The Milan exchange. (Milan, Gibson County, Tenn.) 1874-1978, 1874-05-07
Forgetting a Language.


tiff one dollar and fifty cents. Sam Potts,
foreman. "-COtlDlbiG Spectator.
Forgetting a Language.
Facts frequently come under public no
tice relating TO insOluble mysteries con-
nected with memory, its trustwOrthiness
on some occasions and failure on others.
As all newspaper readers are aware, great
Importance has recently been given in
England to the question whether or not a
man can forget a language which he has
once learned, and whether disputed case
of personal identity can be either strength
ened or weakened thereby. That the
knowledge of a language can be effectually
driven out of the head for time is beyond
dispute; the difficulty lies in deciding
whether this oblivion is ever permanent,
or whether it is traceable to temporary
mental maladies. Forgetfuiness of Ian
guages is only one among many kinds OF
lapse of memory. some of which are
strange and surprising, wholly ineXplica-
bic in the present state of science.
From the very nature of the phenOme-
non most of the recorded instances apply
to persons who know, or have known, two
or more languages: i'm some cases the Ma
! tive tongue had slipped out of the memo
ry, in others that for thOse) acquired later
! in life. A Lutheran clergyman settled at
/ Philadelphia informed DR.. Rush that Ger
mans and Swedes, of whom he had a con-
| siderable number in his congregation,
when near death always prayed in their
native languages, though some of them,
he was convinced, had not spoken those
tongues for fifty or sixty years-ever since
childhood.
A German lady, married to an English
gentleman, spoke English during the
greater part of her married life; but at one
/ period, during a protracted illness, she
used her native tongue, and could not
make herself Ineligible to her English
attendants except through the aid of her
husband as an interpreter.
DR.. Rush mentions the case of an Italian
! gentleman who died of yellow fever at
/ New York, and who underwent a remark
able series of mental changes during the
mplady which terminated his life. He
spoke English, which had for some time
/ been his familiar language i'm America, in
! the early stage of his illness; during the
middle period this was driven out of his
brain by French, which he had learned be-
| fore English; and on the day of his death
/ he spoke only his own native Italian.
a case has been recorded by DR.. Pritch-
ard of lady who, when suffering under
an attack of delrium, spoke a language
which nobody around her could under
stand. 1t was at length discovered to be
| Welsh, or something similar. None other
| friends could form any conception of the
| time or manner in which she could have
acquired familiarity with that tongue
but after much inquiry it was ascertained
that in her childhood she had as a nurse a
native of the French province of Brittany,
the dialect of which is derived from the
same Cymric stock as Welsh. The lady
had during those early years learned
good deal of the dialect, but had entirely
! forgotten it in later life, until her attack OF
! illness produced some ineXplicable change
in the mental action. This case was in
every way remarkable, for the lapse of
memory was in the native tongue, while
| the language brought wildly into action
was that which she had only heard during
some of her child-years. In all prob
ability it was not really Welsh, but some
| thing like it.
In all the above described instances there
was a knowledge of two or more langua-
geS, and a virtual suppression of one OF
| them during morbid condition ofthe brain.
| The main difference was this, that some of
| the patients temporarily lost their Origi-
nal native tongue, whereas in other cases
an acquired foreign language was the one
which suffered eclipse. How far a man
can really forget a particular language
! during all the later half Of his life can never
| be known unless he suffers under some
! kind of malady in the mind or brain some
! thing else then assumes the real mastery
over him, and memory undergOeS strange
! evOlutiOns. Other curious instances of
! fOrgetfulness are worthy of notice, not re-
latins to a complete language, but to
words and names which form the ele-
mentS of language when built up into
| system.
! DIR. AbercrOmbie records an instance of
| a gentleman who uniformly called his
snutf-bOX a hogshead. When reminded
of the error he probably recognized it, but
his tendency was nevertheless in this direc-
/ ton. His physician alphabetically traced
the oddity to an early and long continued
! association of ideas; the gentleman had
| been a tobacco merchant in Virginia. and
had had his attention well occupied with
| hOgsheads of tobacco and boxes of snuff.
| This may not be sufficient explanation.
| but it was the only one that suggested it.
| self, as he made no similar blunder with
other words. Certainly greater difficulty
was presented by the gentleman who al
ways called Goals paper and paper Goals,
Systematically, as it would appear, trans
posing the meanings of the two words.
! Both substances, it is true, are used in
| lighting a fire, but this fact does not suffice
to solve the problem.
Many vagaries of memory present them
| selves which could with difficulty be
grouped in any systematic way. There is
one case on record in which a vivifying of
the memory for poetry occurred in re-
markable manner. An eminent medical
man told DIR. Abercrombie that, during a
fever, but without any accompaniment of
delirium. he on one occasion repeated long
passages from Homer, which he could not
do when in good health. The result of
! former study showed itself at a time when
the mind was a little unhinged, frightened
| by some mysterious flash. The same au-
thOrity was told by another friend that,
during a fever, he had vivid recollection
all at once of the circumstances of Jour
ney to the Highlands, which he had made
! long before; the whole came before him
again, including many minute particulars
which he had entirely forgotten, until that
moment, since the period of the actual
journey itself