Several medical journal articles have speculated that Samuel Johnson probably suffered from Tourette syndrome and some interrelated form of OCD. His contemporary and biographer James Boswell and others noted that had a number of tics, gesticulations and utterances he frequently engaged in:
[W]hile talking or even musing as he sat in his chair, he commonly held his head to one side towards his right shoulder, and shook it in a tremulous manner, moving his body backwards and forwards, and rubbing his left knee in the same direction, with the palm of his hand. In the intervals of articulating he made various sounds with his mouth; sometimes giving a half whistle, sometimes making his tongue play backwards from the roof of his mouth, as if clucking like a hen, and sometimes protruding it against his upper gums in front, as if pronouncing quickly under his breath, ‘Too, too, too.’ All this accompanied sometimes with a thoughtful look, but more frequently with a smile. Generally when he had concluded a period, in the course of a dispute, by which time he was a good deal exhausted by violence and vociferation, he used to blow out his breath like a whale.
He also engaged in certain obsessive-compulsive behaviors and rituals, like touching things in certain orders and doing ritual movements in doorways:
I perceived him at a good distance working along with a peculiar solemnity of deportment, and an awkward sort of measured step… Upon every post as he passed along, I could observe he deliberately laid his hand; but missing one of them, when he had got at some distance, he seemed suddenly to recollect himself, and immediately returning back, carefully performed the accustomed ceremony, and resuming his former course, not omitting one till he gained the crossing. This, Mr. Sheridan assured me … was his constant practice.
Nor has anyone, I believe, described his extraordinary gestures or antics with his hands and feet, particularly when passing over the threshold of a Door, or rather before he would venture to pass through any doorway. On entering Sir Joshua’s house with poor Mrs Williams, a blind lady who lived with him, he would quit her hand, or else whirl her about on the steps as he whirled and twisted about to perform his gesticulations; and as soon as he had finish’d, he would give a sudden spring and make such an extensive stride over the threshold, as if he were trying for a wager how far he could stride, Mrs Williams standing groping about outside the door unless the servant or the mistress of the house more commonly took hold of her hand to conduct her in, leaving Dr Johnson to perform at the Parlor Door much the same exercise over again.
…But the manoeuvre that used the most particularly to engage the attention of the company was his stretching out his arm with a full cup of tea in his hand, in every direction, often to the great annoyance of the person who sat next to him, indeed to the imminent danger of their clothes, perhaps of a Lady’s Court dress; sometimes he would twist himself round with his face close to the back of his chair, and finish his cup of tea, breathing very hard, as if making a laborious effort to accomplish it.
He had another particularity, of which none of his friends ever ventured to ask an explanation. It appeared to me some superstitious habit, which he had contracted early, and from which he had never called upon his reason to disentangle him. This was his anxious care to go out or in at a door or passage, by a certain number of steps from a certain point, or at least so as that either his right or left foot, (I am not certain which,) should constantly make the first actual movement when he came close to the door or passage. Thus I conjecture: for I have, upon innumerable occasions, observed him suddenly stop, and then seem to count his steps with a deep earnestness; and when he had neglected or gone wrong in this sort of magical movement, I have seen him go back again, put himself in a proper posture to begin the ceremony, and, having gone through it, break from his abstraction, walk briskly on, and join his companion.
Possible. Though don’t make that out as I think his mother was doing dance hall turns and tricking on the side, it is generally more likely that her husband screwed around at some time and passed the disease on to her, which was known to happen with deplorable frequency [thank Ghu for antibiotics!]
pravnik:
Several medical journal articles have speculated that Samuel Johnson probably suffered from Tourette syndrome and some interrelated form of OCD. His contemporary and biographer James Boswell and others noted that had a number of tics, gesticulations and utterances he frequently engaged in:
He also engaged in certain obsessive-compulsive behaviors and rituals, like touching things in certain orders and doing ritual movements in doorways:
That is very interesting indeed, considering how ‘off track’ he was from his peers in the way of expected social milestones.
njtt
August 1, 2013, 9:33pm
44
SpoilerVirgin:
Meriwether Lewis of Lewis & Clark is believed to have suffered from bipolar disorder (during his lifetime, he was known to suffer from “melancholy”). He died of a gunshot wound, which most people then and now believe was self-inflicted.
Frankly, this is more a matter of a new name for an old, long recognized disease (and one whose causes are still not very well understood) rather than a new diagnosis.
Also, unless it is also documented that Lewis experienced manic episodes as well as ones of melancholy, he did not suffer from bipolar disorder, just bouts of depression.
FWIW, it was probably a cat that gave rabies to Poe (if he, indeed, had it).
Morrell was a general practitioner who had had training as an Ob/Gyn. As far as I know, none of Hitler’s doctors was a dermatologist. Werner Haase was a surgeon, and Karl Brandt, who was Hitler’s personal physician until he took over first the euthanasia program and then the medical experimentation on camp inhabitants, was a surgeon specializing in head and neck injuries.