Responsibility in mental disease / by Henry Maudsley.

  • Henry Maudsley
Date:
1892
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Responsibility in mental disease / by Henry Maudsley. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    300/356 (page 264)
    body, individuality is altogether extinguished, and that which was an individual blends with external nature. I have described specially the phenomena of senile dementia, but there are other conditions of mental im- pairment produced by disease which it would be too long a task to describe here : apoplexy, for example, may occasion all sorts and degrees of loss of memoiy, with weakness of mind, the study of which is well fitted to throw light upon the obscure relations of body and mind. There is, however, one peculiar state produced sometimes by an apopleptic attack of which I may say a few words— namely, an entire loss of the faculty of speech. In this condition, which is known as Aphasia, there is no loss of power over the muscles of speech, no paralysis of them; but there is a complete forgetfulness of the words which are the expressions of the thoughts ; the person appears to understand in some cases all that is said to him, but he cannot answer a word; like Zacharias when he had seen the vision in the temple, he is speechless; when he attempts to speak, he either makes a vain movement of his mouth, or utters an unmeaning sound. In other cases the person does not forget words altogether, but substitutes wrong words for those which he wishes to use; wanting bread, for example, he asks for his boots, and is annoyed and angry when his boots are brought to him. When the right word is suggested to him, he may correct himself, or may show by the expression of his face that he perfectly understands it. This condition is usually associated with paralysis of the right side of the body, and has been supposed to be produced by disease