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Show Using the Wrong Word. An elderly gentleman was stricken with paralysis which made him completely deaf, but did not interfere with his powers of motion or his vision. But in speaking he used wrong words, so as to be unintelligible. He recognized the doctor and was glad to see him, but in trying to call him by name spoke only gibberish. He did not comprehend writing. He looked at the sentence "Are you in pain?" and exclaimed: "Good good, God." He attempted to write letters; the address was written two or three times at the head of the sheet, but "My dear sir" was written correctly. The sheet was filled with writing, but no word except wife was intelligible, the rest being utterly meaningless. Some letters were correctly formed, but no words until the end, where his name was signed with a steady hand and in his usual manner. In April a remittance being due him he was greatly excited, vainly trying to make himself understood. At length the letter announcing the remittance was shown him, and it pleased him, but he was not quite satisfied until the money was brought and counted before him. In asking for a bottle of liniment he said: "Bring the cord." In speaking of pills he had been taking, he said he had been taking potatoes. There was often an association between his ideas and the words, as when he saw them moving his vest with the watch in it, he said, "take care of the break-fall." Another patient, an old lady, spoke words very distinctly and exactly, but the words either had no application or were ludicrously in appropriate. She would rise very politely to receive a visitor, and kindly motioning to a chair say. "You pig?, you animal, you nasty beast," moaning by this that they were to take a seat; and was wholly unconscious of her insulting words. In anther instance a man insisted in calling his bed his garden, and not until the words were written out could he be made to understand his mistake. Still another, after an attack of paralysis, always transposed the letters of a word, as in calling the word flute, tufle, puc for cup, gam for mug. A woman could write "London" with her left hand, but not "cat" or "dog" even after hearing them pronounced, though she could spell them very well. In the case of a gas inspector, after an acute attack, he wholly lost the power of writing and reading-even a gas-meter probably. If any familiar object was shown him be could not call it by name, though if it occurred in conversation he pronounced it without hesitation. Asked for the color of a card he could not give it. "Is it blue?" "No." "Green?" "No.' "Red?" "Well, that's more like it." "Orange?" "Yes, orange." A square and a circle were shown him, and he could not name either; but when the circle was called a square, he said, pointing to the square, "No, but that is." |
