AIM: To provide a historical overview of the life, work and illness of Georges Gilles de la Tourette (1857-1904).

METHOD: Literature review.

RESULTS: Gilles de la Tourette, a pioneering French neurologist and prolific medical writer, belonged to a group of students closest to Jean- Martin Charcot. In 1885, Gilles de la Tourette published a paper on a rare disorder whose symptoms were sudden movements (tics) and the shouting out of obscene language (coprolalia). According to Charcot, it was a specific neurological disease which he named after his pupil: La Maladie des Tics de Gilles de la Tourette. Gilles de la Tourette was potentially a successor to Charcot as Professor of Neurology. He always remained faithful to his mentor's views and the most vehement defenders of La Salpetriere. In 1881, he translated the 1880 historical paper by American physician George Beard, on the Jumping Frenchman of Maine. In 1986, he clarified the distinction between chorea and convulsive tic disorder. From 1884 to 1887, he became intrigued by hysteria. He had a strong and public interest in hypnotism, which nearly cost him his life, when a young woman who claimed to have been hypnotized against her will, shot him in the head at his own home in 1893. In 1904, he died after spending three years in a Swiss mental institution following general paralysis.

CONCLUSION: We describe the life and legacy of a famous person whose name is attached to a pediatric onset neurological disorder and highlight long-term impact of his work.

Asit Tripathy
Blank Children's Hospital
United States

Leenu Mishra
Blank Children's Hospital
United States

Aditi Tripathy
University of Iowa
United States