PSYCHOLOGICAL RESULTS IN REACTIONS TO TONE 

 BEFORE AND AFTER EXTIRPATION OF THE TEM- 

 PORAL LOBES. 



WALTER B. SWIFT, M. D., Boston 



Assistant in Neurology Tuft's Medical School; Assistant to Physicians for Nervous 



Diseases, Boston City Hospital. 



From the laboratory of Professor L. Jacobsohn, Berlin, Germany. 



A German court dog, Louisa, was trained to take meat at 

 a low tone (eating tone of Kalisher) and refrain from taking 

 it at a high one. Then his left temporal lobe was removed by 

 Prof. L. Jacobsohn in Berlin. After three days' rest, the same 

 training was continued, and when good response was re-estab- 

 lished, the right temporal lobe was removed by him. Training 

 was resumed by me. 



I give here merely an epitome of the psychological results 

 of the training and operations. The normal dog under my 

 training took about fourteen days to learn to react correctly 

 and eat at the low tone and refrain at the high tone. At first 

 he grabbed at the food indiscriminately, tone or no tone, then 

 (after severe punishment), when the high tone was sounded, 

 gradually learned to refrain at the high tone for fear of punish- 

 ment. After two weeks of such discipline, one could easily 

 see that the dog had some clear idea that he must refrain at 

 one tone and eat at the other. During a month of such 

 training, gradual improvement resulted so that reaction was 

 quicker, more exact; more being mistakes were corrected. I 

 found at first he was inclined to react to motion rather than 

 sound, and watched me closely for the motion accompanying 

 the low tone, and would react to that. Too little food resulted 

 in an eagerness to eat, and made many failures, and too much 

 food brought a refusal to act at all. When this trick was well 

 learned, he was operated on as above, and after three days' 

 rest, training was resumed by me; and at the first test, he re- 

 acted correctly and ate at the low tone. But reaction came 

 now decidedly slower than before, and never up to the second 

 operation regained quite the exactness and quickness that the 

 dog showed before any operation was performed. A gradual 

 increase was, however, noticed in these qualities of execution. 

 After many days had passed, during which best results possible 



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