460 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



or heard, and altogether resembled a child more than a grown 

 person. 



In a short time she became rather more sedate, and her attention 

 could be longer fixed on one object. Her memory too, so entirely lost 

 as far as regarded previous knowledge, was soon found to be most 

 acute and retentive with respect to everything she saw or heard subse- 

 quently to her disorder ; and she has by this time recovered many of 

 her former acquirements, some with greater, others with less facility. 

 With regard to these, it is remarkable that though the process followed 

 in regaining many of them apparently consisted in recalling them to 

 mind with the assistance of her neighbors, rather than in studying 

 them anew, yet even now she does not appear to be in the smallest 

 degree conscious of having possessed them before. 



At first it was scarcely possible to engage her in conversation ; in 

 place of answering a question she repeated it aloud in the same words 

 in which it was put, and even long after she came to answer questions 

 she constantly repeated them once over before giving her reply. At 

 first she had very few words, but she soon acquired a great many, and 

 often strangely misapplied them. She did this, however, for the most 

 part in particular ways ; she often, for instance, made one word answer 

 for all others, which were in any way allied to it ; thus in place of 

 "tea," she would ask for "juice," and this word she long used for 

 liquids. For a long time also in expi-essing the qualities of objects, 

 she invariably, where it was possible, used the words denoting the 

 very opposite of what she intended. And thus she would say " white " 

 in place of " black," " hot " for " cold," etc. She would often also talk 

 of her arm when she meant her leg, her eye when she meant her tooth, 

 etc. She now generally uses her words with propriety, although she 

 is sometimes apt to change their terminations, or compose new ones of 

 her own. 



She has as yet recognized no person, not even her nearest connec- 

 tions ; that is to say, she has no recollection of having seen or known 

 them previously to her illness, though she is aware of having seen them 

 since, and calls them either by their right names or by those of her own 

 giving ; but she knows them only as new acquaintances, and has no 

 idea in what relation they stand to herself. She has not seen above a 

 dozen people since her illness, and she looks on these as all that she 

 has ever known. 



Among other acquirements she has recovered that of reading ; but 

 it was requisite to begin her with the alphabet, as she at first did not 

 know a single letter. She afterward learned to form syllables and 

 small words, and now she reads tolerably well, and has shown herself 

 much interested in several stories previously unknown to her, which she 

 has read since her recovery. The reacquisition of her reading was 

 eventually facilitated by singing the words of familiar songs, from the 

 printed page, while she played on the piano. In learning to write she 



