An Anthropologist on Mars: Seven Paradoxical Tales

Tourette syndrome has existed throughout history but was first observed and named by Georges Gilles de la Tourette in 1885. While symptoms can vary based on the individual, a typical Tourette’s patient displays “convulsive tics, by involuntary mimicry or repetition of others’ words or actions (echolalia and echopraxia), and by the involuntary or compulsive utterances or curses and obscenities (coprolalia)” (73).

Sacks points out that people with neurological conditions must lead “double li[ves]” as they tend to both themselves and their illness (73). Tourette’s in particular asks the patient to manage not only their own needs, but their compulsions and tics as well. Negotiating Tourette’s can be challenging and frustrating as the patient tries to understand where their identity begins and their illness ends; this can lead to either unproductive or harmful relationships with oneself. Doctors viewed Tourette’s as a moral disease until the 1960s, when it was discovered that the drug haloperidol could ease symptoms. Yet Sacks urges the reader to view Tourette’s syndrome neither as solely chemical, existential, or moral, but as a fusion of the patient’s inner and outer selves.

Sacks introduces Dr. Carl Bennett, a surgeon whom he met at a Tourette syndrome conference.