The word "klazomania" comes from the Greek κλάζω ("klazo"), meaning "to scream".[3] The term was coined by L. Benedek in 1925 when he witnessed bouts of compulsive shouting in a patient with postencephalitic parkinsonism.[3] He reported that the attacks would last for up to several hours and seemed to be outside of the patient's control. He characterized the shouting as extremely loud, noting that it could be in the form of syllables, vowels or even animal noises. In addition, he observed that while the nature of the shouting could suggest that the patient was in pain, the sounds themselves were unrelated to any physical discomfort.