Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 7.djvu/480

464 found that they could not remember they own names. An embassadorambassador [sic] at St. Petersburg was once in this case, when calling at a house where he was not known by the servants, and he had to apply to his companion for the necessary information. The names of common things are sometimes strangely forgotten. The 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," and he would point to his head. "Your hat?" "Yes, my hat." Sometimes, again, he would ring the bell before going out, and say to the servant, "Give me my—umbrel—umbrel, oh dear!" "Your umbrella?" "Oh, yes! my umbrella." And yet at that very time his conversation was as sensible as ever. He wrote or read of, 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."

It may be, 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 apartment, she rose with an 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 differed from ordinary aphasia in that she did not seem to grow impatient at what she said, or to understand the meaning of the insulting expressions of which she made use. Crichton mentions the case of an attorney who, when he asked for any thing, constantly used some inappropriate term; instead of asking for a piece of bread, he asked for his boots, and, if these were brought, he knew they did not correspond to the idea of the thing he 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;" Dr. 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!" Finding that he was not understood, he 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 coordination and articulation was perfect, and the intelligence was apparently unimpaired. But sometimes, where articulation may be retained, what is uttered is perfect jargon. A gentleman in Dublin,