A Cursing Brain?: The Histories of Tourette Syndrome

by Howard I. Kushner

Book Overview

Over a century and a half ago, a French physician reported the bizarre behavior of a young aristocratic woman who would suddenly, without warning, erupt in a startling fit of obscene shouts and curses. The image of the afflicted Marquise de Dampierre echoes through the decades as the emblematic example of an illness that today represents one of the fastest-growing diagnoses in North America. Tourette syndrome is a set of behaviors, including recurrent...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0674003861
• ISBN13: 9780674003866
• Release Date: September 2000
• Publisher: Harvard University Press
• Length: 320 Pages
• Weight: 1.05 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.8" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

The Cursing Brain

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.

Fascinating but a bit thick

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.