance arguing that the dementing illness known as general paralysis was not a long-term consequence of syphilis. He inherited his mentor’s fame, and initially was very popular in the press, which he assiduously courted. He adopted and publicly supported his mentor’s secular republican views. He was also a strong advocate of public health measures such as helping the poor conditions of fishermen as well as distressing food hygienic practices in the army. Academically, he systematized the current understanding of hysteria and published as well on epilepsy, movement disorders, and medico-legal aspects of hypnosis. In the factionalized French Third Republic, however, his publicly expressed anticlerical sentiments, which he argued were supported by his medical research, made him many enemies. They were quick to attack him when, in his forties, he began to falter and his declining judgment was manifested in his public appearances and in the clinic. 

 

Gilles de la Tourette ultimately passed away at age 46, a victim of general paralysis, whose origins he had always denied. In summary, this is a story of the benefits and hazards of immersing oneself in the identity of a charismatic leader, of the consequences of imprudently employing science to further political objectives, and of issues of civility in public discourse in a polarized society.