A cursing brain? The histories of Tourette syndrome

must give Freud the benefit of the doubt-and extend this seemingly temporary charitable act indefinitely" (p. 112). One may well ask whether such charity is to be considered the hallmark of any good reading, or, if not, why it is only Freud to whom it is due, as often appears to be the case. In conclusion, anyone interested in the history of psychoanalysis and the cultural location of psychoanalysis today is likely to find these essays stimulating, engaging and inviting of dialogue. To come right to the point, Howard Kushner has written a masterful history of the disorder known as Tourette syndrome. It is a fine contribution to the history of medicine, a cautionary tale for anyone embarking on the history of a syndrome or a disease, and a very good read. And it is a book about far more than just the history of Tourette syndrome. At the roots of this study is yet another version of the time-honoured tensions and conflicts between those who favour the somatic explanatory tradition and those who favour the psychological explanatory tradition. As has all too often been the case, each of these explanatory traditions can deteriorate into convictions and dogmatic assertions that either organic etiology or psychological etiology has been proven, without definitive evidence in either case. Both such outcomes are to be found in this one story. "The rise and fall of each successive explanation for and treatment of Tourette syndrome has been as much a study of the power of beliefs of a professional faction as it has been a vindication of either rigorous scientific testing or carefully analyzed clinical results" (p. 219). The syndrome under discussion first came to public medical attention in Paris in 1825 with the publication by Jean Marc Gaspard Itard of the case of the Marquise de Dampierre who would suddenly erupt in a startling fit of obscene shouts and curses. Then, in 1885, the Parisian neurologist Georges Gilles de la Tourette used this case as his first and prototypical example in describing the illness that he termed "maladie des tics". And today Tourette's syndrome is the common name for a set of behaviours that includes recurrent ticcing and involuntary shouting (sometimes cursing) as well as obsessive-compulsive actions. Beginning in the nineteenth century, this ailment was claimed by the psychogenic explainers as surely an excellent example of their convictions, with the psychoanalysts taking a central …