Chapter V: The Malay (17)

In 1774, Walsh made some very interesting experiments at the Isle of Re and La Rochelle, and clearly demonstrated this electric faculty in a paper _On the electric property of the torpedo_. In one of them he found that this fish could produce from forty to fifty shocks in the course of ninety minutes. The electrified individuals were isolated; and at each shock the animal gave, it appeared to labour under a sense of contraction, when its eyes sunk deep in their sockets.

The _trichiurus electricus_ of Linnaeus, the _rhinobatus electricus_ of Schneider, and the _gymnonotus electricus_ of _Surinam_, are the species of this singular fish with which experiments have chiefly been made. The _gymnonotus_ is a kind of eel, five or six feet in length, and its electric properties are so powerful that it can throw down men and horses. This animal is rendered more terrific from the velocity of his powers of natation, thus being able to discharge its thunder far and near. When touched with one hand the shock is slight; but when grasped with both, it is so violent that, according to the accounts of Collins Flag, the electric fluid can paralyze the arms of the imprudent experimentalist for several years. This electric action is analogous to that which is obtained by means of the fulminating plate, which is made of glass with metallic plates. Twenty-seven persons holding each other by the hands, and forming a chain, the extremities of which corresponded with the points of the fish's body, experienced a smart shock. These shocks are produced in quick succession, but become gradually weaker as the fluid appears to be exhausted. Humboldt informs us, that, to catch this fish, wild horses are driven into the water, and after having expended the fury and the vigour of the gymnonotus, fishermen step in and catch them either with nets or harpoons. Here we find that the irritable or sensorial power is exhausted through the medium of electricity. These phenomena may be attributed to an electric or Voltaic aura; and the organ of the animal that secretes the fluid resembles in its wonderful structure the Voltaic apparatus. Both the gymnote and the torpedo obey the laws of electricity, and their action is limited to the same conducting and non-conducting mediums. The electric sparks proceeding from the gymnote have been plainly seen in a dark chamber by Walsh, Pringle, Williamson, and others. The fish has four electric organs, two large and two small ones, extending on each side of the body from the abdomen to the end of the tail. These organs are of such a size that they constitute one third of the fish's bulk. Each of them is composed of a series of aponeurotic membranes, longitudinal, parallel, horizontal, and at about one line's distance from each other. Hunter counted thirty-four of these fasciculi in one of the largest. Other membranes or plates traverse these vertically, and nearly at a right angle; thus forming a plexus or net-work of numerous rhomboidal cells. Hunter found no less than two hundred and forty of these vertical plates in the space of eleven inches.

This apparatus, analogous to the Voltaic pile, is brought into action by a system of nerves rising from the spinal marrow, each vertebra giving out a branch; other branches, rising from a large nerve, running from the basis of the cranium to the extremity of the tail. All these ramifications are spread and developed in the cells of the electric organs, to transmit its powerful fluid, and strike with stupor or with death every animal that comes within its reach. Lacepede has justly compared this wonderful mechanism to a battery formed of a multitude of folio-electric pieces.

The electric organ of the _malapterus electricus_ is of a different formation. This fish, found in the Nile and in other rivers of Africa, is called by the Arabs _raash_ or thunder. In this animal the electric fluid extends all round the body, immediately under the integuments, and consists of a tissue of cellular fibres so dense, that it might be compared to a layer of bacon; but, when carefully examined, it consists of a series of fibres forming a complex net-work. These cells, like those in the gymnote, are lubricated with a mucous secretion. The nervous system of this intricate machinery is formed by the two long branches of the pneumo-gastric nerves, which in fishes usually run under each lateral line. Here, however, they approach each other on leaving the cranium, traversing the first vertebra.

Linnaeus had classed the torpedo in the genus _ray_, and hence called it _raia torpedo_. Later naturalists have restored to it its ancient name, as given by Pliny, and termed it _torpedo_, of which four species are described: the _T. narke_, or with five spots; the _T. unimaculata_, marked, as the name indicates, with one spot; the _T. marmorata_, and the _T. Galvanni_.

The ancients placed much faith in the medicinal properties of these fishes. Hippocrates recommends its roasted flesh in dropsies that follow liver affections. Dioscorides prescribed its application in cases of obstinate headaches and rheumatisms. Galen and other physicians recommend the application of the living animal; and Scribonius Largus states that the freedman Anteroes was cured of the gout by this practice. To this day, in Abyssinia, fever patients are tied down on a table, and a torpedo is applied to various parts of the body. This operation, it is affirmed, causes great pain, but is an infallible remedy.

MEMORY AND THE MENTAL FACULTIES.

This noble faculty, the proudest attribute of mankind, justly called the mother of the Muses, is subject to be impaired by various physical and moral causes, while a similar agency can sometimes restore it to its pristine energy, or develope its powers when sluggish and defective. Memory may be considered as the history of the past chronicled in our minds, to be consulted and called upon whenever circumstances stances or the strange complication of human interests demand its powerful aid. Its powers and nature widely differ, and these varieties depend upon education, natural capacities, mode of living, and pursuits. Thus memory has been divided into that faculty that applies to facts, and to that more superficial quality that embraces a recollection of things, to which must be added the memory of localities and words: "Lucullus habuit divinam quamdam memoriam rerum, verborum majorem Hortensius," said Cicero.

It is on this division that Aristotle founded his belief that the brute creation had not the faculty of reminiscence, although he allowed them to possess memory. According to his doctrine, reminiscence is the power of recollecting an object by means of a syllogistic chain of thought; an intellectual link with which animals do not seem to be gifted. Their memory appears solely to consist of the impressions received by the return of circumstances of a similar kind. Thus, a horse that has started on a certain part of a road will be apt to evince the same apprehension when passing the same spot. This is an instinctive fear, but not the result of calculation or the combination of former ideas. Reminiscence is the revival of memory by reflection; in short, the recovery or recollection of lost impressions.

The recollection of things or facts can alone bring forth a sound judgment. It implies a regular co-ordination of ideas, a catenation of reflections, in which circumstances are linked with each other. The chain broken, no conclusion can be drawn. Newton was wont to lose the thread of an important conversation when his mind was in search of an idea. This is the reason why the society of the learned is seldom entertaining to the generality of men. They are considered absent, while their brain is busily employed in pursuits perhaps of great importance; they must therefore be anything but agreeable to those who generally think through the medium of other persons' brains.

The brain is considered to be the seat of memory. When it is injured, remembrance is impaired; and, on the other hand, an accident has been known to improve the recollective faculties. A man remarkable for his bad memory fell from a considerable height upon his head; ever after he could recollect the most trifling circumstance. The effects of different maladies will also produce various results on this faculty. In some instances names of persons and things are completely forgotten or misapplied; at other times, words beginning with a vowel cannot be found. Sudden fright and cold have produced the same effects. An elderly man fell off his horse in crossing a ford in a winter's night; ever afterward he could not bring to his recollection the names of his wife and children, although he did not cease to recognise and love them as fondly as before the accident. Cold has been at all times considered injurious to memory; hence Paulus Aeginus called Oblivion the child of Cold.

In fevers, and a state of great debility, in a disordered condition of the digestive functions, and various affections of the head, we generally find that the attention cannot long be applied to any one subject or a continued train of thoughts; all past circumstances are readily forgotten, while passing occurrences are most acutely observed and felt, excepting in cases of delirium, when we have the perception of surrounding objects or receive an erroneous impression of their nature and agency. In many cases of this nature, we find that conversation produces great excitement and increases the evil, for the subject of such intercourse is generally misconceived and distorted through the medium of a morbid conception, while the past, the present, and the future are grouped in a confused and most heterogeneous and incoherent jumble.

Philosophers have endeavoured to fix the seat of memory in various portions of the brain. The ancients fancied that it was lodged in the posterior part of the cranium; having observed that when persons endeavoured to recollect any thing, they usually scratched the back part of the head. The Arabian physicians entertained a similar belief. Gratarola maintained that a great protuberance of the occiput indicated a good memory. Gall places it above the orbitary cavity of the eye, and even behind it. It has long been thought that persons with protuberant eyes had quick recollections. The physical condition of the brain has also been considered as materially affecting memory. What physiologists have called a moist brain was looked upon as unfavourable to its development; and it was therefore owing to the soft and pulpy condition of the cerebral organs in young children that the difficulty of impressing anything upon their minds arose; the same stupidity being observed in cases where water was supposed to be lodged in the brain. While this humid state was considered as injurious to memory, dryness of the organ was also esteemed an obstacle of a similar nature; and in old age it is by this state of siccity that failure in memory was attempted to be explained. This failure of memory as age advances may, however, be explained in a much more rational manner. Old people will bear in lively recollection the events that attended their childhood, their youth, and manhood; it is only recent occurrences that shed a transient impression on their minds. The cause of this may be considered to arise from the extreme _impressionability_ that prevails in early life, when every organ is prompt in responding to each call upon its powers; when the charms of novelty tinge with a brighter, yet a more lasting lustre, all our pleasurable sensations; when grief had not yet wrung the young heart till its fibres became callous to future pangs, when perfidy and ingratitude have shown us that all is vanity, and calm philosophy has tutored our passions in the school of Adversity. Reason now sits upon the judgment-seat, and all that we then can wonder at that is, at any time we could have wondered at any thing. Why, then, are we to seek for a material theory of the mind, when our daily experience shows us that it is under the influence of so many moral agents?

We have, moreover, convincing proof that the brain may be materially affected, without any deterioration of the mental faculties. Dr. Ferriar mentions a man in whom the whole of the right hemisphere, that is, one half of the brain, was found destroyed, but who retained all his faculties till the very moment of his death. Diemerbrook states another case where half a pound of matter was found in the substance of the brain. O'Hallaran relates the history of a man who had suffered such an injury of the head, that a large portion of his brain was removed on the right side; and extensive suppuration having taken place, an immense quantity of pus, mixed with large masses of the substance of the brain, was discharged at each dressing, through the opening. This went on for seventeen days, and it appears that nearly one half of the brain was thrown out, mixed with the matter, yet the man retained all his intellectual faculties to the very last moment of his dissolution, and through the whole course of the disease, his mind maintained uniform tranquillity. I attended a soldier at Braburne Lees, who had received a wound in the head during ball practice. The ball remained in the brain, and during three weeks large masses of brainular substance were brought away with pus. To the last day of his life he would relate, with every circumstantial particular, the neglect of the comrade by whom he had been wounded, and who fired while he was running to the target to mark the shots. It is somewhat singular, but suppuration of the brain is more offensive than the foulest ulcer, and it is with great difficulty that the pestilential effluvia can be tolerated. These cases plainly show that cerebral diseases have but little influence on the manifestations of the mind.

Amongst the many curious doctrines that have been started, to account for the operations of memory, some philosophers have compared it to the art of engraving; pretending that on those subjects where it requires much time and trouble to work an impression it was more durable, while it was only traced in a superficial manner on those brains that were ever ready and soft to receive this plastic influence. These several faculties they therefore compared to bronze or marble, to butter and to wax. Descartes, following up the phantasy, compared recollection to etching, and said that the animal spirits, being passed over the lines previously traced, brought them more powerfully to the mind; thus comparing the brain to the varnished copper-plate over which the engraver passes his mordants. Malebranche endeavoured to establish another doctrine, and compared our cerebral organ to an instrument formed of a series of fibres, so arranged, that when any recent emotion agitated one of these chords the others would immediately be thrown into vibration, renewing a past chain of ideas. As these chords became less flexible in old age, of course these vibrations were more difficult to obtain. Recollection was also considered an attribute of each molecule of the brain; and Bonnet endeavoured to count how many hundred ideas each molecule was capable of holding during a long life.

The controversies of learned psychologists on the relation of memory and judgment, indeed on the analogies that exist between our several mental faculties, have been as various as they are likely to prove interminable. Without offending these illustrious controversionalists, we may endeavour to enumerate these faculties, which, despite the ingenuity of theorists, appear in a practical point of view to exercise a wonderful influence upon each other. The first may be considered the faculty of _perception_, assisted by that of _attention_, to which we are indebted for our _ideas_. These are preserved and called into action from the rich stores of the mind by _memory_, justly called by Cicero the guardian of the other faculties. _Imagination_ is the faculty of the mind that represents the images of remembered objects as if they were actually present. _Abstraction_ forms general deductions from the foregoing faculties; while _judgment_ compares and examines the analogies and relations of the ideas of sense and of abstract notions. Finally, _reason_ draws inferences from the comparisons of judgment.

It is from the combination and the workings of these wonderful powers that _appetency_, _desires_, _aversions_, and _volition_ arise. _Appetency_ occasions _desires_, and these, when disappointed or satiated, inevitably usher in aversions and antipathies; although, as we shall see in another article, our antipathies are frequently instinctive, and not arising from any combination of the faculties I have enumerated.

Dr. Gall has considered these mental faculties as fundamental; and in this view he was certainly correct, since they may be considered the source whence all other distinct capacities are probably formed by particular habits of study and the nature of our pursuits, independently of those specific capacities which appear to be innate, and, according to the system of the phrenologists, organic. Every man possesses these fundamental faculties in a greater or less degree, according to the obtuseness or the energies of his mind; but it is absurd to conceive that specific capacities can be brought into action without the agency of those which are fundamental. Let us take the instinct to destroy life, the sentiment of property, metaphysical sagacity, or poetic talent,--in short, any one of Gall's various faculties; can we for one instant conceive that they are not under the influence of _perception_, _memory_, _imagination_, and _abstraction_, although they may not be properly ruled by _judgment_ and by _reason_? Instincts are equally under a similar influence, and are, according to circumstances, regulated by judgment in the various modes of life of animals. Phrenologists deny that instinct is a general faculty, and assert that it is an inherent disposition to activity possessed by every faculty, and that there are as many instincts as fundamental faculties. This is a postulation by no means clear. Instinct is an inherent disposition possessed by every animal, but not by every faculty. It is a disposition dependent upon the combination of all the mental faculties, according to the degree in which the animal may possess them: the reminiscences of animals prove it. We have instanced the horse, who endowed with the memory of locality, starts when passing by the same spot where he had started before. But here the memory of facts, _memoria realis_, and probably of words, _memoria verbalis_, are superadded to the _memoria localis_. The horse recollects the tree, the carrion, the object that startled him, whatever it might have been; but to this reminiscence are associated the chiding, the punishment he received from his rider. If this horse had possessed the faculties of _abstraction_, _judgment_, and _reason_, he would not have started, to avoid a reiteration of punishment; but he started under the impression of _perception_, _attention_, and _memory_. Wherever there does not exist a combination of the faculties, the intellectual ones may be considered imperfect. We certainly may have a greater perception and memory of one subject than of others. Thus, a man with a musical organisation will recollect any tune he may have heard, though it may not have attracted the _attention_ of one who "hath no music in his soul." We daily perceive different talents in children educated together. This is, no doubt, a strong corroboration of the doctrine of organic dispositions, which in reality no philosophic observer can deny; but to assert that these several dispositions are not regulated by what have been called the fundamental faculties, is, I apprehend, a position that cannot well be maintained; and we may be warranted in the conclusion that a particular faculty may be the result of the combined action of several faculties, if not of all; for, whether a man be a poet or a painter, a miser or a spendthrift, an affectionate father or an assassin, every one of the mental faculties that I have enumerated will to a certain extent be brought into action, however morbid that action may be.

All these disquisitions, however attractive they may be, when decked out with the fascination of the fancy, are the mere wanderings of metaphysical speculation, that never can be proved or refuted until we attain a knowledge of the nature and quality of the perceptions which material objects produce in the mind through the medium of the external senses. But while some of these speculations are idle and harmless, others may be fraught with danger, and occasion much misery to society. Let us for one moment conceive the possibility of our resolves and actions being dictated by a supposed phrenological knowledge,--a knowledge earnestly recommended to statesmen, and indeed to mankind in general;--what would be the result? A diplomatic bungler would be sent on an embassy, because a minister, or a sovereign, with a phrenological map before him, may fancy that he displays the faculty of circumspection, or the sense of things; and a chancellor of the exchequer be found in some needy adventurer who possessed the organ of relation of numbers!

I do not at all presume to invalidate the statements of Dr. Gall. The profession is highly indebted to him for his accurate description of the brain; and physiology must ever consider him as one of the brightest ornaments of science: but I do maintain, that to recommend his conclusions as a guide to society would be the most rash of visionary speculations; and, to my personal knowledge, no man was ever more mistaken in his estimate of the persons whom he met in society than the learned doctor himself. Of this I had frequent opportunities of convincing myself, when I met him in Paris in the circle of a Russian family which he daily visited. If I could admit, with a late ingenious writer, "that phrenology teaches the true nature of man, and that its importance in medicine, education, jurisprudence, and everything relating to society and conduct must be at once apparent," I should certainly agree with him in recommending its study to parents, judges, and juries; but for the present, I am inclined to believe that, although it may prove a most interesting and valuable pursuit to the physiologist, it is by no means calculated to be the _vade mecum_ of any liberal man.

The memory of various persons is amazing, and has been remarked in ancient times with much surprise. Cyrus knew the name of every soldier in his army. Mithridates, who had troops of twenty-two nations serving under his banners, became a proficient in the language of each country. Cyneas, sent on a mission to Rome by Pyrrhus, made himself acquainted in two days with the names of all the senators and the principal citizens. Appius Claudius and the Emperor Hadrian, according to Seneca, could recite two thousand words in the order they had heard them, and afterwards repeat them from the end to the beginning. Portius Latro could deliver all the speeches he had hastily written without any study.

Esdras is stated by historians to have restored the sacred Hebrew volumes by memory when they had been destroyed by the Chaldeans; and, according to Eusebius, it is to his sole recollection that we are indebted for that part of Holy Writ. St. Anthony, the Egyptian hermit, although he could not read, knew the whole Scripture by heart: and St. Jerome mentions one Neopolien, an illiterate soldier, who, anxious to enter into monastic orders, learned to recite the works of all the fathers, and obtained the name of the Living Dictionary of Christianity; while St. Antonius, the Florentine, at the age of sixteen, could repeat all the Papal Bulls, the Decrees of Councils, and the Canons of the Church, without missing a word. Pope Clement V. owed his prodigious memory to a fall on his head. This accident at first had impaired this faculty; but by dint of application he endeavoured to recover its powers, and he succeeded so completely, that Petrarch informs us he never forgot anything that he had read. John Pico de la Mirandola, justly considered a prodigy, could maintain a thesis on any subject,--_de omni re scibili_,--when a mere child; and when verses were read to him, he could repeat them backward. Joseph Scaliger learned his Homer in twenty-one days, and all the Latin poets in four months. Haller mentions a German scholar, of the name of Muller, who could speak twenty languages correctly. Our own literary annals record many instances of this wonderful faculty.

To fortify this function when naturally weak, or to restore it to its pristine energy when enfeebled by any peculiar circumstances, has been long considered an essential study both by the philosopher and the physician. Reduced to an art, this pursuit has received the name of _Mnemonia_; and at various periods professors of it, more or less distinguished by their success, have appeared in the several capitals of Europe.

It has been justly observed, that remembrance is to the past what our sensations are to the present, and our busy conjectures to futurity. Memory gives a lesson to mankind, by stripping past events of their _prestige_; thus enabling us to view what passes around us with a more calm and philosophic resignation, while at the same time it tends to protect us, in the career lying before us, against the many contingencies that are likely to impede our path. Although it might appear desirable that we could obliterate from the mind the painful scenes of our past life, yet the wisdom of the Creator has deemed this faculty as necessary to our happiness as our utter ignorance of our future destiny. For let us mistake not by a hasty glance on this most important subject; the remembrance of past sufferings is not always painful. On the contrary, there is that which is holy in our past sorrows, that tends to produce a calm, nay a pleasurable sensation of gratitude. St. Theresa beautifully expressed this hallowed feeling when she exclaimed, "Where are those blissful days when I felt so unhappy!" _Et olim meminisse juvabit._

Memory depends in a great measure on the vivacity with which these past scenes are retraced--I may say re-transmitted to the mind, in ideal forms "as palpable" as those that may be present. Therefore reminiscence may be said to result from a connexion between ideas and images recalled into being by a regular succession of expressive signs that the brute creation do not possess. Those characteristic signs and images that are generally circumstantial are co-ordained and classified in the mind, and tend materially in weak memories to produce an artificial mode of recollecting the past. This faculty is therefore matured by habit. A literary man, whose library is properly classed, will find the book he wants in the dark. The classification of his books is ever present to his mind. These circumstantial signs are always remembered by a sort of association in our ideas. Thus Descartes, who fondly loved a girl who squinted, was always affected with strabismus when speaking of her. When we first see a person in any particular costume, the individual is clad in the same apparel whenever brought to our minds, even after a lapse of many years, when fashion has banished even from general recollection the costume that memory thus retraces individually. From these observations it has been concluded that the most probable method of improving memory would be to regulate these associations by a proper classification. One link of this ideal chain will naturally lead to another. Many military men, to recollect any number, will associate it with that of a regiment, so far at least as the number of regiments extend; and the recollection of this particular regiment will not only bring to his mind the number of the house he seeks, but various other circumstances connected both with the regiment and the number. For instance, I wish to recollect No. 87 in a certain street. I had, when the number was mentioned to me, attached it to the 87th regiment; and instantly I not only recollect that the 87th regiment are the Irish Fusiliers, but that they took an eagle at Barossa, where they distinguished themselves, and that the figure of that eagle is borne upon all the appointments of the corps. At the same moment, with the rapidity of lightning I recollect all the circumstances of the battle of Barossa; the different conversations I may have had at various times with the officers of the 87th; the town, the camp, the bivouac where I last had met them. Thus are innumerable circumstances instantaneously converging in a mental focus while simply seeking for the lodgings of an individual. This may be called the memory of locality, since it is locality that revives the recollection of it.

This train of thought has also been called the memory of association, and associations have been referred to three classes:--

I. Natural or philosophical associations.

II. Local or incidental associations.

III. Arbitrary or fictitious associations.

Dr. Abercrombie has admirably treated this subject, and I refer the reader to his interesting work.[44] The poet Simonides is said to have been the founder of the mnemonic art. Cicero informs us, that, supping one night with a noble Thessalian, he was called out by two of his acquaintance, and while in conversation with them the roof of the house fell in, and crushed to death all the guests he had left at table. When the bodies were sought for, they were so disfigured by the accident that they could not be recognised even by their nearest friends; but Simonides identified them all, by merely recollecting the seats they had held at the banquet.

Cicero and Quintilian adopted his system, connecting the ideas of a discourse with certain figures. The different parts of the hilt of a sword, for instance, might regulate the details of a battle; the different parts of a tree associate the relations of a journey. Other mnemonic teachers recommended the division of ideas to correspond with the distribution of a house; while some of them refreshed the memory by associations connected with the fingers and other parts of the hand. Cicero expresses himself plainly on this subject: "Qui multa voluerit meminisse, multa sibi loca comparet: oportet multos comparare locos, ut in multis locis multas imagines collocemus."

The celebrated Feinagle who delivered lectures on memory had adopted the system of aiding the memory by dates, changing the figures in the dates into the letters of the alphabet corresponding to them in number. These letters were then formed into a word to be in some way associated with the date to be remembered--for instance--Henry IV., King of England, was born in the year 1366. This date changed into letters makes _mff_ which was very easily changed into the word _muff_--the method is not so obvious of establishing with this a relation to Henry IV., but Hen_ry_ IV., says Mr. Feinagle, means four hens, and we put them in a muff, one in each corner, and no one after hearing this is in any danger of forgetting the date of Henry IV.'s birth.

Learning poetry by heart in infancy and youth is perhaps one of the best methods of improving memory, since it lays the early foundation of a classification of words and ideas. Virgil has justly said, "Numeros memini, si verba tenerem." To abridge, resume, and analyze what we have read or heard, is another practice highly beneficial; for, the more clearly we comprehend a subject, the deeper will it remain engraved in our memory. Reading what we wish to recollect before going to bed will materially assist the memory. We sleep over the impressions we have received, and dreams alone can weaken them. From this very reason we can write with more facility upon subjects that require much mental exertion in the morning, fasting, when the mind has not been disturbed by the events of the day, and when the functions of digestion have not drawn upon our faculties, too frequently with the lavishness of a spendthrift. It is somewhat singular, but, despite the interruption of dreams, our ideas are matured during our sleep. Quintilian expresses himself as follows on this subject: "Mirum dictu est quantum nox interposita adferat firmitatis, sive quiescit labor ille cujus sibi ipsa fatigatio obstabat, sive maturatur ac coquatur, seu firmissima ejus pars est recordatio. Quae statim referri non poterant, contexuntur postero die, confirmatque memoriam idem illud tempus quod esse in causa solet oblivionis."

Memory is subject to be variously disturbed in certain maladies. There is an affection called _amnesia_, in which it utterly fails, and another termed _dysmnesia_, when it is defective. Failure of memory is generally more manifest on some subjects than on others. Salmuth relates the case of a man who had forgotten to pronounce words, although he could write them. Another person could only recollect the first syllables. An old man had forgotten all the past events of his life, unless recalled to his recollection by some occurrence; yet every night he regularly recollected some one particular circumstance of his early days. A curious anecdote is recorded of an elderly gentleman who had fallen into the meshes of an artful courtesan, and who frequently took his own wife for this insidious acquaintance, frequently saying to her, "Madam, I feel that I am doing wrong by devoting to you so much of my time, for, when a man has a wife and children, such conduct is unpardonable;" and, after this polite observation, he took up his hat, and would have walked off, had not his wife, wise enough not to manifest displeasure, contrived to undeceive him.

Dietrich mentions a patient who remembered facts, but had totally forgotten words; while another could write, although he had lost the faculty of reading. Old men are frequently met with who confound substantives, and will call their snuff-box a cane, and their watch a hat. In other cases letters are transposed, and a musician has called his _flute_ a _tufle_. Dr. Abercrombie relates the case of a gentleman who uniformly called his snuff-box a hogshead. In Virginia he had been a trader in tobacco, so that the transition from snuff to tobacco, and from tobacco to a hogshead seemed to be natural. Another person, affected in a similar manner, always called for paper when he wanted coals, and coals when he needed paper. Others are known to invent names and unintelligible words. Some curious anagrams have been made by these irregularities. John Hunter was suddenly attacked with a loss of memory, which is thus related by Sir Everard Home: "He was at the time on a visit at the house of a friend. He did not know in what part of the house he was, not even the name of the street when he was told, nor where his own house was. He had not a conception of anything existing beyond the room in which he was, and yet he was perfectly conscious of the loss of memory. He was sensible of impressions of all kinds from the senses, and therefore looked out of the window, although rather dark, to see if he could be made sensible of the situation of the house. The loss of memory gradually went off, and in less than half an hour his memory was perfectly recovered." Such momentary accidents I have frequently observed in gouty patients; and for a second or two I have myself experienced the sensation, which was for the moment of a most alarming nature. Hunter was subject to arthritic attacks.

Corvinus Messala lost his memory for two years, and in his old age could not remember his own name. This is an occurrence by no means uncommon; and I knew a person in perfect health who could only recollect his name by writing it. We frequently see individuals who, although they are generally correct orthographers, cannot sometimes spell a simple conjunction. An anecdote is related in the Psychological Magazine of a German statesman, who having called at a gentleman's house, the servants of which not knowing him, was asked for his name, which he had, however, so totally forgotten, that he was under the necessity of turning round to a friend and saying with great earnestness, "Pray tell me who I am, for I cannot recollect."

Cases are recorded of the forgetfulness of a language constantly spoken, while one nearly forgotten from want of practice was recovered. A patient in St. Thomas's Hospital, who had been admitted with a brain-fever, on his recovery spoke an unknown language to his attendants. A Welsh milkman happened to be in the ward, and recognised his native dialect; although the patient had left Wales in early youth, had resided thirty years in England, and had nearly forgotten his native tongue. Boerhaave relates a curious case of a Spanish poet, author of several excellent tragedies, who had so completely lost his memory in consequence of an acute fever, that he not only had forgotten the languages he had formerly cultivated, but even the alphabet, and was obliged to begin again to learn to read. His own former productions were shown to him, but he could not recognise them. Afterwards, however, he began once more to compose verses, which bore so striking a resemblance to his former writings, that he at length became convinced of his having been the author of them.

Dr. Abercrombie relates the case of an aged gentleman, who, in an attack of the head, had almost forgotten the English language, and expressed himself in a mixed dialect of French, Italian, Spanish, German, and Turkish. Having been some time afterwards severely burnt about the head, by setting fire to the curtains of his bed, he was observed to make use of some English words; this being followed by a course of blistering, he continued to speak more English, but only occasionally and in very short sentences. These were sometimes correctly applied, but at other times most erroneously; for instance, having been taken to see a small house, he observed, "it is very neat, but it is a very little child."

Dr. Beattie mentions the case of a clergyman who, on his recovery from an apoplectic attack, had exactly forgotten a period of four years; and Dr. Abercrombie records a lady who had thus forgotten ten or twelve years of her life. Wepfer mentions a gentleman, who on recovery from an apoplectic attack, was found to know nobody and remember nothing. After several weeks he began to know his friends, to remember words, to repeat the Lord's Prayer, and to read a few words of Latin, rather than German, his native language. When urged to read more than a few words at a time, he said that he formerly understood those things, but now did not. After some time he began to pay more attention to what was passing around him, but while thus making slight and gradual progress, he was, after a few months, suddenly cut off by another attack of apoplexy. Dr. Beattie relates the case of a gentleman who, after a blow on the head, lost his knowledge of Greek, and did not appear to have lost any thing else.

Loss of memory has been observed as a frequent occurrence after the prevalence of pestilential diseases. Thucydides relates, that after the plague of Athens several of the inhabitants forgot their own names and those of their parents and friends. After the disastrous retreat of the French army in Russia, and the disease which swept away so many of their troops at Wilna, many of the survivors had no recollection of country or of home. Injuries of the head appear to occasion different results. This circumstance was observed by the ancients. Valerius Maximus relates the case of an Athenian, who, being struck on the head with a stone, forgot all literary attainments, although he preserved the recollection of other matters. A man wounded with a sword in the eye completely forgot Greek and Latin, in which he had formerly been a proficient. A young man, having fallen off his horse and contused his head, lost his memory to such an extent, that he would repeat a question a hundred times over, although the very first interrogation had been answered. He had not the slightest recollection of his accident. Epileptic and paralytic attacks frequently usher in this melancholy result, which has also been often observed after child-birth.

Dr. Abercrombie knew a lady who was seized with an apoplectic fit while engaged at cards; the attack took place on a Thursday evening--she lay in a state of stupor on Friday and Saturday, and recovered her consciousness rather suddenly on Sunday. The first words she then uttered were, "What is trump?"

Dr. Conolly mentions a young clergyman who, when on the point of being married, suffered an injury of the head, by which his understanding became impaired. He lived in this condition to the advanced age of eighty, and to the last day of his existence, spoke of nothing but his approaching wedding, expressing impatience for the arrival of the happy day.

A singular instance of forgetfulness is related of a lady who had been united to a man she loved, after much opposition on the part of her family, and who lost her memory after the birth of a child. She could not be made to recollect any circumstance that had occurred since her marriage; nor could she recognise her husband or her infant, both of whom she maintained were utter strangers to her. At first she repulsed them with apparent horror, but was at last, by the entreaties of her family, induced to believe that she was a wife and a mother; and although she yielded to their solicitations, yet for years she could not persuade herself that their assertions were correct, as she actually was convinced "against her will." In this instance disease not only destroyed memory, but affection.

The case of Dr. Broussonnet was remarkable. An accident he had met with in the Pyrenees brought on an apoplectic attack. When he recovered, he could neither write nor pronounce correctly any substantives or personal names either in French or Latin, while adjectives and epithets crowded in his mind. Thus, when speaking of a person, he would describe his appearance, his qualities, and, without pronouncing the word "coat," would name its colour. In his botanical pursuits he could point out the form and colour of plants, but had not the power of naming them. A Parisian merchant, after severe losses, experienced such a failure in recollection, that he was constantly guilty of the most absurd anachronisms;--would talk of the battles of Louis the Fourteenth with Alexander the Great, and describe Charles the Twelfth ascending triumphantly Mount Valerian; and one night, after witnessing the performance of Talma, could not be persuaded that he had not applauded Lekain.

Sudden fright has also obliterated this faculty. Artemidorus lost his memory from the terror inspired by treading on a crocodile. Bleeding has produced the same effects; while, on the other hand, blood-letting has restored an absent man to perfect recollection. Various venenose substances have also been said to produce amnesia. History records several instances of the kind. The soldiers of Anthony, on their return from the Parthian war, were attacked with loss of memory after eating some poisonous plants on their march. Bamba, king of the Goths, was suddenly deprived of all recollection after taking a draught presented to him by Eringius. Plater and Baldinger attributed a similar accident to the use of hemlock and arsenic. Narcotics, no doubt, may produce similar effects, but they will be of a transient nature; I do not know that this injurious power has been detected in any other productions, as the cases related by writers are not supported by sufficient authority to be entitled to unqualified belief.

The cause of these affections will most probably ever be unknown. Equally futile have proved all the endeavours to ascertain in what part of the brain memory is seated, since we have found some physiologists lodging this wonderful faculty in the posterior, and others in the anterior portion of the cranium. I apprehend that we might torture the brute creation, from the elephant down to the lowest reptile, for centuries, without being able to ascertain this point; and even could we attain this information, _cui bono_? Would it protect this privileged quarter of the cerebral organ from the action of external agency, or restore it to its healthy functions when diseased? The mode in which our mental faculties are developed is an impenetrable mystery; and, instead of vainly endeavouring to raise the mystic veil to gratify our curiosity, or rather our vanity, let us endeavour to apply these functions to the use for which they were intended by the allwise Creator, and exert them for the purpose of increasing the prosperity, or at any rate in endeavouring to diminish the sum of sufferings of his creatures, whether they be our fellow-men or the divers races that are submitted to our capricious power.

AFFECTIONS OF THE SIGHT.

The different terms applied to the various morbid affections of vision have been frequently misconceived, and consequently have occasioned much confusion in their application. Those vitiated conditions which are usually noticed may be classed as follows:

I. Night sight.
II. Day sight.
III. Long sight.
IV. Short sight.
V. Skew sight.
VI. False sight.

_Night sight_, specifically called _Lucifuga_, was also termed _Nyctalopia_, from [Greek: nyx], _night_, and [Greek: ops], _eye_; it was also known as the _Noctem amans_. This affection was thus named in consequence of the person labouring under it being only able to see at night, or in a deep shade; hence the first name: while nyctalopia has been used by most modern writers in the opposite sense of _night-sight ache_, agreeably, according to Mason Good's observations, to the technical or implied meaning of _opia_, in which case it always applies to a diseased vision; whence nyctalopia has been made to import day sight, instead of night sight.

This disease appears to be dependent upon a peculiar irritability of the retina, produced by two different causes,--a sudden exposure to a stronger light than the eye has been accustomed to bear, or a deficiency of the black pigment which lines the choroid tunic. If the iris be weak and torpid, it is enlarged; if strong and contracted, diminished. Thus, those who from peculiar circumstances reside in dark caverns and subterraneous abodes, or who have long been confined in obscure dungeons, labour under the first of these causes; instances of which were observed in two of the captives liberated from the Bastille in 1789.

Ramazzini informs us that this affection is commonly observed among the Italian peasants, amongst whom he was not able to trace any other peculiarity than an enlargement of the pupil. This state of the vision, however, has been attributed to the peculiar brightness of the Italian sky, its clear atmosphere, and the relaxing warmth of the temperature. The Italian peasants are therefore constantly exposed to all those causes that tend to debilitate the iris, while they irritate the retina. We thus find these causes acting with renewed power at the season when the disease usually makes its attack,--the vernal equinox, when an increased flood of solar rays breaks on them. Such is the dimness that this brightness produces, that the peasantry frequently lose their way in the fields in the glare of day; but on the approach of night they can see distinctly. Hence are they obliged to remain for some weeks in the shade to recover their sight.

A deficiency of the black pigment of the eye is occasionally found in persons of a very fair complexion and light hair. This affection is therefore common in the Albinoes. This circumstance arises from the whiteness of the eyelashes and hair, whereby the retina is deprived of the natural shade that softens the light in its descent. This debilitated race generally inhabit warm and damp regions; they are seldom long-lived, and frequently low-spirited and morose. The iris is of a pink colour, and this circumstance, added to the constant winking that the weakness of the organ occasions, gives them a distressing appearance. In horses, this want of the dark pigment constitutes what is called the _wall eye_.

Acuteness in night vision is natural to most, if not to all, animals that prowl in the dark. In the feline genus we observe that the iris can be contracted much closer than in mankind, when exposed to a vivid glare; but they also expand to a much greater degree when obscurity sets in. Owls, bats, and many insects, possess a similar faculty.

_Day sight_, the nyctalopia of some authors, is said to be endemic in some countries,--Poland, the West Indies, Brazil, and various intertropical regions. This affection arises from causes totally different from the former one. Here the eye is habitually exposed to too great a flood of light, whence the retina becomes torpid. It has been said to be endemic in some districts of France, particularly in the neighbourhood of Roche Guyon, on the banks of the Seine; but here the soil is of a dazzling white: and as it makes its attacks in the spring, and continues for three months, it is supposed to arise from the keenness of the reflected light, after the dreary winter months.

This disease has also been commonly observed in Russia, especially in the summer, when the eye is exposed, with scarcely any intermission, to the constant action of light, as the sun dips but little below the horizon, and there is scarcely any interval of darkness. Hens are subject to this affection, and cannot see to pick up their food in the dusk of the evening. The complaint is, from this circumstance, called _hen blindness_.

Dr. Heberden has communicated the following curious case of this species of affection: "A man about forty years old had in the spring a tertian fever, for which he took too small a quantity of bark, so that the returns of it were weakened without being removed. Three days after his last fit, being then employed on board a ship in the river, he observed at sun-setting that all objects began to look blue, which blueness gradually thickened into a cloud; and not long after he became so blind as hardly to perceive the light of a candle. The next morning about sunrising his sight was restored as perfectly as ever. When the next night came on, he lost his sight again in the same manner, and this continued for twelve days and nights. He then came ashore, where the disorder of his eyes gradually abated, and in three days was entirely gone. A month after he went on board another ship, and after three days' stay in it the night blindness returned as before, and lasted all the time of his remaining in the ship, which was nine nights. He then left the ship, and his blindness did not return while he was upon land. Some little time afterwards he went into another ship, in which he continued for ten days, during which time the blindness returned only two nights, and never afterwards." It appears, however, that this individual had previously laboured under an affection produced by the use of lead, which had left him in a state of much nervous debility. Notwithstanding this circumstance, this case clearly proves that the affection is liable to be increased and brought on by local influence.

_Long sight._ In this species of vision the iris is habitually dilated, and not easily stimulated into contraction. Several varieties of this affection have been observed. Dr. Wells, in the Philosophical Transactions, relates the case of a young person who, from a permanent dilatation of the pupil, saw near objects with much difficulty and confusion, but remote bodies with singular accuracy. The power of moving the upper lid was completely lost. This dilatation of the pupil, which may be artificially produced by the application of belladonna, can be remedied by the use of convex glasses.

_Short sight._ In this case the iris is contracted, and the cornea, which in long sight is too much flattened, is too convex or polarised; therefore spectacles of an opposite character, and with concave glasses, become necessary. Mice are said to be short-sighted; hence the affection has been termed myopia or myopiasis, literally "mouse-sight."

_Skew sight_, or _sight askew_, is a condition of our vision only accurate when the object is placed obliquely, in consequence of some partial obfuscation of the cornea, frequently from slight scars, scarcely, if at all, observable. In this lateral vision the axis of the eye affected usually coincides with that of the sound eye. In squinting, on the contrary, the two axes do not coincide.