APHASIA.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume XI, Issue 1312, 21 April 1883, Page 3

APHASIA.

01ft of the most carious and baffling of ner voui diseases is aphasia, which consists in the loss of power In the subject of it to recall certain words, and which in serious cases destroys all power of expression. An eminent French Jndge who suffered from it would say to his wife ; ‘ Give me ray —dear me ! my—you know,’ and he would point to his head. •Your hat,’ Sometimes again, he would ring the bell before going out, and say to hu servant, •Give me my um—urn—brel.’ •Your umbrella?’ •Yes, my umbrella.’ At this time he exhibited no other symptoms of deminished intelligence, but was in the habit of discussing the most intricate points of law. Another invalid would substitute the word he desired to use with a paraphrase as, for instance, when he wanted to mention his * aunt' he would say, * the nearest relative by the mother's side.’ While in the simpler forms of the disease only a few words are lost by the sufferer, in more complicated cases his vocabulary is limited to perhaps not more than half a dozen words. In one instance the total vocabulary of a aphasia patient consisted of five words—‘yes,’ ‘no,’ ‘three,’ and ‘hullo.’ He answered all inquiries with one of Ithese * and though when questioned concerning a number he would Invariably say three, he would give the accurate number by exhibiting his angers. The greatest sufferers are . unable to express themselves by writing as I by speech. They take up the pen eagerly in their hands and either scrawl a few unintelligible hieroglyphic, or with some word wholly different from the one they intend. No positive cure for this strange aberration is known though the patients sometimes recover, and the most curious feature of it is, no general weakness of the infUHect aecompaniest,—" Youth's Companion."