On aphasia, or loss of speech in cerebral disease / by Frederic Bateman, M.D.

  • Frederick Bateman
Date:
1869
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On aphasia, or loss of speech in cerebral disease / by Frederic Bateman, M.D. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    need hardly allude to the extremely important bearing they have upon the question at issue. With the view of obtain- ing some confirmation of the statement of the arrest of i development in the third frontal convolution of the micro- / cephali, I have consulted Mr. Marshall's extremely interestiug ' paper in the Philosophical Transactions for the year 1864, ^ in which he gives a detailed description of the frontal con- , volutions of a microcephalic woman and boy, neither of ■ whom possessed the power of articulation. In both these i ^ braras the frontal convolutions are described as being sia- gularly short and defective as compared with theu' wonder- ; fully tortuous and complex character in the perfect brain; j in fact, Mr. Marshall adds that they were far more simple than iu the orang's or the chimpanzee's brain. In only one of these microcephalic brains, however, was the want of development most apparent in the third frontal convolution. Further investigations would, therefore, seem necessary before admitting with Carl Vogt that the conformation of the micro- cephalic brain gives a direct support to the localisation of speech in the third left frontal convolution. As far back as 1827, M. BouiUaud instituted a series of experiments upon animals, with the view of determining the functions of the brain, and on several occasions he removed different portions of the cerebral lobes, without impairing sight or hearing; he also removed the entire hemispheres from a chicken, in whom the power of expressing pain by its peculiar cry was retained.* On one occasion he pierced with a gimlet the anterior part of the brain of a dog, from side to side, at a spot corresponding to the union of the anterior with the middle lobes—that is in the immediate neighbour- hood of Broca's region. The dog survived the mutilation, but was much less intelligent than before the operation, and A although he could utter cries of pain, he had entirely lost the ] / power of barking.f As far as the present inqiury is con- | cemed, I am aware that but little importance can be attached to these experiments, for there is little or no analogy between the cry of a chicken or the bark of a dog, and the artictdate speech of man; still, experiments of this kind may have an indirect bearing upon our subject, and it would be extremely * Kecherches experimentales sur les fonctions du cerveau. Journal de Phy- Biologie, torn, x., p. 49. t lUd, p. 85.