IDIOTS SAVANTS. 233 



Under tlie lieacling of aptitude for buffoonery, I have thought 

 proper to place such defectives as evince a talent for wit and 

 humor of a low order, as is instanced in some of the historical 

 court fools and buffoons. 



After this short preface regarding the nature of the cases it is 

 proposed to include in a description of idiots savants, examples of 

 each kind will be cited under the appropriate caption. 



Arithmetical Faculty. Precocity and an extraordinary 

 power of the faculty of mental arithmetic have been frequently 

 noted in idiots. 



Dr. Plowe described an idiot with little use of language, yet 

 with astonishing power of reckoning. If one's ag were told him, 

 he would give the number of minutes one had lived in a very 

 short time. 



Guggenbuehl observed an imbecile at Salzburg who would 

 solve the most difficult problems in mental arithmetic with in- 

 credible rapidity. At one time the attempt was made to induce 

 him to become a teacher of arithmetic, but as he could not under- 

 stand his solutions of problems it was found impossible for him 

 to explain them to others. 



Atkinson noted an idiot woman with arithmetical faculty in 

 excess whose only delight was to be occupied with questions of 

 number. 



Ireland mentions a boy at Earlswood with the arithmetical 

 faculty. He could add and multiply three figures by three figures 

 with lightning rapidity. 



In a valuable study of Arithmetical Prodigies in the American 

 Journal of Psychology (April, 1891), E. W. Scripture has collected 

 thirteen examples of this aptitude. Six of these (Ampere, Gauss, 

 Archbishop Whately, George Bidder, Safford, and Wallis) were 

 men of eminence or genius who exhibited extraordinary precocity 

 or aptitude in mathematics. The remaining seven cases are prop- 

 erly classified under the heading of this paper. 



Tom Fuller, born in 1710, known as the Virginia calculator, 

 was a native African, never knew how to read or write, but had 

 phenomenal powers in arithmetic. Asked how many seconds in 

 a year and a half, he responded in two minutes, 47,304,000. Asked 

 how many seconds a man had lived who was 70 years 17 days 12 

 hours old, he answered in a minute and a half, 2,210,500,800. 



Jedediah Buxton, an Englishman, born in 1702, was excessively 

 stupid as a child, never learned to write his own name, had not 

 even common intelligence in the ordinary matters of life, and 

 whose mind never reached a development beyond that of a boy 

 of ten years, was a marvelous mathematician. 



Zerah Colburn, born in Vermont in 1804, was exhibited from 

 the age of six as a mathematical prodigy. He was a backward 



