The National tribune., 1889-10-31
Cerebral EceentricitIes.
TAN tbn Yrur RoyIud |

Sir Ashley Cooper gives an account of a re-
markable instance of cerebral eccentricity. A
soldier who had been wounded in the head fell
into long stupefaction. until he was restored
TO speech by an operation in the hospital. But
when he did speak 1t was in an unknown
tongue, which none about him could understand.
BY and by Welshwoman was brought into the
hospital and she at once recognized the Ian
guago of the sick soldier as her own tongue.
lie had not been in Wales for 30 years. yet he
now spoke his long forgotten language huently.
and could, i'll fact, not recollect any other. And
strange to say, when completely recovered, the
English came back to him and the Welsh was
once more forgotten. DIR. Carpenter tells of an
other case almost as remarkable. A man who
had left Wales in his childhood had so entirely
forgotten his native tongue that he could not
even understand his compatriots when they
visited him. But during an attack of fever this
same man, after 60 years forgetting, spoke in
delrium continuously in Welsh. On recover
ing health he again lost the language Even at
the very entrance of the valley of Shadow"
the memory plays strange tricks. Goethe told
Eckermann that he once knew an old man who
in his very last moments began TO recite beau
tifu Greek sentences These he had been
made rs n boy to learn by heart for Il special
purpose, but for so years had not uttered them.
They were there in his memory, though, all the
same, aud some unexplainabe cerebral action
suddenly gave them form and expression.
dying peasant was heard by t)r. Stelnbcck To
pray in Greek and Hebrew. Questioned about
it when conscious, he said that as boy he had
often heard the parish priest use the same
words, without knowing what they meant. AS
illustrating phenomena of memory of another
sort, we may recall tho case of LiunGus who.
in decay OF his memory in old age, was delight
cd by the reading of his own works without
recognizing them. Not TO 20 SO far away, there
is tho experience of Sir Walter Scott as related
by Lock hart. The Bride of Lammermoor"
was composed and published while Scott was
confined to q sickbed; and he assured Ballan-
tyne that when it was fist put into his hands
in n complete shape. he did not recolect one
single incident character, conversation it
contained. He recollccted alI@the incidents of
the story upon which the romance was founded,
but she literally recolected nothing else; not
n single character woven by tho rOmancer; not
one of the many scenes and points of humor,
nor anything with which he was connected as
tho writer of the work" A still more remark
able case OF lapse of memory in another way is
related by Dir. Prtchard. man was engaged
in splitting wood with malet and wedge.
Previous to going home in the evening he hid
his tools in hollow tree, and told his sons to
20 for them in the morning. But the same
night be became insane Several years after
ward his reason returned suddenly. aud his FIRST
question was whether his sons had brought
home the tools. They told him they had not
been able to find them. whereupon he rose, went
10 the field where he bad been working years
before, aud took out of their hiding place all
that was left of the tools-Ghe iron parts, for
the wood had mOuldered away.