Curse Cleanser

People who uncontrollably utter obscenities may be more sick than sickening. Doctors have long known (TIME, Aug. 29, 1949) that such compulsive cursing, often accompanied by a violent muscular tic, may precede insanity.

Writing in the current British Medical Journal, London's Dr. Richard P. Michael gives the case history of a 28-year-old man who was a spectacular example of the Gilles de la Tourette syndrome (named for the French doctor who outlined the symptoms in 1885). The patient developed a tic at the age of seven, was an accomplished curser at 13, when even the reading of Tom Sawyer would set him off on a string of oaths. When he entered the British army at 18, he unaccountably stopped swearing, nevertheless managed to make sergeant.

When he was back home at 22, his tic returned, and he started cursing again--from ten to 40 times an hour. "By this time," notes Psychiatrist Michael, "both his mother and his sister were refusing to accompany him out of the house." When psychotherapy failed, Dr. Michael tried giving his patient inhalations of carbon dioxide four times a week, hoping to slow down the responses of the nervous system. "The frequency of his utterances decreased," reports the doctor, "and he was discharged from the hospital after 30 treatments." Minus his tic and with an innocent tongue, the patient is now a happy sales representative for an English firm.

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