COPROLALIA
Coprolalia, the manie blasphématoire of Verga, is, according to Gilles de la Tourette, one of the most frequent affections of speech in the disease of convulsive tics.
There is no necessary connection, as a matter of fact, between tic and coprolalia, though of course they may co-exist, sometimes in association with other syndromes; they are in reality only episodic syndromes of hereditary insanity.
A distinction ought to be drawn between coprolalia and the use of trivial or inconvenient terms, words with which even some well-educated persons are wont to garnish their conversation. Guinon had a case of a man who in the presence of his mother resorted to language of a kind absolutely disallowed in polite society. In the etymological sense of the word, no doubt, he was a coprolalic, but it cannot be said that he was suffering from tic.
On the other hand, the abrupt and impetuous utterance of oaths or obscene expressions, to the ejaculation of which an irresistible impulse seems to drive the patient independently of time and place, amounts to a coprolalic tic of speech, and reveals a deplorable volitional debility on his part; for he is incapable of checking an act to the impropriety of which he is fully alive.
The victims of this disease (says Guinon) have an extraordinary propensity for choosing the foulest and most indecent words, however elevated their position and correct their breeding. Reference may be made to the classic instance of the Marquise de Dampierre, who all her long life was in the habit of repeating certain immodest sayings even on the most solemn occasions.
According to Guinon the reason of this bizarre preference for obscene remarks is absolutely unknown, although Charcot's view[129] that coprolalia is frequently nothing more than echolalia is one of some plausibility. He refers to one of his patients who alternated her coprolalic utterances with a sort of barking noise that was an exact imitation of her favourite dog.
We ourselves have had for a long time under observation a youth in the service of Professor Brissaud whom some instinct seemed to prompt to repeat any lewd expression he happened to hear, or indeed any which might be so interpreted. It might then be said of him that his coprolalia varied with his surroundings and with his own ideas; it was accompanied by inconstant and irregular convulsive movements of the limbs.
After all, there is not so very much to choose between the coprolalic and the individual whom impatience or anger forces to blaspheme or at any rate to utter words that do not form part of his ordinary vocabulary. And though the ejaculation be not audible, the first degree of coprolalia consists in the mental presentation of the objectionable phrase. Among those who suffer from obsessions mental coprolalia is far from uncommon. A patient with folie du doute, mentioned by Séglas,[130] was afraid to pronounce indelicate words because he felt himself articulating them mentally, and sometimes he used to ask whether they had not really escaped him. One step more, and these verbal hallucinations assume the characters of a genuine tic.