Wyandot County Republican. [volume] (Upper Sandusky, Ohio) 1869-1903, 1871-07-06
Miscellaneous.
Aphasia-Meaafng One Thing asd
Saying Another.


been written by an English physician, DR..
Bateman, of Norwich, ON the remarkable
disease which doctors call aphasia.
Aphasia is the general name for disease,
usually, but not invariably, connected
with some serious affection of the brain,
which causes those who suffer from it fire.
quently to articulate sounds or words very
different from the sounds or words they
are aiming at. An aphasic lady has been
known, for instance, to come forward to
meet guest with cordial smile and out
stretched hand, and then articulate, "Pig,
brute, stupid fooll' in the place of the
words of welcome really expressing the
thought in her mind, while in other cases
the words articulated when the patient
was intending to read aloud, turned out
simply gibberish. Thus of one patient it
is recorded:
"In order to ascertain and place on
record the peculiar imperfection of Ian
guage which he exhibited, DR.. Osborne
selected the following sentence from the
bylaws of the College of Physicians, viz ::
1t shall be IN the 4'oaoer Of the College to er
anime or not to examine 0,sy LicentiQte, pre-
Utous to has admission to Ftlloaostap, as they
shall think it, Having requested him to
read this aloud, he read as follows: A1d
the be aohat an the tenaot1er Of the trettotodoo
to majofua1a or that enaadrate Elm einkrastrGi
naestTeit to ketrd totonabreSdei to TG fr0n5reido
Gsthat, kekritest,' '"-where, as the physi-
clan remarked, the patient, though unable
to articulate the words and letters before
him, did yet articulate combinations of let
ters and words much more difficult.
Again, there is case registered where
man with this affection lost his way, as
one may say, only in relation to a single
lQftQr-o1 hct for f hot
asking Tin Germany for Kaffee (coffre), he
appeared to ask for Kazze (souuded like
Katie, cat) (Dr Bateman, D. 53) Again,
another case is given (p. 100) of gentle
man who, after blow on the head, lost
his knowledge of Greek, and did not ap-
pear to have lost any thing else.
In some cases the mind seems to go in
search of the right sound or word, and to
seize the wrong one, through some confu-
sion In the action of the proper nerves or
muscles; in some cases not to know even
at which sound to aim at all. Now, what
is the proper mental Interpretation of such
facts as these? How is it to be explained
that, without any loss of intelligence, the
great instrument of thought" as lam
guage has been called, should so complete
ly defy the power which produced it and
defined its exact sphere Of duty?
on his head, lost completely the knowledge
OF Greek, without appearing to suffer any
other loss whatever, would to many sug-
gest, as the physician who attended him
(Dr. Scoresby Jackson) remarked, that the
Greek knowledge was all deposited in
particular square inch of brain, the injury
of which just destroyed this knowledge,
without invading any other sphere of the
intellect. But this kind of fact does not
stand alone. A French priest, attended
by III. Piorry, after an attack of paralysis
lost entirely the power of employing sub
stantives, while retaining in general the
full command of all other parts of speech.
Thus, when he wanted to ask for his hat,
he said: Doaaaaesaaa0i ce quS Sc met sar la
<" but he could not remember the
word for head any better than the word
for hat" and his physician adds, "nauis
le mot tete' ne lu5 renast 4,as,'' and goes on
to say that he sought to express the same
thing twenty times, but that he always got
to an insurmountable difficulty whenever
he came to noun substantive.
Again, Dublin physician, DR.. Graves,
had case in which q patient could not re-
call any noun substantive Common or
proper, but could always recall its initial
letter. He therefore made himselfa pocket
dictionary of the words in the most gen
eral use, including the proper names of his
children, and servants, and friends, and in
conversation would always refer to this
dictionary, and run his eye down the initial
letter he recalled till he reached The name
In which he was i'll search, keeping his
finger and eye fixed en- the word until he
had finished his sentences" but the mo-
ment he had closed the book ne again for
got the name, though he never forgot the
initial letter, and could always again re-
cover it by means of his dictionary. Now,
take these three cases together, and we OBJ
serve that in one case the whole network
OF associations contained in a single Ian
guage was lost through the agency of the
disease In the next case, only all the ex-
amples of single part of speech (noun
substantives) in one language, in the last
case not even this, but all the examples of
the same part of speech, minus the initial
letter, which was uniformly retained
There is a case Of a patient in the Edin-
burgh Royal Infrmary, under Dr. Gaird
ner, whose loss of language was so com
plete that he could communicate with
other people only by signs. After time
DIR Gardner observed that the other pa-
tients in the infrmary thought this man
was shamming, and the reason they gave
was, that though he could not speak in
any other way, he could swear freely.
Yet this patient soon after died suddenly,
and his brain was found to be much eaten
away with cancer.