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if the interruption takes- place to the left, the non-recognizing of 
those forms perceived with both fovea, which are connected with 
the left fascicle. 
As the left hemisphere serves especially to the recognition of 
words that are heard and to speech, subcortical or cortical loss of 
recognition of the forms used for speech will be the consequence, 
or in other terms, subcortical or cortical alexia will originate. 
In Nirssr’s conception the calearina-region has become a pure 
optic zone, the light-perceiving zone of the cortex. Here he agrees 
with CAMPBELL, BropMANN and others. The surrounding con- 
volutions form the fovea-area. They serve in connection with the 
optie zone to recognize shapes. 
In my opinion this really most ingenious conception of Nigsst 
von MAYENDORFF is not affected at all by the dispute, whether or 
not there exists a special fovea-fascicle situated within the strata 
sagittalia. But the ease described in the foregoing concerns the greater 
question put forward by Nrirssr, if there exists a loss of vision of 
forms, without a sufficient loss of light-perception. 
Shapes are recognized not only with the eye, but also with the 
hand. More than once there have been stated cases of so called 
astereognosis, the impossibility to recognize shapes with the hand, 
though the tactile perception has suffered relatively only a Slight 
disturbance. 
Foci within the inferior parietal lobe, (Wrrnicke), in the ventral 
thalamus-nucleus or in its radiation towards this parietal lobe, deter- 
mine the loss of recognition of forms, without the loss of tactile 
perception. 
In the described case too there was astereognosis of the right 
hand, corresponding to the destruction of the ventro-medial thalamus- 
nuclei and to the degeneration of their radiation towards the parietal 
gyit of the left brain. 
It lies near to seek for an analogy between the astereognosis and 
the above described disturbance in recognizing optical shapes. 
If in the ventral nuclei of the thalamus, impulses from the general 
sensibility (the deep-seated parts of the body) and from the tactile 
region meet, if there a new entity is composed of those different 
impulses, which after further activity of the cortex, enters into con- 
sciousness as a tactile shape-image, we may assume a similar pro- 
ceeding to take place for the optical impulses. 
For into the pulvinar radiates a fascicle from the tractus opticus. 
Optical impulses are brought into immediate connection with the 
