Foul Talker

The boy, growing up in a large southeastern city, seemed normal up to the age of seven. Then he began to attract attention when he started leaning down to touch the ground with his fingers while walking. Later he made monotonous, dry noises in his throat, like wordless exclamations or protests. Soon the exclamations were understandable but harmless words, and the boy still went to school.

When he was twelve, he had a terrifying nightmare in which robbers chased him. Within a few days more serious symptoms developed: when spoken to by his parents, the boy could not help parroting whatever was said to him. Where he had been a submissive and obedient child, he became unruly and abusive; his involuntary exclamations became foul words.

By last week the boy, now 14, had been diagnosed as a victim of Tourette's disease, and he was under treatment by Dr. Eduard Ascher at the Henry Phipps Psychiatric Clinic of Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. Though extremely rare,* the disease has long fascinated psychiatrists because, unlike most mental illnesses, it follows a precise course. The sequence from spasmodic movements and nervous coughing to uncontrollable mimicry and explosive outbursts of smutty talk seems to be invariable. The disease may affect persons of either sex, of any race or color. It has no known physical origin.

But Vienna-born, 33-year-old Dr. Ascher (whose third case this was) believes that the patient's family background always contains at least one domineering parent. The first harmless exclamations ("No!" or "Never!") are often followed by "Shut up!" addressed by the patient to himself--but in imitation of a parent. Finally, the unprintable four-letter words are directed against the parent or some authority. In the most dramatic manifestation of the disease, the victim is impelled to get up in church and denounce the clergyman in resounding obscenities.

The only known treatment is through psychological adjustment, which sometimes works. But some patients spend their lives in institutions.

* About 50 cases (a dozen of them in the U.S.) have been reported since the affliction was described by French Neurologist Georges Gilles de la Tourette in 1885.

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