Some Carious Facts About Memory.

Waikato Times, Volume XXV, Issue 2063, 26 September 1885, Page 6 (Supplement)

Some Carious Facts About Memory.

Mo\3ieur Delunnay has nude a communication to the Soeicte de Biologic respecting memory, aq ntudied ander the various biographical conditions. The inferior rnoea of mankind, such as negroes, the GhinoK, «fci., hare laore tnomory than those o( a higher type of civilization. Primitive mows, whieb. were unaoquainted vritli the art of writing, had a wonderful memory, and were for ago* in the habit of handing down from oat q tneruMon to another hymns as voluminous a* the Bible. Prompters and professors of declamation know that women hare more memory than men. French women will learn a foreign language quicker than their husbands. Youths havo more memory than alulte. It is well developad in children, attains its maximum about the /onrteen or fifteenth year, aad th«n deoccascs. Feeble indirtdutds of a lymphiitio temperament have more memory ttian the strong. Students who obtain the prize for memory find reoitation chiafly belong to the former class. Parisian students have also leas memory than thoße who come from the provinces. At the Stole Norintle and other schools the pupils who have the best memory are not the most intelligent. The memory is more developed among the peasantry than among the oitissns, and among the cJarjy than among the laity. The memory remains intact in diseas«s of the left side of the brain, and in much ftffeoted in those of the rit tat, from which it may be inferred tbat the rifht ride was more the seat of this fatuity than tho left. From a physiological p»iit of view, memory is diminished by »v*r-fe#ding, bf physical exercise, and by education in this sense— that the illiterate have potentially more memory than those who know how to read and write. We remember, moreover, better in the morning than the evening, and in the summer than the winter, and better in warm than in cold olimates. Memory is, therefore, to a great extent, in inverse proportion to evolution, sinoo it ie greatest in those individuals who are the least advanced from an evolution point of view— inferior races, women, children, the feeble, &o. In chert, according to Monsieur, Delaunay, there is no evolution of the memory, whioh is first sensorial, literal, and then intelligent ; but memory, properly speaking, diminishes inversely as tho evola* ti*"»-