Show I Cases of Lost Memory That singular bionIc In the life of Dr Henry II Cate of Lakewood N J who after wandering about the country for five months was identified on Tuesday by near relatives of whom he has not the faintest recollection has aroused the keenest interest among doctors In this city who make a study of abnormal mental diseases Dr Cate it will be remembered left his sanitarium in the New Jersey winter win-ter resort in April and came to this city on business staying as was his j custom for years at the Hotel Albert He had about 2000 with him at the time On April 21st after making a professional call he disappeared the only trace of him being his empty pocketbook < etbook which was found under a pile Of lumber In West Thirtyeighth street On last Monday a man who registered as G Foster New York became u guest of the Morgan house Poughkccp sie and his Inability to tell anything about himself attracted sufficient attention at-tention to cause a story of his case to be telegraphed to the New York newspapers news-papers This came to the notice of his relatives rela-tives and his sisterInlaw went rom Newburg to Poughkcepsle where sho promptly Identified the guest who called himself l G Foster as her missIng miss-Ing brotherinlaw He failed to recognize rec-ognize her nor could anything she said to him revive mn memories of his wife her sister his son or any single Incident In-cident In his life previous to the day he disappeared from the hotel In New York And of his wanderings In the intervening in-tervening ftvo months he was unable to give any coherent details To all appearances ap-pearances his mind had been swept clean of every memory and Impression the years had stored in It Ills present mental condition and the finding of the empty pocketbook are the ends of a I broken strand that can be connected only by a deduction I seems to be a plausible theory that the doctor was sandbagged by a thug who made off with the contents of his pocketbook leaving the greater portion of the money mon-ey In the place the doctor had secreted It Another case of a complete loss of memory this time accompanied v Ith loss of speech is that of Bernard Cohen 12 years old Five weeks ago while playing he fell f distance of twenty feet fracturing his skull A I ractrn of clot of blood formed on that portion the brain which controls the faculty of speech but after that had been removed by the doctors of Lebanon hospital and the boy had recovered from the fracture frac-ture of the skull It was discovered that he still was unable to speak < and intellectually in-tellectually was in the same condition as when 2 years old These two cases are somewhat analogous I an-alogous to that qf the Rev Thomas C Ilanna of Plant Ille Conn success fully treated and eventually cured by Dr Boris Sldis of this city and since regarded as the most remarkable case of Its kind In the history of medicine Mr Hanna was 25 years old when on April 16 1398 he fell from n carriage Apri he that receiving so violent t shocXJJiat remained unconscious for two hours When he was revived he was in the mental condition of a newborn child He had lost all power of voluntary activity ac-tivity he could not recognize objects nor persons He followed movements with his eyes as an Infant docs and liked to have hem repeated He had lost all comprehension of language all sense of orderliness Apparently his brain was free of thought Impressions Ideas l and memories Dr Sidis had attracted attention to his work in psychopathology and the case was Intrusted to his care In the few weeks that elapsed before Dr Si dis took charge of this manchild he had learned to speak a little first by Imitating tho sound of words and then by putting them together In phrases Although all his fine scholarly attainments attain-ments were gone completely the machinery ma-chinery of his mental processes was In excellent working order He was taught as a child is but he accomplished accom-plished In a week what a child would take a year to do It was at this stage of his new life that Mr Hanna was placed in the care of the psychopatbologist His splendid intelligence convinced Dr Sidis that Mr TTannns former personality still lived that the accident had not crushed it to death but rather had dissociated dis-sociated it from the rest of his conscious con-scious life hidden it away as it were in a subconscious depth whence it exerted ex-erted a great influence on the new life of the patient To tap this subcon sciousncss became the doctors first purpose and he accomplished It through the medium of dreams Every morning he asked the patient to recall his dreams which were of two kinds distinct dis-tinct and hazy ones The distinct ones he could describe clearly They were as a matter o fact glimpses Into his subconscious existence where lay the memories of his former life The patient pa-tient did nol recognize them as paste past-e Besides Investigating the patients dreams Dr Sidis tried what he Called hypnoldlzntion He would have Mr Ilanna close his eyes and remain re-main quiet without making any particular par-ticular effort to be still Then someone some-one would read aloud or play the piano and afterward Dr Sidis would question + the patient as to the thoughts aroused by the text or music Vords whole passages from books the names of persons per-sons and places would come to Mr Hanna out of his former life until he was frightened by the Hood of memory mem-ory meaningless as it all was to him With the assistance of Dr Goodhart Dr Sidis began to inquire Into the patients pa-tients dreams Sitting on either bide of his bed as he slept the two physicians physi-cians watched night after night and cans of questions Dr Sid Is insinuated insin-uated himself into the patients mind and led him on to reveal the inner workings of his subconscious mental conditions The patient lived through former experiences and thus revealed the fnQt that his amesla or forgetfulness forgetful-ness only affected his selfconscious waking personality At this point l in the treatment Mr Hanna was taken to the Pathological Institute where under psychic and physiological stimulus he fell Into a state of double consciousness or double personality In one he remembered remem-bered all his past life perfectly in the other only what had happened since the accident Complete amnesia separated accident states Since sleep was the bridge connecting them Dr Sldls evolved a scheme to effect a cure Mr Hanna was induced to do everything that would bring about fatigue sufficient suffi-cient to cause sleep bus i soon as he had become drowsy the doctor would awaken him and excepting the necessary neces-sary rest at night he would not permit per-mit him to take a long nap though he was permitted to have several short ones The result of this fatigue was that w hUe he slept his personality changed from the one he was in when he fell asleep to the other Gradually these changes took place while he was awake Then a strange thing happened Mr Hanna discovered a third personality one that was conscious of the other two yet was utterly distinct from them Weak at first this gradually became stronger until all three consciousnesses merged into one and to the triumph of Dr Sldis Mr Hanna was a well man The fame this case brought to Dr Sidis resulted in the establishment of I a hospital in this city where abnormal mental lifo is studied and mental diseases I dis-eases are treated I Is called the Psychopathic Psy-chopathic Hospital and Psychopathological Psychopatho-logical Laboratory and Is a department of the New York Infirmary for Women and Children In East Fifteenth street About eighteen months ago Dr Alexander Alex-ander Lambert became interested in Dr Sldlss work In connection with the Hanna case and suggested to some New York women that n hospital department de-partment of this nature would be an Incalculable help to mankind One of the women who had listened to Dr Lamberts statement gave 25000 to the endowment of such an institution and room was made for the hospital and laboratory In the Infirmary In the intervening in-tervening l year and a half about 100 pat pa-t have been treated by Dr Sidis and his assistants and of these 70 percent per-cent have been discharged fully cured one patient in particular who was suffering suf-fering from Incipient insanity having been completely cured after two weeks treatment He Is the editor of a scientific f scien-tific paper Tho Institution consists of a receptionroom on the first floor a laboratory operatingroom and lecture room on the second floor and a small ward of eight rooms with a large theater the-ater for demonstrations on the third floor Many Interesting cases of the treatment treat-ment of patients suffering from amnesia amne-sia are described in Dr Sidles book Psychopathological Researches In Mental Dissociation One Is of a mid dleaged man not given to the use of liquor who Inadvertently drank too much and suffered In consequence amnesia am-nesia for a period of three hours One morning before luncheon this man drank several cocktails with a friend and after luncheon went for a drive behind be-hind t hired team They drove all afternoon af-ternoon and at half past C after leaving his friend near the stable the man started to drive the team home After until half that he remembered nothing untl past 9 when he was awakened by someone some-one pounding on the door of the hotel room In which newfound himself Ills first thought on awakening was for the horses On going to the stable he was told he had driven the team there himself him-self that he had jumped from the scat and without speaking to any one had walked away The stableman smiling ly told him he seemed to be asleep when he drove Into the place All these things crove completely swept out of his own memory The doctor who endeavored to restore the consciousness of what took place In those hours treated the patient by a modification of Dr SIdins method of hypnoldlzatlon as followed in the Hanna Han-na case He placed the patient in a quiet dimlylighted room and in a semireclining position Assuring him that the memories would return he asked the patient to fix his attention on the events just related more particularly partic-ularly at that point where memory ceased and see if he could not recall additional facts After requesting him to exclude extraneous thoughts and to assist latent memories the patient saw the stable more plainly than before and recollected going in throwing the reins I down and jumping from the scat Then he saw himself going along the street to the hotel and into the room Then after a continued effort details of that walk began to appear In his memory He recollected that the liveryman spoke to him and what he said and going further back be recalled that he had pulled up the horses suddenly to let a horse go in front of him To the layman lay-man it may not seem Important to find out Just what a drunken man was doIng do-Ing for three hours But this cited Instance In-stance shows that consciousness actually actual-ly did exist which is one of tho prln cipnl theories of this new field of silence sil-ence New York Press |