Recapitulative List of All Gilles de la Tourette’s Publications

Gilles de la Tourette was a prolific author from the time he started his medical studies; he published his first article in 1881. All of his publications are listed here, in chronological order, including the list of his books and journal articles. Also listed are theses he inspired as well as his article co-authors. The most important texts are analyzed, notably his book, Les états neurasthéniques, which includes a description of restless legs syndrome; “Benedikt syndrome,” co-authored with Jean-Baptiste Charcot, which is placed within the historical context of the condition’s isolation; Le traitement pratique de l’épilepsie, in which Gilles de la Tourette improved treatment by specifying the effective dose of bromide; and the debate between Babiński and Gilles de la Tourette that took place at a 1900 session of the Société de neurologie and pertained to the specificity of the Babiński sign.

Gilles de la Tourette the Poet?

This chapter focuses on Georges Gilles de la Tourette’s poetical pursuits. A man of many talents, these poems provide insight into yet another facet of Gilles de la Tourette’s personality. As well, they may provide some clue to his mental state as he suffered from the long-term effects of syphilis. It is difficult to know whether these poems should be taken as initial signs of Gilles de la Tourette’s disease or whether they are a simple manifestation of his imagination and the pleasure he took in writing. His poetry can be found at the family archive in Loundun.

Commentator for La Revue Hebdomadaire, 1892–1900

La Revue Hebdomadaire, a general cultural publication that first appeared in 1892, asked Gilles de la Tourette for articles on medical themes. He provided thirteen articles between 1892 and 1900, first using the pen name Paracelse, then his own name. Two of the articles were biographical. Of the eleven remaining articles, two dealt with hygiene and alcoholism and another with the “human calculator” examined by Charcot, Jacques Inaudi. But, most often, Gilles de la Tourette enjoyed giving his interpretation, as an alienist fascinated with hypnotism and hysteria, of the dramatic works produced in the theaters of the Parisian boulevards. This chapter presents and analyzes Gilles de la Tourette’s various articles within the political, cultural, and medical context of the time as well as his involvement with a famous trial, the Cauvin affair.

Théophraste Renaudot (1586–1653)

Gilles de la Tourette had a passion for the history of medicine and ideas, with a particular attachment to the city of Loudun, where his family had its roots. In 1884, he published a biography of another Loudun native, Théophraste Renaudot, a seventeenth-century physician who advocated reform in medical studies, calling into question the rigid scholastic method, limited to Hippocratic and Galenic medicine, in order to develop truly clinical practices as well as medical research. This chapter presents this biography and its genesis, Gilles de la Tourette’s hidden debt to Eugène Hatin, and unpublished letters received by Gilles de la Tourette after the book’s publication. Drawing on archival documents, the process Gilles de la Tourette initiated to erect a Renaudot statue in Paris and Loudun is detailed, as is his induction into the Ordre de la Légion d’honneur.

Clinical and Therapeutic Treatise on Hysteria

The second part of Gilles de la Tourette’s Traité de l’Hystérie, on “paroxysmic hysteria,” is a vast catalogue of numerous pathologies. The author analyzes select chapters on hysteria in children, hysterical sleep, and a series of pathologies erroneously attributed to hysteria (with adverse consequences for the patients). The chapter also examines Gilles de la Tourette’s efforts to establish a biological test for distinguishing hysteria from epilepsy. There are multiple references to works and theses of students and colleagues of Gilles de la Tourette and Charcot who today have been forgotten. This considerable compilation bears witness to Gilles de la Tourette’s prodigious capacity for hard work.

Vibratory Medicine and Therapeutic Suspension Techniques

Although the framework of neurological nosography was established during the second half of the nineteenth century, with Jean-Martin Charcot and his Salpêtrière School playing a major role, therapies for the recently identified diseases remained relatively ineffective. Since many Parkinson’s patients reported an improvement in their condition after being violently shaken during travel in mail carriages, Charcot recycled an old treatment method based on a vibratory armchair, assigning the preliminary study to Gilles de la Tourette, who tried to extend the technique to other pathologies by using a vibratory helmet. Another technique recommended by Charcot for treating tabes patients was “suspension,” thought to elongate the spinal cord. The related therapeutic tests in France and Europe are discussed in detail. Gilles de la Tourette made significant use of suspension at the time. The author compares his reports with the scientific challenges to his techniques and examines the resulting discussions.

Education, Medical Studies, Medical Practice

After his classical high school education in Chatellerault, Gilles de la Tourette moved to Poitiers for his medical studies, which he then pursued in Paris. This chapter covers his student days and his career path within the hospital and university hierarchies and brings additional interesting information on the system of university examinations and French medical education. The author also discusses Gilles de la Tourette’s relationships with other notables of the time, for example, with Jules Claretie and Sigmund Freud, and his opinions regarding the legal affairs that marked his time. Unpublished archives are used to explore Georges Gilles de la Tourette’s numerous literary and medical activities.

Sœur Jeanne des Anges, supérieure des Ursulines de Loudun

Gilles de la Tourette, Charcot, Bourneville, and Axenfeld all belonged to the group of atheist or free-thinking physicians who sought, during the second half of the nineteenth century, to fit possession, ecstasy, visions, and miraculous healings into the framework of mental pathology. This meant frontal opposition to the Church and to Catholic physicians. The book by Gilles de la Tourette and Gabriel Legué, Sœur Jeanne des anges, Supérieure des Ursulines de Loudun, published in 1886 in the “Bibliothèque diabolique” collection directed by Bourneville, was their contribution to this medical-political cause. The genesis of the work, its bibliographic sources, and society’s view of hysteria at the time are discussed with relation to the historical, political, and literary aims of Gilles de la Tourette and Legué.

Hypnotism and Analogous States

Among the many writings of Gilles de la Tourette, his book L’hypnotisme et les états analogues was the most successful, with two editions and translations in German and Italian. After brilliantly introducing the history of the discovery of this trance state, Gilles de la Tourette described the studies undertaken by the Salpêtrière School on hypnotism and its use for hysteria. Supporting his arguments with evidence, he claimed it was necessary to consider the practice of hypnosis as a medical therapy and to prohibit its uncontrolled use by non-physicians, notably healers and entertainers. A few of the clinical cases covered are analyzed parallel to the writings of other alienists at that time, such as Paul Sollier and Alfred Maury. Gilles de la Tourette’s hidden debt to Alexandre Cullere is at last brought to light.

Gilles de la Tourette Syndrome

This chapter opens with a summary of Gilles de la Tourette syndrome as it is currently understood, then presents the lesson given by Gilles de la Tourette in 1899 on the subject. This lesson is indicative of the necessary perspicacity for isolating the pathology from “the choreas,” a catch-all term in Gilles de la Tourette’s day for abnormal movements. Initiated by the translation of an article by the American alienist Beard describing the “Jumpers of Maine,” Gilles de la Tourette’s work can be situated along a timeline that included errors and missing elements up to its publication in 1885. Also highlighted are Charcot’s role in this nosographical study, as well as the hidden contribution of Georges Guinon. The reception by European and American neurologists of this entity’s isolation concludes the analysis of this seminal work, which led to the now-famous eponym.