Habit cough

A habit cough is a chronic cough that has no underlying organic cause or medical diagnosis, and does not respond to conventional medical treatment. This is sometimes called tic cough, somatic cough syndrome and previously psychogenic cough, but without clinical justification.

Different terms and conditions involving this form of chronic cough were ill-defined and not well distinguished.

Coughing may develop in children or adults after a cold or other airway irritant. Similar symptoms of habit cough have been reported in adults and may be the same disorder as is seen in children or adolescents.

Classification and name

History

A medical textbook from 1685 by Thomas Willis, (1621-1675) described an adult woman with “a violent dry cough following her day and night, unless she was fallen asleep,” a description that would fit the habit cough diagnosis today. A 1694 medical book by Franciscus Mercurios (1614-1699), a Flemish physician, alchemist, kabbalist, and writer included in his book, The Spirit of Diseases: “...Habitual Cough, which often continues after the first cough, which was caused by the cold, is gone .... and the Habitual Cough often proceed.” Charles Creighton (1847–1927), a British physician and medical author, in an 1886 medical book, Illustrations of Unconscious Memory in Disease, described, "...a habit cough – a reflex effect persisting after the cause is gone .... or an acquired habit....” He went on to state, “...the treatment of it is to break the habit ....."

In the 19th century, habit cough was also referred to as "stomach cough".

In the 20th century, the terms habit cough, tic cough, psychogenic cough, somatic cough syndrome and somatic cough disorder have been used to describe a type of chronic cough in the absence of an identifiable medical disease that does not respond to conventional treatment.