On aphasia, or loss of speech : and the localisation of the faculty of articulate language / by Frederic Bateman.

Date:
1870
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On aphasia, or loss of speech : and the localisation of the faculty of articulate language / by Frederic Bateman. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

    80/240 (page 64)
    It will be observed that in several of the following cases I have given the volumetric analysis of the principal solid ingredients of the urine. This, to some persons, may seem a work of supererogation; to those I would say that the diagnosis of cerebral disease is involved in so much obscurity, that the serious and conscientious observer is bound to avail himself of every collateral aid within his reach; and it cannot be other- wise than useful, systematically to calculate the amount of phosphorus and other constant or occasional solid ingredients of nervous tissue which are daily eliminated from the system. The following cases present various forms of the affection, from the uncomplicated pure form of aphasia— where there is simply abolition or suspension of speech without any paralytic or other morbid symptom—to the partial or even occasional impairment of tha< faculty; and here I would remark that in making investigations with the view of elucidating any obscure symptom or disease, the common error into which many observers fall, is to confine their attention to the con- sideration of typical cases only—cases where the symp- tom or disease is well marked and denned; whereas, as much or more information may sometimes be gained from the careful study of exceptional cases, and of cases where the particular symptom or disease is only slightly marked. Impressed with these views, I have for some time past made careful notes of all cases that have fallen under my observation, where the faculty of articulate language was affected in any way or degree, how- ever slight, deeming it quite as useful to study cases where the lesion of speeoh is a mere' cpiphenomenon,