One tic has succeeded another in an unbroken series. The facial
tics were more of the nature of grimaces, which the child amused
itself in repeating; no doubt the scratching of the lip was a
sequel to the desire of experiencing a new sensation, while the
movements of hands, arms, and shoulders were very variable and
different enough from the accompanying phenomena. No one of the
tics was at all of protracted duration; on the contrary, each was
fugitive and changeable, and therein presented a resemblance to the
child's mental status. In sleep they completely disappeared; in the
presence of strangers or if his interest was in any way aroused,
they quieted down, while they increased on holidays, during games,
or with physical fatigue.
It is clear that determination of the tic's localisation and mode can
come only with the mental evolution of the patient, and that the
transformation from the psychical inconsistency of childhood to the
stability of the adult is paralleled by the change in the tic's
manifestations as the scale of age is ascended. Any individual, whatever
his years, who is in the stage of mental infantilism, will tic after the
manner of a child, for the characters of a tic are dependent on the
state of mind of its subject.
CHAPTER VIII
ACCESSORY SYMPTOMS
REFLEXES
The question whether in cases of tic there is any alteration in
superficial or deep reflexes can be decisively answered only by an
appeal to statistics, the information afforded by which has hitherto
been too scanty and too incomplete. Judging from our own observations in
about thirty cases, we feel compelled to admit that disorders of this
kind are altogether exceptional. Careful and repeated examination has
convinced us that in patients suffering from tic the knee, ankle, wrist,
elbow, and other jerks, the plantar and fascia lata reflexes, as well as
those of the pharynx, eyes, etc., are all but universally normal, and
any trifling exaggeration or diminution not only varies from day to day,
but also in no wise exceeds the differences met with in health, and is
therefore symptomatologically negligible. In the manifold varieties of
tic represented by R., S., P., N., M., B., etc., whose cases are quoted
here in part, our inquiries have always been negative. Noir's research
on the state of the reflexes in idiocy complicated with tics failed to
expose any abnormality, and even where the knee jerks were increased no
departure from the usual manifestations of the tic was discoverable. It
is of course permissible to suppose that a combination of the latter
with organic disease of the nervous system might explain the
modification of the reflexes. In this connection it may be remembered
that on one occasion we found the customary diminution of O.'s knee
jerks had passed into actual loss, and although on the next day they
were present again, the occurrence was suspicious enough to justify one
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