Congenital Aglossia and the Report by Antoine de Jussieu: A Critical and Historical Review

Abstract

Objective: Antoine de Jussieu, renowned French botanist and physician, laid the groundwork for future research on the topic of congenital aglossia when his study, "Observation About How a Girl Born Without the Tongue Was Able To Perform All Functions That Depend On That Organ," was presented to the 22-member assembly of the Royal Academy of Sciences of Paris on April 22, 1718. This study reviews the literature on de Jussieu's report. Study design:The original report by de Jussieu was read and translated into English, after which 94 studies about congenital aglossia history and botany were selected. Results:Of the 95 studies selected, one refers to de Jussieu's report (the groundwork), Annex I; 85 discuss congenital aglossia; five are about history and four about botany. Of the 85 directly associated with congenital aglossia, 36 do not mention de Jussieu, and 49 cite his observations differently. Conclusion:Because of the 1718 report, de Jussieu became a major figure in the history of congenital aglossia and the author most often quoted in studies about it. However, there were historical facts that needed to be clarified. Some of the issues addressed in this review included the replacement of the letter A with M as the initial of de Jussieu's first name; the omission of the word née in the original title; the replacement of née sans langue with privée de langue in the title; the change of the girl's age from 15 to nine years; the suggestion that the patient had limb defects; the change of year from 1718 to 1717 and 1719; the incorrect spelling of de Jussieu's name and title of his report.

Bilabial Substitution Patterns during Consonant Production in a Case of Congenital Aglossia

“…Only 11 cases have been reported internationally [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11] since it was first described systematically by De Jussieu in 1718 [12] whose original paper was investigated and described by Salles et al in 2016 [13]. McMicken and her co-authors [13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20] have reported extensively on research from cinefluorographic films and audio-visual (AV) recordings collected in 1986 on a 16-year-old female PwCA.…”

“…Only 11 cases have been reported internationally [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11] since it was first described systematically by De Jussieu in 1718 [12] whose original paper was investigated and described by Salles et al in 2016 [13]. McMicken and her co-authors [13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20] have reported extensively on research from cinefluorographic films and audio-visual (AV) recordings collected in 1986 on a 16-year-old female PwCA. This research included perception of vowel production [14], perception of consonant production [15], and cinefluorographic examination of articulation [16], in addition to current re-examination of the PwCA, now in her 40s, with electropalatography [17], videoflourography of articulatory movements of pseudo tongue, hyoid and mandible [18], and speech and swallowing kinematics [19].…”