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

  • Bateman, Frederick, Sir, 1824-1904.
Date:
1868
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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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    The lie plus ultra of pathological topography, however, -was reserved to M. Broca, who defines the seat of lesion in aphasia to be the posterior part of the third frontal convolution of the left hemi- sphere! M. Broca's views are detailed at some length in the proceedings of the Paris Anatomical Society for 1801, and the following is a brief summary of the two cases upon which he has founded his somewhat startling theory. A man named Leborgne, 50 years of age, and epileptic, was ad- mitted into the surgical ward of M. Broca, at Bicetre, for phleg- monous erysipelas, occupying the whole of the right lower limb. When M. Broca questioned him about the origin of his disorder, he only answered by the monosyllable Tan,'''' repeated twice, and accompanied by a gesture of the left hand. On making inquiries, it transpired that this man had been an inmate of the hospital in another wing for twenty-one years ; that he had been the subject of epilepsy since infancy; that he had followed the occupation of a lastmaker up to the age of thirty, when he lost his speech, but no information could be elicited as to fl'hether the loss of speech had come on suddenly, or had been ushered in by any other symptom. On his admission at Bicetre he is stated to have been intelligent, understanding all that was said to him, and differing from a perfectly healthy man only in the loss of the faculty of articulate language, for whatever question was put to him, he invariably answered by the monosyllable Tan, which, with the exception of a coarse oath ( S— n— de D—composed his vocabulary. At the end of ten years, a new symptom showed itself in weakness in the motor power of the right arm, which gradually resulted in complete paralysis of the right side, and he had already been bedridden seven years when the occurrence of a surgical com- phcation rendered it necessary to transfer him to the ward of M. Broca, who, in describing his then condition, states that there was no distortion of face, the tongue was protruded straight, the move- ments of that organ being perfectly free in every direction ; masti- cation was unimpaired, but deglutition was effected with some difficulty, this being however due to commencing paralysis of the pharynx, and not to paralysis of the tongue, for it was only the third period of deglutition which was difficult; the voice was natural, and the functions of the bladder and rectum unimpaired. Tlie patient having died in six days, a careful post-mortem examination was made, when all the viscera were found healthy, with the exception of the encephalon; the muscles of the right upper and lower extremities, however, were in an advanced stage of fatty degeneration and shrivelled up. The bones of the cranium were somewhat increased in density, the dura mater thickened and very vascular, the pia mater considerably injected in certain places, and everywhere thickened, opaque, and infil- trated with yellowish plastic matter of the colour of pus, but which,