The Symptomatology of Trifacial Neuralgia

Identified as a morbid entity more than 120 years ago,1seen by almost every practicing physician, and known now as always by its clinical features alone, some misbeliefs concerning the symptomatology of trifacial neuralgia, tic douloureux, are more or less current. Hence the following brief review of the subject based on 220 personal cases, although only 200 have been tabulated for statistical purposes. So far as I have been able to ascertain, these were all cases of true trifacial neuralgia, typical tic doloureux,la grande névralgieof Lévy;2not migraine, not sinus disease, not herpes or other symptomatic pains about the face. For, as Head3says, "This is a definite disease of the nervous system"; as a German colleague put it,etwas für sich, somethingsui generis, not to be confused in nature or doings with anything else. In most of my cases the diagnosis was confirmed