Georges Gilles de la Tourette

Tourette

Georges Albert Édouard Brutus Gilles de la Tourette born on October 30th 1857 in Saint-Gervais-les-Trois-Clochers, France, was a french physician for which Tourette syndrome is named after.

In 1884 Tourette described the symptoms of Tourette sndrome in nine patients. He had used the name "maladie des tics" but his mentor, Jean-Martin Charcot, had chosen the name Tourette syndrome in honor of Tourette.

Tourette was the eldest of four. He started his education at the boarding school of Chatellerault where he showed exceptional talent. He was often bored by school lessons becoming restless and rebellious.
At the early age of 16 he commenced to taking medical studies at the university of Poitiers finishing his studies in 1881 with  great success. Tourette left to continue his medical education in Paris. His friend Paul le Gendre who describes Tourette has a sociable man who was an excellent speaker with a loud,rough and slightly hoarse voice.

Tourette mastered his studies at the Salpetriere Hospital with difficulties devoting himself to activities far from the field of medicine. He was delighted by literature and arts with many friends in the artist world. He was open to new ideas and took part in many literary discussions. Several people had influenced his career like Paul Brourdel who was a professor of forensic medicine and Jean-Martin Charcot a physician at Salpetriere Hospital.

Tourette had studied motor disorders intensely sincel 1881 and was the first to comprehend the connections between the multiple complicate and various manifestations of the 'maladie des tics'. It was 60 years earlier a previous French physician, by the name of Itard,had described the same behavior in that of Marquise de Dampière who was a noblewoman.

Jean Martin Charcot

The year of 1893 took a tragic turn as Tourette lost his son Jean, in the same year his mentor died from acute lung oedema during an excursion to Le Morvan. Tourette Was shot in the head in 1893 by an ex patient who was later diagnosed to have paranoid schizophrenia.She accused Tourette of hypnotizing her and causing her to lose her mental health. Lucky for Tourette it was only a superficial wound and he was able to recover after minor surgery. His patient was admitted to the hospital St Anna transferring to the institute for the insane in Villejuif two years later.She tried murdering a nurse with a knife and was banished to the sanatorium Asile de Breuty de Couronne in Charente. She was able to escape in 1910 with the treats of repeating the assaults on Tourette. After informing Tourette of the threat they offered him personal body guards during his consulting hours. She was found one year later and was allowed to live in freedom after regaining her mental state. In 1951 she was readmitted to St Anne dying at the age of 92 in St Remy.

After writing an article concering syphilitic myelitis in 1899 he started suffering from depression fearing that he had the elate stage of syphilis. In Odeon he collapsed and had to be carried home. 1901 the disease forced him to quite working at the hospital  According to Leon Daudet who suffered from neurosyphilis described the pain caused by the disease. He noted the strange behavior presented by Tourette and how no doubts Tourette had it.

A dr by the name of A. J. Lees was given access to the medical documents of Tourette illustrating the gravity of his disease by C. Müller. The symptoms give us an idea of the torments and pain Tourette had suffered in the last years of his life: megalomania, ataxia, big motionless pupils, dysarthria etc. are mentioned in these documents.

After being protrayed as mentally unbalanced by the local papers and refusing to see treatment Tourette was forced into a psychiatric hospital after being tricked by his mentor Charcot who told Tourette that a patient at Cery hospital was wanting to write about him.He was prevented from leaving by force and fell into hopelessness and disrepair being forced to be transferred to a cell.Near the end of his committal Tourette became more and more unstable. His behavior was psychotic,his speech was incoherent and often suffered from convulsions.
Tourette  died on May 22 1904 in a psychiatric hospital in Lausanne, Switzerland.



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