EFFECT OF DISEASE ON MEMORY.
Failure of memory takes place in a variety of ways. It is sometimes general, and extends to every subject; but it is frequently far more manifest on some subjects than on others. Salmuth mentions a case in which the affected person had forgotten to pronounce words, but could nevertheless write them. Mr. J. Hunter was suddenly attacked with a singular affection of this kind in December 1789, when on a visit at the house of a friend in town. "He did not know in what part of the house he was, not even the name of the street when told it, nor where his own house was: he had not a conception of any thing existing beyond the room he was in, and yet was perfectly conscious of the loss of memory. He was sensible of impressions of all kinds from the senses, and therefore looked out of the window, although rather dark, to see if he could be made sensible of the situation of the house. The loss of memory gradually went off, and in less than half an hour his memory was perfectly recovered." This might possibly be connected with a gouty habit to which Mr. Hunter was subject, though not at this time labouring under a paroxysm. The late Bishop of Landaff, Dr. Watson, gives a singular case of partial amnesia in his father, the result of an apoplectic attack. "I have heard him ask twenty times a-day," says Dr. Watson, "What is the name of the lad that is at college?" (my elder brother); and yet he was able to repeat, without a blunder, hundreds of lines out of classic authors. And hence, there is no reason for discrediting the story of a German statesman, a Mr. Von B. related in the seventh volume of the Psycological Magazine, who having called at a gentleman's house, the servants of which did not know him, was under the necessity of giving in his name; but unfortunately at that moment he had forgotten it, and excited no small laughter by turning round to a friend who accompanied him, and saying with great earnestness, "Pray tell me who I am, for I cannot recollect."
From severe suffering of the head in many fevers a great inroad is frequently made upon the memory, and it is long before the convalescent can rightly put together all the ideas of his past life. Such was one of the effects of the plague at Athens, as we learn from Thucydides; "and many, on recovery, still experienced such any extraordinary oblivion of all things that they knew neither themselves nor their friends." A few years ago a man with a brain-fever was taken into St. Thomas's Hospital, who as he grew better spoke to his attendants, but in a language they did not understand. A Welsh milk-woman going by accident into the ward, heard him, answered him and conversed with him. It was then found that the patient was by birth a Welshman, but had left his native land in his youth, forgotten his native dialect, and used English for the last thirty years. Yet, in consequence of this fever he had now forgotten the English tongue, and suddenly recovered the Welsh.
Boerhaave, however, gives a still more extraordinary instance of oblivion in the case of a Spanish tragic author who had composed many excellent pieces, but so completely lost his memory in consequence of an acute fever, that he forgot not only the languages he had formerly learnt, but even the alphabet; and was hence under the necessity of beginning to read again. His own poems and compositions were shown to him, but he could not he persuaded that they were his production. Afterwards, however, he began once more to compose verses; which had so striking a resemblance to his former writings that he at length became convinced of his being the author of them.—From the Doctor.