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In 1885, Gilles de la Tourette, a neurology trainee, was asked to "bring some order to the chaos of choreas."

The syndrome he found, including tics, echolalia, and coprolalia, was named after him by Jean-Martin Charcot.

Afterwards, Gilles de la Tourette devoted himself to studying hysteria, the central interest of his mentor.

Tourette syndrome, which among other symptoms can produce simple and complex tics, verbal repetitions of what others say (echolalia), and uncontrollable outbursts of obscene language (coprolalia), affects roughly 400,000 American children and adults. Though the French neurologist Gilles de la Tourette (1857-1904) is remembered today for his description of the syndrome in 1885, he would have been quite surprised, as he considered himself a lifelong researcher in hysteria. In this post, we will explore his colorful life and see how this came about.

Gilles de la Tourette, who had been born on Oct. 30, 1857, near Loudun, in the Poitou region in west-central France, went to medical school in Poitiers, and came to Paris to continue his studies in 1877. By 1881 he had become an intern, and in 1884 came to study with Jean-Martin Charcot (1825-1893), who is often described as the father of modern neurology. Charcot is credited with discovering diseases such as multiple sclerosis and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, and suggesting that the "shaking palsy" be named after the English surgeon James Parkinson.

How Tourette Syndrome Was Identified and Named

Although Charcot’s attention was turning in those years to hysteria, he asked his trainee to clarify a particular group of patients, in his words, to "bring some order to the chaos of choreas," a term which as used then referred to a wide range of involuntary movements. Gilles de la Tourette was aware of what were known as ‘startle syndromes,’ in conditions including........

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