SUBSTITUTION OF WRONG WORDS.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXX, Issue 4571, 13 November 1875, Page 2 (Supplement)

SUBSTITUTION OF WRONG WORDS.

It may bo, however, that not only are the right words forgotten, but wrong ones are substituted. The mother-in-law of a medical man (we are told by Dr. Trousseau) labored under a very singular intellectual disorder. Whenever a visitor entered her apartments, she rose with au amiable look, and, pointing to a chair, exclaimed, “Pig! brute! stupid fool!” Mrs. B. asks you to take a chair,” her son-in-law would then put in, giving this interpretation to her strange expressions. In other respects Mrs. B.’s acts were rational, and her case different from ordinary aphasia in that she did not seem to grow impatient at what she said, or to understand the insulting expressions of which she made use. Crichton mentions the case of an attorney who, when he asked for anything, constantly used some inappropriate terra. Instead of asking for a piece of bread, he asked for his boots, and if these were brought, he knew they did not correspond with the idea of the thing ho wanted ; therefore, he became angry, yet he would still demand some of his boots or shoes, meaning bread. One gentleman (a patient of Sir Thomas Watson) would say “pamphlet” for “camphor.” Another would say “poker” when he meant the

“ fire.” Ur. Moore, of Dublin, has recorded the case of a gentleman who completely lost the connection between ideas and words. On one occasion the Doctor was much puzzled by his patient saying to him, “ Clean my boots ! ” binding that he was not understood, ho became much excited, and cried out vehemently : “ Clean my boots by walking on them !” At length it was ascertained that the cause of disquietude was the shining of the candle in his face ; and that the object of his unintelligible sentences was to have the curtain drawn. When this was done he appeared gratified. In this case, it will be noticed, the patient formed complete sentences, the power of co-ordination and articulation was perfect, and the intelligence was apparently unimpaired. But sometimes, when articulation may he retained, what is uttered is perfect jargon. A gentleman in Dublin, after an attack of apoplexy, was thus affected, and in the hotel where he stayed was mistaken for a foreigner. Dr. Osborn, with a view to ascertain the nature of his imperfection of language, asked him to read aloud the following sentence from tho by-laws of the College of Physicians : “It shall be in the power of the college to examine or not to examine any licentiate previous to his admission to a fellowship, as they shall think fit.” He read as follows ; “An the he what in the temother of the trothtodoo to majorum or that eraidrate ein oiukrastroi meatraits to ketra totombroida to ra from treido as that kekritest.” Several of these syllables are difficult and unusual. There are well-authenticated cases of persons who suddenly found that they could not remember their own names. An ambassador at St. Petersburg was once in this case, when calling at a house whore ho was not known by tho servants, and he had to apply to his companion for tlio necessary information. The names of common tilings aro sometimes strangely forgotten. Tho wife of an eminent jurist who consulted Dr. Trousseau, of Paris, told him that her husband would say to her, “ Give me my —my —dear me ! my—-you know," aud ho would point to his head. “Your hat?" “Yes, my hat." Sometimes, again, he would ring the hell before going out, and say to the servant, “ Give mo my um—umbrel—umbrel, oh, dear,” “Your umbrella ?” “Oh! yes, my umbrella.” And yet at that very time his conversation was as sensible as ever. Ho wrote or read oil, or discussed, most difficult points of law. A patient will often use a form of circumlocution to express his meaning; thus one man who could not remember scissors would say, “It is what we cut with.”