626 THE CEREBRAL RELATIONS OF 



stood pretty well, often, however, employing circumlocution when 

 he could not recall the proper word, somewhat as if he were speak- 

 ing a foreign language imperfectly learned." 



The fact that Words could not be articulated which 

 liad just been pronounced before him, though such Words 

 were really heard and understood, seems to point to a 

 very low degree of activity of the Auditory Word-Centre. 

 The patient's ability to read aloud, however, as in the last 

 case, appears to make it probable that this act may be per- 

 formed, as previously explained, without necessarily involv- 

 ing the activity of the Auditory Word-Centres. The fact 

 that this person had a difficulty not only in pronouncing 

 certain words from sight, but in writing them, seemed to 

 point to the existence of some small amount of functional 

 impairment in the Visual Word- Centre. 



In this relation it may be mentioned that in different 

 kinds of Cerebral Disease it sometimes happens that the 

 patients' Speech is entirely limited to a mere imitative 

 repetition of words spoken in their hearing, whilst they 

 are without the power of volunteering any statement i.e. 

 their Auditory Word- Centres respond only to direct ' sen- 

 sory ' incitations, and not at all to those of the * associa- 

 tionaP or 'volitional* types. In these cases, other causes 

 of general mental impairment almost invariably co-exist. 



A defect of this kind (occurring in a woman who was hemiplegic 

 from cerebral haemorrhage) has been recorded by Professor Behier.* 

 She was born in Italy, and had resided both in Spain and France; 

 of the three languages she had thus acquired she had completely 

 forgotten the Italian and Spanish, and had only retained a most 

 limited use of French. In this latter language she only repeated 

 like an echo the words pronounced in her presence, without, how- 

 ever, attaching any meaning to them. But in the case of a woman 

 seen at the Salpetriere by Bateman the mimetic tendency was 

 much stronger. She even reproduced foreign words with which 



* " Gaz. des Hopitaux," May 16, 1867. 



