The daily morning journal and courier., 1895-12-04

Covers had patient, clergyman, who had completely forgotten the events of twenty years of his life. No amount of | argument could convince him that his ace was really sixty years. or that he had done thirty years clerical work.
 He opstlnately maintained that he was
 only forty and that he had been only
 ten years in the ministry. The per- | pleXities attending his deluslon can be imagined. Some of his children, for instance, would probably be over thirty years of age, which would necessitate his having been married at the age of ten. His schoolfellows, if he should meet them, would appear to have grown old at tremendous pace; he could hardly understand why he had married a woman so much older than himself; and, altogether, his position must have been one not to be envied.
 Another doctor describes the case of woman who had forgotten that she had been married and who obstinately refused to live with her husband. One old gentleman while in familiar sur roundings had a perfect memory for faces, but when in a strange place could not recognize his own wife. This Is very common form of disease in the aged, and so affects them that they cannot recognize their most intimate acquaintances,
 Usually the loss is gradual, and comes on as a consequence of progressive changes in the brain. But often 1t Is as sudden as the Brighton case and may arise from a multitude of causes--the bursting of a blood vessel, for instance, or an attack of epilepsy, or blow on the head, or even a severe fit of anger or grief, or fright, or a fainting fit, or exposure to extreme cold, or any kind of overpowering mental excitement.
 Old men who search for the spectacles they are wearing are very numerous, and no one is more than amused by them. But there are inexplicable and often terrifying cases. Men have been known to leave home for a few days, commit some serious crime and return quite oblivious of what they had done. Very interesting Is the case, so common among soldiers who have fought bat tie, and who, when it is over, cannot re- call the events for several hours. The same thing happens to those who have escaped from shipwrecll and to aero- nauts who have just descended from the clouds. This is the temporary loss due to strong emotion. Then there are curious examples of temporary loss of memory owing to fatigue. Sir Henry Holland, when down a mine in the Harz mountains and suffering from fatigue, completely forgot his German and could not remember word of it until he had rest and refreshment after ascending. We all experience this in less degree. Sometimes it is an injury which causes a blank in the backward gaze. An English professor once received vio- lent blow on the head, and at once for got all his Greek, and musician lost all memory of music from the same cause. Mir. Whymper, in his book on the Alps, tells how he fell over a fright ful precipice 200 feet high, with the re- suit that his past was for tme wholly plotted out of his memory
 The most singular cases of memory loss are in connection with language
 It is quite common in our hospitals to see sick German unable to speak a word of the English he had thorougly mastered. A very singular instance of this is reported from New York Many years ago a Dr. ScandJelli died in hos pital in that city. When first admitted he could speak only in English; as the Illness progressed he forgot that lan- guage. and could now only converse in French; but on the day of his death an- other change occurred, and he could speak nothing but his own language Italian. Many varieties of this loss of memory of words exist A clergyman some time ago lost all recollection of words, but he could still remember the letters of which they were composed, and could express his ideas freely by from a slight attack of apoplexy, and, as a result, forgot all but a very few words When he tried to speak he merely uttered nonsense; but if a book or manuscript were handed to him he read it with perfect propriety. One of the most extraordinary of all memory losses is when a. person forgets how to write with his right hand, but still has the power to do so with his left hand. In such acase, after he has written with his left hand the desired sentence, he can, copy it with his right hand.
 | When the memory of words is gradu- ally lost it invariably progresses in one particular order First the proper names go, then the common nouns, then adjec- | tives; and this stage Is followed by fail- ure of the power ito recollect events. Very many people suffer from the first degree--excesslve smokers, for instance,