The daily morning journal and courier., 1902-07-01
A FREAK OF LANGUAGE MEMO

ItIs
 An interesting and minute account of
 the action of memory in delirium Is given by a doctor in the Lancet. The patient was a woman seventy years of
 age, suffering from broncho-pneumo- mia.
 ''The chief point of interest in this
 case lies in the delirium. From the night of March until the evening of
 the 18th (when the temperature fell suddenly) she was sometimes wander
 ing while awake and continually talk ing in her sleep, but when spoken to would be perfectly sensible and so long as she was engaged with one of the attendants or doctor would answer questions, sc. When the temperature fell on the 18th, she became quite de- lirius and remained so until the 18th, when she gradually returned to reason.
 On the night of the 18th and on the
 14th she was found to be speaking in
 language unknown to those about her.
 It sounded as if she was repeating some poetry sometimes, or carrying on
 conversation at others. She repeated the same poem time after time. This language was found to be Hindustani.
 On the 14th in the evening, the Hindu stani began to be mixed with English and she spoke to. and of, friends and
 relations of her girlhood. On the 18th
 the Hindustani had disappeared alto-
 gether and she was talking to. and of, ! friends of later date in English, French and German.
 '"The patient was born in India, | which country she left at the age of l three years and landed in England, af- | ter a five months voyage, before she | was four years old. Up to the time she | landed she had been under the care of | Indian servants and spoke no English l at all, her only language being Hindu l stani On her coming to England the ayah was sent back and she then be-
 gan to learn English and from that | time had never spoken Hindustani. | She apparently, on the 18th, went back | in her deIirium to her very earliest days | when she spoke again the first lan- guase sine ever heard. The poem was | found to be something which the ayahs
 are in the habit of repeating to their children and the conversations were apparently with the native servants. | Obte DelIlS IGCUSHlAtu ot request thuh
 she might be taken to the bazar to buy sweets. A lady who has lived much of l her life in India and who speaks the I language translated some of the con- versations which the patient carried on with her iaginary visitors.
 Through the whole delirium there
 could be recognized a sequence. As l time went on the friends she spoke of were of later date and she took events
 In their proper order. She apparently
 began at the beginning of her life and | went through it until, on March 16 she had reached the time when she was ] married and had her children growing I up, boy and girl. It is curious that af- | ter lapse of sixty-six years, during | which time she had not spoken Hindu stani. this language of her early child hood should be recalled in delrium. The patient now speaks English, French and German Gone as fiuently as
 the other), but although she knows a few Hindustani words she is quite una
 ble to speak the language or put one
 sentence together. She says that she
 has no recollection (nor had she any be- | fore her illness) of ever having been
 able to speak Hindustani