The long and arduous debate about Mozart and Tourette syndrome: some references
You can call him a Touretter or an Aspergian, an ADHDer or you could even call him a maniac, but you couldn't call him normal, because turning cartwheels while miaowing like a cat is not really considered normal behaviour. Whatever Mozart had, did the legendary pianist Glenn Gould have it too? The two extraordinary musicians had some interesting characteristics in common: see my short article about them from October 2007.
As you can see from these references, Simkin's 1992 paper in the BMJ was not the first or only suggestion that Mozart may have had Tourette syndrome, others had published such speculation as early as 1983 and 1991.
Ashoori, Aidin, Jankovic, Joseph (2007) Mozart’s movements and behaviour: a case of Tourette’s syndrome? Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery and Psychiatry. 2007.
http://jnnp.bmj.com/cgi/content/abstract/78/11/1171
[argues that the evidence that Mozart had Asperger syndrome, autism, Tourette syndrome and some other neurological and psychiatric conditions is lacking]
Davies, Peter J. (1993) Mozart’s scatological disorder. [letter] British Medical Journal. Vol. 306 number 6876. 20th December 1993. p.521-522.
[can be read through PubMed Central]
Fog, R., Regeur, L. (1983) Did W.A. Mozart suffer from Tourette’s syndrome? World Congress of Psychiatry, Vienna, 1983.
Gunne, L. M. (1991) Hade Mozart Tourettes syndrome. [Did Mozart have Tourette syndrome?] Lakartidningen. December 11th 1991. Vol. 88 number 50. 4325-6.
[article in Swedish]
Heyworth, Martin F. (1993) Mozart’s scatological disorder. [letter] British Medical Journal. Vol. 306 number 6876. 20th December 1993. p.522.
[can be read through PubMed Central]
Karhausen, L. R. (1993) Mozart’s scatological disorder. [letter] British Medical Journal. Vol. 306 number 6876. 20th December 1993. p.522.
[can be read through PubMed Central]
Kammer, T. (2007) Mozart in the neurological department – who has the tic? Bogousslavsky J, Hennerici MG (eds) Neurological Disorders in Famous Artists - Part 2. Frontiers of Neurology and Neuroscience. 2007. vol 22, p. 184-192
http://content.karger.com/ProdukteDB/produkte.asp?Aktion=ShowPDF&ArtikelNr=102880&ProduktNr=232866&filename=102880.pdf
http://www.uni-ulm.de/~tkammer/pdf/Kammer_2007_Mozart_preprint.pdf
[concludes that Mozart’s diagnosis of Tourette’s is implausible]
Sacks, Oliver (1992) Tourette’s syndrome and creativity. British Medical Journal. Vol. 305 number 6868. 19-26 December 1992. p.1515-1516.
[Sacks describes Simkins’ paper in the same issue of BMJ as “at least circumstantial evidence” but then writes that he does not find the case for Mozart having Tourette’s entirely convincing, Sacks claims there are two types of Tourette’s, stereotypical Tourette’s and “phantasmagoric” Tourette’s that can alter a person’s character and creativity, can be read through PubMed Central]
Simkin, Benjamin (1992) Mozart’s scatological disorder. British Medical Journal. Vol. 305 number 6868. 19-26 December 1992. p.1563-7.
[a fascinating paper describing Mozart’s hyperactivity, non-stop obsession with music, fascination with nonsense words, scatological letter-writing and what appear to be Tourette’s symptoms, can be read through PubMed Central]
Simkin, Benjamin (2001) Medical and musical byways of Mozartiana. Fithian Press. 2001.
http://www.danielpublishing.com/books/suppl/simkin.html
[the book in which it is argued that Mozart had Tourette syndrome]
10 comments:
hi there. i was searching something concerning mozart and synaesthesia. mi name's Luana, i am italian,and i am writing a thesis on synaesthesia. i would like to find out if mozart was a synaesthete as well as nabokov or messiaen. could you link me some articles, if there are some, concerning about this? there are some documents (not requiring payments to view them)that alks about mozart synaesthesia?
thank you
I have never read anywhere about Mozart being identified as having synaesthesia. It's quite possible that he has it but left behind no evidence of this (a person can have synaesthesia while appearing totally "normal"). It's also quite possible that there is evidence somewhere that no one has seen the significance of. Unless a person writes or says that they have synaesthesia, there's really no way to tell that they have it. Many people who have synaesthesia never talk about it to anyone, because they don't realize that they are not normal.
Mozart is a famous person who I'd pick as a possible case, as it appears that he had an eidetic memory. Mozart has also been identified as having Asperger syndrome (autism) and Tourettes by some experts. I believe there is solid evidence that Mozart had "perfect pitch". Asperger syndrome, eidetic memory and synaesthesia are three neurological conditions that seem be found together in the same individual more often than one would expect. I believe there is solid scientific evidence linking synaesthesia with superior memory, and I have read many fascinating anecdotes about the different ways that synaesthesia can be an aid to musicians and composers. I believe there are musicians with synaesthesia who have "perfect pitch" (which we know Mozart DID have), because they can SEE the different musical notes in different colours. But I don't know of any direct evidence that Mozart had synaesthesia, sorry. Some scholar should research this possibility.
thank you for the answer. well, i must say you that i found a synaesthete of the tipe grapheme-color synaesthesya, that has the perfect pitch. so now i can understand many things about perfect pitch! i would like to ask you if you have some links to the anecdotes about the way musicians help themselves with synaesthesia in composing music. I am in contact with a person that does this, but i'd like so much to read about others.
I thank you again
ps. what type of synaesthesia do you have?
i am not a synaesthete (or at least i think so...) but i see numbers in a spatial organization, and also months of the years. although i "perceive" this, i have no colors neither for music nor for letters or numbers or months as well. i've read from Ramachandran (whose studies about synaesthesia are important)that this could be another type of syn, called spatial-number syn or something like this... but really i don't know if i can call myself a real synaesthete.
Luana
The anecdotes about synaesthesia and musicians were in a private forum, so I don't think they would be openly available. I wish some academic would write about the relationship between musical ability and synaesthesia, because I think it may be an important unknown element of natural musical talent and ability. A good source of information about synaesthesia is the web site run by Mr Sean Day.
I think seeing numbers in a spatial organization is considered a type of synaesthesia. There are different definitions of synaesthesia, and I believe there are many different types of synaesthesia. I know a person (in the offline world) who has the same type of synaesthesia that you have, and this person believes that it helps them to do maths, or at least it is central to the way this person does maths calculations. I think synaesthesia is really quite a common condition, if one counts all the different types. I myself have many different types of synaesthesia, including the colourful types. Our kids also "think in colours" as well, which I was quite surprised to discover.
ok, i see.
well, unfortunately i am not so keen in maths! so i can't understand why i have this spatial organizations; that for numbers is different if i think to numbers while calculating or if i think to numbers referring to the the age i have...it's quite difficult to explain. but i cannot remember when i begin to think in this way, i suppose that organization started when i learned numbers...
i have read many things about synaesthesia and it's so interesting. i've read also about your type of synaesthesia and i think that not only coloured-hearing but also coloured letters and numbers may be very helpful to learn perhaps languages and maths calculations. the only thing is that i don't see colors...i see spatial organization.
i also read that syn probably runs in families, and probably it's correlated to the X chromosome. It's for that reason that syn is hereditary, and your children have it too.
i would like to answer another thing, in the hope not to annoy you: your husband does he have synaesthesia too?
My husband just laughs when I mention synaesthesia, so I guess he doesn't have it.
If it is inherited through the X chromosome I guess that means it can't be passed on from father to (biological) son. As far as I know, there has not been any father to son inheritance of synaesthesia in our family. I guess if there are any definite cases of this happening, that theory would be disproved.
i think so.
now i am writing about mozart, his perfect pithc and... i must to link this with synaesthesia.
I don't have unfortunately any link to some articlese that states that perfect pitch and synaesthesia (and also autism or Asperger's syndrome) runs together in a subject.
I would like to ask a last favour:did you have some link where someone (notability) states this correlation between the three phenomena?
thank you very much
Hi!
I am interested in how common is an absolute pitch among autistic people.
What exactly is an absolute pitch? If you can play an instrument (even for the first time)and play on this instrument a new, unknown song, and can play it well, do you have perfect pitch then? 'cause I can do that, but I am not really sure I have it, although everybody tells me so, because I don't know what exactly is perfect pitch.
And if someone sees a color rainbow every time he/she hears a song, does the person have synaesthesia? It's really an interesting question.
Anyway I am an Aspie, and I think we can not judge who has it if we don't exactly have enough information.
About Mozart, I really don't know. He could be autistic...but I really don't know.
Hello Anasthasia
It sounds like you might have an exceptional musical memory, which is a savant ability that is sometimes found in autistic people. Mozart had this type of ability, as is illustrated in the anecdote about the Miserere http://www.classical.net/music/comp.lst/works/allegri/miserere.html
If you are interested in savant abilities in general, here are some links that might be of interest:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16941-savant-skills-may-be-widespread-in-people-with-autism.html
http://rstb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/364/1522.toc
You asked about absolute pitch. I don't know of any paper specifically about absolute pith and autism, but no doubt one exists. I believe absolute/perfect pitch is the ability to identify specific musical notes. I know very little about music, so do check the facts yourself. You might find this paper interesting:
Deutch, Diana (2006) The enigma of absolute pitch. Acoustics Today. 2006, 2, p.11-19.
http://philomel.com/pdf/Acoustics_Today_2006.pdf
"And if someone sees a color rainbow every time he/she hears a song, does the person have synaesthesia?" There are two possible explanations for this experience - LSD or synaesthesia. I'm hoping the first explanation does not apply. I'm a synaesthete and I sometimes experience musical sounds as coloured. Some complete songs have an overall colour, just like days of the week and numbers have their own specific colours, in my mind. I enjoy my synaesthesia. I would want to be normal.
All the best!
Darn, the ends of some of those links did not come out. Here are the missing bits:
allegri/miserere.php
and
content/364/1522.toc
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