Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1883-12-26
CHANGES IN HANDWRITING.
Curious Notes Upon an Interesting
Subject.
From the Chicago Inter Ocean.

From the Chicago Inter Ocean
There is contained In the AgieaiSt aud Neu-
rotogtst for the current quarter very interesting
article from the Italian of Bianchi devoted to
the consideration Of "Chauge in Handwriting"
The direct purpose of the thesis Is to define al
terations in handwriting in their relation to
pathology, and it Is made to appear that these
variations are, to an expert intelligence, very
fair induces to specific DISCRIMINATION Of the
mental structure. From being in large part
technical, the article clouds its real interest
from the unprotessiORal reader, yet it touches
upon so many peculiar traits of character In
writing, of which few know anything, a refer
enee to it may not be unpleasing The phenom-
enon OF writing seems to DR.. Bianchi to be
among the most curious that are distinctively
human, and to determine just its operative
quality and directing force between the meduI-
larry center and the series Of muscles employed
is the purpose of very careful clinical observa-
lions now being made In number OF European
| hospitals. That which makes it the more diff
cult Of solution is the fact that the phenomenon
of writing is not dependent upon visive impress
siOns, but Is effective through both the audtive
and ineffective as well, since not only the
blind but the deaf and dumb can be taught to
transmute into written language the ideas of
the mind.
The one great obstacle encountered in the
way Of founding theory on an unassallable
basis, which prevents ready furtherance of the
| inquiry in it's pathological bearing, is the fact
that the patients met with in clinics and hospi-
tails are mostly ignorant of writing. The pro-
cess of change leads to great extremes with
diseased minds, and can be noted In its pro-
| gress from the omission of words the mistake
OF words, the variation in the vertical and base
| lines until it has reached the final stage de-
scribed as agraphia, when the writer merely
makes right, straight, undulatng, or crcu-
| lar lines, unable to trace q letter, vet In en-
tire Inconsistencies of the impotency of the
attempt.
Among the curious freaks of writing which,
however, is not necessarily pathological, is
that which is the lithographic or so-caled re-
verse chirography. This is the lefthanded
writing which consists in tracing letters from
right to lett, SO that to be read it must be held
before mirror or be seen by transparency
Many physicians regard this as an evidence
of diseased mental function, but it has lat
terly! come to be accepted as the normal
writing of the left hand though it is not
denied that sometimes it may be due to LESSONS
| OF the encephalic central organ. The sound op-
Grafton is not accounted for readily In persons
who, not much accustomed to writing, are re-
quired to use their left hands. The image of
the form OF the letters and the words is
received by the brain along with the i'm
preston of the motions necessary for
the formation of the letters and little by little
there is established quasi solidarity between
tiieSt Nv u ldCtS. llleTe should therefore De an
automatic use of remembrance and an enforced
beginning at the left One explanation is that
the natural motion of the arm Is centrifugal
away from the body: though Dr. Ireland ad-
vanccs the hypothesis that the image, or the i'm
preston or the change in cerebral texture by
which the image is produced, is formed in the
mind of the photographic writer reversed like
the negative Of photograph. In the effort to
reproduce this image writing from right to left
would be easier. In persons of little intel-
gence, and who seldom write, there is an apti-
| tude to write with the left hand in both ways,
and the reversed letters are better formed than
those carried from left to right
There is case recorded of man Of thirty
five years who gradually lost the use of his
right arm. He used his pen in his lett hand,
and wrote easily in the photographic way, but
he wrote in the normal form with the same
hand badly and with difficulty. A girl of four
teen, an imbecile was taught to write, but she
used her pen in her left hand and wrote reversed
very much better than regularly. There is a
case of a man who wrote well with both sides,
though the left was photographic.
NOW with intelligent persons who deliber
ately set about writing with the left hand the
normal course of formation is followed and
they cannot write reversed because with them
the image Of the word is SO fixed in memory
that they cannot conceive it in any Othey way,
and they cOnstrain the muscles without know
ing 1t to trace the image as they have it in the
brain.
from the cases cited Nr. Bianchi thinks "we
NAV cnnrlnde. wit reason. that the reverse
structure, although 1t Is the physiological of the
left hand, obtains more especially in oasas of
lesion OF the left hemisphere and in aphasia,
because then the normal writing of the left is
liberated by external circumstances by educa-
tlon by remembrance of the figures traced from
the right. and by the influence of the sight and
the will, leaving thus only the remembrance of
the impressions of the muscular motions united
to that of the impressions of the image This
fhn lido 70
aphasia. and ON the other it is a thing purely
physiological, and it would be only accidental
to see an organ reacquire it's normal function
under the influence of pathological part"