A Cursing Brain?: The Histories of Tourette Syndrome (Hardcover)

~ (Author) "Seated toward the back of a meeting room in a local hospital I listen to a speaker, a published writer in his early thirties..." (more)
Key Phrases: ticcing patients, ticcing behaviors, ticcing symptoms, Gilles de la Tourette, New York, Marquise de Dampierre (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Since the 1970s, the Tourette Syndrome Association has attempted to educate Americans to react compassionately to the startling involuntary gestures and vocalizations, sometimes shocking or obscene, of Tourettes patients. An increasingly common North American diagnosis, Tourette syndrome affects 2.9 to 5.2 per 100,000 Americans, most frequently male. Kushner (history of medicine, San Diego State Univ.) describes the shifting histories of this syndrome since it was first described by French neurologist Georges Gilles de la Tourette in 1885. Experts have variously attributed the Tourette complex of behaviors to moral defects, neurological damage, repressed sexual urges, and chemical imbalances. Such explanations, Kushner argues, conceal cultural assumptions that prevent physicians from fully hearing their patients stories and thus influence medical practice in damaging ways. Kushner cautions his readers that patients themselves, unconstrained by medical orthodoxy, have much to teach. A compassionate and absorbing work of medical history for academic and larger public libraries.Kathleen Arsenault, Univ. of South Florida at St. Petersburg Lib.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Scientific American

One could doubtless read many books without coming on the phrase "ticcing coprolalics," but it is here, and it is serious business. It refers to the involuntary jerking movements (ticcing) and the untimely outbursts of cursing or foul language (coprolalia) emitted by people (mostly males) who suffer from Tourette syndrome. Kushner, a professor of the history of medicine at San Diego State University, reviews the history of efforts to understand and treat the affliction. Unfortunately, the cause is still unknown. Kushner believes the syndrome may be a reaction to a previous infection, but it has also been treated as a psychiatric problem. He expresses the hope that current research "will lead eventually to robust interventions aimed at the causes rather than the symptoms of these behaviors."

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: Harvard University Press; 1 edition (April 25, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0674180224
• ISBN-13: 978-0674180222
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.2 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,905,598 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating but a bit thick, November 21, 2003

By A Customer

This is a fascinating and well-researched book, both in terms of TS itself and the history of medicine and psychology in Europe and the US. Some of the stories are just heart rending. The writing is sometimes a bit overly academic, however, and readers without graduate degrees or lots of other practice reading turgid prose may get a bit worn out while plowing through some of the paragraphs.

4.0 out of 5 stars The Cursing Brain, October 20, 2007

By	Candy (New York) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Cursing Brain? The Histories of Tourette Syndrome (Paperback)

This is an excellent and comprehensive review of how Tourette Syndrome has
treated -- and mistreated -- through history. It reveals how much the
viewpoint of the reseacher (doctor, psychologist, etc.) determines the
course of a study or how a patient is seen. Anyone interested specifically
in TS will find it fascinating, but I think it is most relevant as a
reminder that the scientist is a participant in a relationship with a
patient. Medical students, medical researchers, physicians... should all
read it.