The disorders of speech : speech in its relations to insanity / by John Wyllie.

  • Wyllie, John, 1914-
Date:
[1893?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The disorders of speech : speech in its relations to insanity / by John Wyllie. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.

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    Part Sirst. ORIGINAL COMMUNICATIONS. I.—THE DISORDERS OF SPEECH. By John Wyllie, M.D., F.R.C.P.E., Lecturer on Medicine in the Edinburgh School; one of the Ordinary Physicians to the Royal Infirmary, Edinburgh. Speech in its Relations to Insanity—Continued. {Continued from p. 715.) Reflex and Automatic Forms of Speech, exhibited by In- sane Patients.—(1.) Echolalia.—The simplest form of reflex speech is Echolalia. As we have already seen, echolalia is ex- hibited by all healthy children at a certain stage in the process of learning to speak. We have also seen that it is often retained permanently by such imbeciles as have never got beyond the first steps of that process. It consists simply in the echo-like repeti- tion of words that have just been heard. They are mechanically repeated as sounds, without any attempt being made to attach meanings to them. Every parrot that speaks does so by echolalia. Only a few parrots of very superior intelligence (see Darwin and others) have apparently advanced a step further, so as to be able to attach the right meanings to a few of their words and expres- sions. Words and phrases learned by echolalia are repeated by a parrot automatically, when it is in lively humour. If we wish to hear Echolalia practised by the insane, we must go to cases where the mind is decayed; in other words, we must go to cases of Dementia. In all forms of dementia, Echolalia is common. In my recent visits to the Royal Edinburgh Asylum, I found it typically exhibited by one of the patients who was the subject of adolescent dementia. I may refer again to the subject when I come to treat of the speech of dementia, and shall also have something to say about it in connexion with aphasia. (2.) Conventional Replies.—A higher development of reflex speech is also often met with in cases of dementia,—especially, it would appear, in cases of senile dementia. It consists in the giving of Stereotyped or Conventional Replies to ordinary conventional questions. “ How do you do ? ” says the questioner. “ Quite well, thank you,” says the answerer, though he may be