Dr. Jean Astruc on the Vicious Conformation of the Froenum Linguae, or Bridle of the Tongue (1746)

Abstract

In 1746 an English edition of lectures on diseases of children given by Jean Astruc (1684-1766) was published anonymously in London. Astruc, Regius Professor of Medicine at Paris, as well as Chief Physician to the King of France, had this to say about the management of the "tongue-tied" infant. The tongue is naturally connected with the fund of the mouth by the help principally of the muscles, called Geniohyoidei, which are inserted on the fore part, under the point of the tongue, where we meet a duplicature of the skin which covers the mouth, forming the froenum linguae. This is sometimes so advanced under the tongue, that the point of this organ cannot be folded or turned back to perform it's necessary functions. Hence this is a disorder of vicious conformations. The midwives prudently anticipate the physicians or surgeon's advice in this case; for immediately after the child is born, whilst the ligament is still very soft and tender, they break its superfluous connection with the tongue by their nail; which if it be not timely done, or if the bridle is too rigid and hard to yield to this method, the nurse soon feels the inconveniency thereof, by the infant's manner of sucking; or it becomes manifest at last when he begins to speak, at which time as the bridle is harder, the operation or incision should be performed by the help of the knife, or, which will do better, by the scissars (sic), putting the patient in a proper and commodius (sic) situation.