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._
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