real, MH and JM Saint-Hilaire concluded from studying eight affected people that it was brought on by conditions at their lumber camps and was psychological, not neurological. Differential diagnosis Jumping Frenchmen of Maine syndrome must be distinguished from other conditions involving the startle reflex or tics. Tourette syndrome is characterized by multiple physical (motor) tics and at least one vocal (phonic) tic. There are many overlaps when compared clinically, but the abnormal "jumping" response is always provoked, unlike the involuntary tics in Tourette syndrome. Similar conditions Latah is a disorder found in southeast Asia in which one's startle response is similar to a state of trance with repetitive speech or movements. Meryachenie is a disorder found in Siberia that also displays an action similar to "jumping." Neurasthenia is a disorder with a startle response during periods of great fatigue. Hyperekplexia is a rare autosomal dominant neurological disease. The symptoms begin in infancy with hypertonia, an abnormal muscle tension that decreases flexibility, and an exaggerated startle in all ages of life. History Beard had a unique interest in unusual disorders and took the opportunity to observe the epidemic in Maine. He recorded "startle, jumping, and tic-like behaviors" among the French Canadians and lumberjacks who lived near Moosehead Lake in northern Maine. He published his descriptions of the Jumping Frenchmen in 1880, and he believed the condition was hereditary. History of Medicine professor Howard I. Kushner calls Beard's description "the most influential and detailed study" of these behaviors. According to Kushner, the French physician Jean-Martin Charcot chose his resident, Georges Gilles de la Tourette, to investigate the "relationship between tic disorders and jumping and startle behaviors reported in Malaysia, Siberia, and Maine"; Gilles de la Tourette translated Beard's descriptions and published them one year after Beard's papers. In 1885, Tourette published "Study of a Nervous Affliction" where he included the startle disorders in the typology of what he called "convulsive tic illness", that included what later came to be known as Tourette syndrome. Kushner argues that none of the patients studied by Tourette supported this assertion, and says that "many of his contemporaries refuted Gilles de la Tourette's typology." References Bibliography Kushner, HI. A cursing brain?: The histories of Tourette syndrome. Harvard University Press, 2000. External links History of mental disorders Culture-bound syndromes North Maine Woods Health in Maine Maine society French-Canadian culture in Maine French-Canadian American history