Gilles de la Tourette's syndrome


Gilles de la Tourette's syndrome

A major TIC featuring involuntary body movements such as grimaces, shrugs, twitches and jerks, and the uncontrollable emission of cough-like sounds, barks or grunts and sometimes compulsive utterances, usually of an obscene nature (coprolalia). Effective treatment with drugs is possible. It seems probable that Dr Samuel Johnson, subject of Boswell's great biography, suffered from this syndrome. (George Edouard Albert Brutus Gilles de la Tourette, 1855–1909, French neurologist).