This divergence of opinion is entirely attributable to difference of
interpretation. Littré's definition of muscular inco-ordination is, "A
condition occurring in various diseases of the nervous system, in which
the patient cannot co-ordinate the necessary muscular movements for
walking, grasping an object, etc." In this sense the term is applicable
indiscriminately to the gesticulations of choreic, athetotic, or tic
patients; to the ataxia of tabetics and others; to the tremor of
disseminated sclerosis or paralysis agitans, etc. An expression so
general is not merely of no diagnostic value; it leads to positive
confusion.
It is precisely in the type of inco-ordination that the difference lies.
As rigorous a distinction must be drawn between the gestures of chorea
and the gesticulations of the sufferer from tic as between the tremor of
insular sclerosis and of Parkinson's disease.
In assigning an exact meaning to the term muscular inco-ordination, we
cannot do better than quote the remarks of Guinon:
The tabetic who throws his legs to right and left, who as he sits
at table cannot carry his spoon to his mouth, furnishes an instance
of true motor inco-ordination. On the other hand, the subject of
tic performs his voluntary actions with perfect assurance; though
his infirmity occasion all sorts of ridiculous involuntary arm
movements, he never brings his fork against his ear or his cheek,
nor does he spill a drop from his glass; his walk may be
interrupted by a sudden halt to bend his knees and kneel, or to
strike his foot violently on the ground, but he never trips one leg
over the other and never falls.
In his article in the _Dictionnaire Jaccoud_, Letulle distinguishes two
kinds of tics:
The _convulsive tic_ consists of a series of partial convulsions,
while the _co-ordinated tic_ is the expression of some complex act
by a sequence of muscular contractions for that purpose. In the
former case the resulting movement is irregular, abnormal, and
useless; it is a muscular "shock" evolved without reason and
continued without effect.... The normal individual usually
possesses _in potentia_ all the elements for the genesis of a
co-ordinated tic. Some little trick or mannerism, arising perhaps
from the necessity of gaining time for reflection, or from the
desire of concealing some innate timidity, or of dissimulating some
preoccupation, becomes sooner or later involuntary and automatic,
and though maintaining its regularity and co-ordination, passes
insensibly into the realm of pathology.
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