202 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



effect of education and habit on the cerebral elements. This state 

 lasted, some weeks, and the " recollection " of what had been " forgot- 

 ten," to use conventional terms, was slow and painful, needing, or, as I 

 would now say, seeming to require, a process of reeducation as distinct 

 as (though, I judge, less prolonged than) that which proved necessary 

 in the case detailed by Professor Sharpey. In the end recovery was 

 mentally and physically satisfactory. 



I can not assume that anything in these two narratives will strike 

 the practical psychologist as novel, or of even unfrequent occurrence. 

 The clinical aspect of such cases has been sketched times without num- 

 ber. Nevertheless they present features of interest, as viewed from 

 an etiological standpoint, which may be worthy more than a passing 

 notice. 



Either of three conditions may, I believe, be set up by brain dis- 

 turbance, or disease, causing "loss of memory" : 1. Complete destruc- 

 tion of cerebral cells ; 2. Withering or blighting, which amounts to 

 obliteration of the cells without destruction of their nuclei ; * 3. A sus- 

 pension of function without arrest of nutrition, as though a particular 

 area of the cerebral organism were thrown out of the circuit of energy. 



In the first event there will be final effacement of the records of 

 ideation. So far as the cells destroyed are concerned, they and their 

 properties are lost for ever. If the functions previously performed by 

 these strata or tracts reappear, it must be because some other part of 

 the brain has taken up the business vicariously — as I believe is possible 

 with nearly every function or manifestation of mental energy. In the 

 second event, when the cells are withered but the nuclei remain, a new 

 crop of cells may spring from the parent organism, and, after a la^ise of 

 time sufficient for development, the educationary record will reappear, 

 the seed reproducing its kind, plus the effect of training and ideation. 

 It may be that there will need to be so much reeducation as to culti- 

 vate the new growth, and pei;haps a reimpression of purely objective 

 ideas, but it may, and probably in the majority of instances does, hap- 

 pen that the new cells will be developed with all the characteristics of the 

 old. In the third event recover)^ may occur instantly, almost at any 

 moment, if the obstacle to communication is overcome or breaks down 

 in convalescence, so that the isolated, but scarcely injured, congeries 

 of brain-cells may again be energized. I speak of brain-cells instead 

 of " nerve-molecules," because, even accepting the vibration theory, it 

 must be assumed that the vibrating particles are cellular vital organ- 

 isms. 



Supposing the states I have described to exist, I venture to suggest 

 that the development of a new crop of cells from denuded germs or 

 nuclei will account for the facility with which reeducation, in cases 

 like that described by Professor Sharpey, reproduces knoicledge, even 



* I use the term nucleus here and throughout in a non-physiological sense, simply to 

 designate the seat of life in a cell, whatever that may be. 



