The disorders of speech.

  • Wyllie, John, 1914-
Date:
1894
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The disorders of speech. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by UCL Library Services. The original may be consulted at UCL (University College London)

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    in training her to pronounce pa, ba, ma, ta, da, na; but as yet she cannot muster courage to pronounce these syllables to the doctors. She is sometimes mischievous: making inarticulate noises during prayers in the wards, and occasionally waking up, too early in the morning, patients who are friendly to her. On these occasions she has once cr twice cried, Get up, Ba. The most surprising inci- dent in connexion with this case occurred a few days ago. It was the sudden pronunciation of two bad words, when the patient, in the bath-room, had some water thrown over her by another girl. The words were, You d d b !! During the last few days, this patient has been heard practising, for her own amuse- ment, the pronunciation of the first of these two bad words; and on one or two occasions, when slightly annoyed, she has emitted i both of them again. She has also once, from the opposite side of the ward, called to the nurse, Here—come here. Her sister, aged '. eleven, who is also a patient in this ward, and who is possessed of good intelligence, states that the patient was never, at home, heard to utter either the words Come here or the expression before- mentioned. She is now acquiring other new words. To-day she said, Go hame; and she repeated the word hame to me quite distinctly. it Dr Charlton Bastian1 records a case in some respects similar to this. Patient was a boy who was subject to fits in childhood, till about the end of the second year. When nearly five years old, he had not spoken a single word, and physicians had been consulted as to his dumbness. But some months afterwards, on the occa- sion of an accident happening to one of his favourite toys, he exclaimed ' What a pity,' though he had never previously spoken a single word. The same words could not be repeated, nor were others spoken, notwithstanding all entreaties, for a period of two weeks. Thereafter the boy progressed rapidly, and speedily became talkative. When, at the age of eleven, he was seen by Dr Bastian, he spoke in an ordinary manner, without the least sign of impedi- ment or defect. This case recalled to Dr Bastian's mind the old story of the dumb son of Croesus, who, when at the siege of Sardis his father was threatened by a Persian soldier, is reported by Herodotus to have cried out suddenly, Oh, man, do not kill Croesus; also the story told by Aulus Gellius of the Samian 1 The Brain as an Organ of Mind, International Scientific Series, p. 606*.