DISTURBANCES OF MEMORY 285 



training nor sufficient time to make an exhaustive 



o 



analysis of the case. Wolff's patient had been in the 

 hands of half a dozen specialists, and they discovered 

 only the peculiar writing motions that the patient used. 

 This of course led them to false conclusions. If the 

 analysis in such a case is incomplete, the results must 

 be misleading. 



3. It is worth while to compare the mental con- 

 dition of these patients with that of lower animals. 

 The two patients mentioned above forgot immedi- 

 ately what was said to them. If the correct associa- 

 tion did not occur to them after a short time, the 

 question had to be repeated. There was, however, 

 one exception. Objects or occurrences which were 

 intimately connected with their instincts they remem- 

 bered for instance, money matters. We can imagine 

 that conditions maybe similar in lower animals e. g., 

 wasps, which either forget easily or only seem to re- 

 member certain things which are intimately connected 

 with their instincts e. g., the location of the nest. 



A qualitative difference has been supposed to exist 

 between the associative memory of man and that of 

 animals. These patients may help us to arrive at a 

 decision in regard to this question. When the patient 

 was asked the colour of blood, the question aroused 

 associations which caused him to provide the visual 

 impression of blood. If we compare with this the 

 fact that a wasp is no longer able to find its nest 

 when the latter is covered with a small blossom, we 

 might imagine that there is a qualitative difference 



