On more than one occasion we have remarked this trembling as the forerunner of a cure. It vanishes spontaneously as the amelioration of the patient's condition becomes more definite.
Several months may intervene between relapses. Descroizilles cites a case of convulsive movements of the head and shoulder of three years' duration, which yielded to exercises in a few weeks. The tic reappeared six months later, and, resisting treatment by gymnastic discipline, was cured by suspension. Three months later it returned once more.
Facts of this description emphasise the desirability of considering rapid cures with reserve; where the improvement, on the contrary, is insensible, the results are much more likely to be permanent. Unforeseen complications, again, may arise once a cure is affected.
One of our patients[231] had been rather quickly relieved of a mental torticollis by the usual therapeutic measures, and we had allowed him to resume his avocation, when he suddenly appeared in a depressed and despairing mood a month later to say that he was worse than ever. The rotatory tic had not returned, it is true, but its place was taken by another phenomenon. If, as he walked along with head straight, his attention was suddenly directed to the right, he seemed at once to become "crystallised"; he halted, and could not deviate his head as he wanted, and at the same moment something appeared to choke him; in three or four seconds all was over, and his action unimpeded. As a result of these attacks he sank into a wretched state of more or less permanent anguish. A visit to his country home was of little avail; no sooner had he arrived than his head began to twist about in every direction, although, try as he would, he could not move it backwards. We accordingly prescribed absolute rest in bed, a strict regime, hydrotherapy, and unfailing regularity in the performance of gymnastic exercises. Not long after a fresh torticollis developed, by which the chin was deviated to the left and the head tilted to the right. Once more we initiated a scheme of regular drill, and in the course of a short time a satisfactory cure ensued. During the last three years we have had frequent opportunities of seeing our patient, and can certify that he remains mentally and physically normal.
Facts such as these teach us two things: the task of the physician is not ended with the disappearance of the tic, for it is the pathological mental state of the patient which renders him so easy a prey, and if we can modify that state by re-education, we may count on the cure being permanent. For a long time, however, we shall be well advised to talk simply of improvement. In the second place, relapse or slowness of progress is no reason for despair; treatment may have to be persevered with for a year or years, till the patient learns how his muscles act, how to maintain immobility, and how to effect a voluntary movement—notions which his fickle mind has hitherto neglected to grasp. Education of the will in the direction of control is calculated to bring him into line with normal individuals.
A radical cure is not without the bounds of possibility, but it depends greatly on the patient himself; his success is contingent on his faithful repetition of exercises long after the tic is gone; for while a cure results whenever the tic ceases to incommode its subject, fatigue or emotion on some future occasion may reawaken the tendency to involuntary movements, and only a methodically trained will can triumph over the temptation to relapse.
With this reservation, one may expect permanence in the cure, provided the affection is of recent date and the patient gives evidence of his assiduity and desire for relief.
MIRROR DRILL
Among various re-educational procedures which are worth mentioning for their practical value, a place must be given to what has been called mirror drill by one of us.
We all know that the term mirror writing is in use to specify that mode of caligraphy which looks exactly like ordinary writing when it is reflected in a mirror or if the paper is held to the light and seen from the reverse side. Mirror handwriting may be done with either hand. If the right hand be employed, the characters are traced from right to left and are centripetal in relation to the axis of the body. If, on the contrary, it is the left hand that we use, the letters go from right to left, but they are centrifugal.