Part 11 (1/2)

Moreover, the view that regards imitation as a prolific element in the genesis of tics has met with widespread acceptance.

The onset of the disease (says Guinon) is sometimes the consequence of the patient's partiality for mimicry. Contact with an affected person supplies the occasion. His first experience is a sort of constant preoccupation; the other's grimace is ever before his eyes, inviting imitation; at length he suddenly yields to the obsession, and his tic is in the making.

Reference has already been made to a case of Tissie's,[36] where an eight-year-old child acquired from its mother an ocular tic, which a second child imitated in its turn. The cure of the latter was followed with the cure of the two others, _by imitation_.

The word ”echokinesia” was imagined by Charcot to specify the inclination some people show to copy what they see others doing. It has also received the names of ”mimicism” and ”imitation neurosis.” To quote Guinon again:

The movements most closely and most infallibly mimicked are facial.

These the patient either is driven actually to reproduce, or feels impelled to reproduce, without allowing the impulse to pa.s.s into action. Simple and circ.u.mscribed gestures involving the limbs are similarly, if less frequently, the object of imitation. Such tricks as rubbing the nose or cheek or some other part, or stooping as if to pick up something on the ground, may be counterfeited in their entirety, though at other times the movement is only initiated.

Echokinesia may be considered a motor disturbance a.n.a.logous and akin to tic, but distinguished by the fact that it occurs exclusively during the performance, and as the reproduction, of some movement executed by another. It is true, of course, a genuine tic may be a reminiscence of some gesticulation, but it is quite independent of time and place.

A similar difference exists between echolalia--the habit of repeating another's sounds or words at the moment of their e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n--and tics of phonation or of language; the latter are always ill-timed and inappropriate, though they may have had their origin in acts of imitation.

It has become cla.s.sical to draw a comparison between these echokinesic phenomena and the observations of O'Brien apropos of _latah_ among the Malays.

A sailor on board a boat will pick up a piece of wood and proceed to rock it as if it were a child, whereupon a _latah_ standing alongside commences to rock the infant he holds in his arms. The sailor then throws the piece of wood on to the deck, and the _latah_ promptly follows suit with the baby (Guinon).

This is echokinesia carried to an extreme, revealing a complete absence of inhibition from the higher psychical functions.

Prominent among influences calculated to facilitate the evolution of tics is the patient's environment, more particularly where children are concerned.

The parents are often disposed to be deplorably ”fond.” Their ignorance or their thoughtlessness permits the installation of obnoxious habits and fosters their growth into tics. Any endeavour after suppression usually serves to expose the inadequacy of the family authority to exercise control and compel obedience. For the watchful discipline that should curb all such childish tricks and caprices is unfortunately subst.i.tuted a disastrous indulgence that only stimulates the development of these embryonic tics. It should not be forgotten, moreover, that the mental instability of the fathers is visited upon the children in the guise of a certain apt.i.tude for psychical anomalies.

The accompanying case supplies conclusive evidence of the mischief wrought by weakminded parents, and of the calamitous results of hereditary predisposition and bad example combined.

S.'s mother is a lady of over fifty, who spends her leisure hours in writing novels, and who suffers from different varieties of phobia. In the first place, she has an absurd fear of cats and dogs. When she goes out, a maid follows at several yards' distance to prevent the approach of any dog from the rear; and if she is driving, the same precautions are observed.

Her dread of chest complaints is equally extravagant. A cold is her bugbear, a draught her _bete noire_. In the intervals of her literary labour she occupies herself with seeing that all doors and windows are properly shut. The room temperature is maintained at 68 F. at least.

Since her husband's death her devotion to her son's education has been fatal to his best interests. Her unfailing solicitude for his health, her constant terror of accident and illness, have reduced volitional effort in him to a minimum, and under this regime of tyrannical affection he has been as delicately nurtured as a young girl. Even at the age of thirty he must be indoors at night by ten o'clock, and a few minutes' delay will bring his mother to a state bordering on frenzy, and end in the dispatch of some one to seek him; whence all sorts of domestic discussions, and quarrels, and ”scenes,” with tears and mutual recrimination.

Little wonder then, with such an example, that, in spite of his own robust health, S. evinces the same senseless fear of chills and colds and currents of air, and tries the doors and windows so incessantly and so violently withal that they have to be repaired almost every month. In his own room they have been doubled and padded. His anxiety to avoid catching cold actually leads him to weigh the samples of cloth submitted to him, to ensure that his next suit of clothes will be of the same weight as his last.

With all this excess of tenderness, S.'s mother does not always err on the side of leniency. On the contrary, punishment is apportioned for the most trivial fault, although it is only necessary on S.'s part to simulate illness for his mother at once to yield to his most ridiculous caprice.

S. suffers from a rotatory tic of the head, which he attributes to a blow on the neck once administered by his mother by way of chastis.e.m.e.nt; but it may very well be questioned whether the torticollis was not rather a clever imposition intended to soften the mother's heart and bring about her repudiation of corporal punishment.

The case of J. is no less instructive, since he came of a family of veritable syphilophobes whose extraordinary frailties and sentimentalities contributed not a little to the progress of his disease.

A glimpse into the domestic life of L. is equally illuminating.

L. is an only child, who from infancy has usurped her parents'

attention. Their uneasiness lest her ”nervous movements” should prove detrimental to her general health is the explanation of her highly irregular attendance at school and of repeated holidaying.

She may not go out alone, as her ”incantations” are liable to arrest her in the middle of the street; at the same time lack of control over her legs may endanger her safety, and erratic arm gestures render the aid of a stick or umbrella useless.

To add to her misfortunes, her head has now begun to rotate to the right. She used four times a day to cross the narrow and little frequented road that separated her father's house from her place of employment; but since her last accident she has remained strictly within doors, trifling away the time in a chair, and finding in the petty life of a side-street all that she wants to attract her gaze or arouse her interest.

In this microcosm her father has been reduced to the position of a slave. He antic.i.p.ates her slightest want and indulges her most fanciful whim; his commiseration for her woes is only equalled by his unselfishness in foregoing his own pleasure and his ingenuity in vindicating her weaknesses. In short, his ready acceptance of his daughter's instability argues a lack of mental balance on his own part.