CHAP. XXIX.] SPEECH AND THOUGHT. 635 



Elsewhere* the writer has given a very good specimen 

 of a letter written by a well-educated Amnesic patient, 

 full of mistakes, and in some places even unintelligible, 

 yet, judging from the lack of erasures, these mistakes 

 were apparently not observed by the patient himself. 



The range of these incoordinate defects of Verbal 

 Memory is very various, both as to frequency of occur- 

 rence and as to extent. It may be that a wrong word is 

 only occasionally used in Speech or Writing, or such errors 

 may be much more frequent and more extensive. It may 

 be so extensive as to make the person's Speech or Writing 

 wholly irrelevant, and even quite incomprehensible owing 

 to the utterly confused collocation of actual words. 



Winslow has recorded an instance of this extreme 

 form of amnesic Speech, occurring in a gentleman who 

 had partially recovered from an apoplectic attack. 



" He could speak, but what be said, without a key to its inter- 

 pretation, was quite unintelligible. He was able to pronounce words 

 with great clearness, but they were sadly misplaced and transposed. 

 What he said was written down, and the words placed in their proper 

 order. By adopting this course his family were able clearly to 

 comprehend his wishes. This state of brain, and impairment ot 

 speech, continued, with slight intermissions, for nearly a fort- 

 night." 



The letters written by Dr. Banks's patient afford an 

 example of a, similarly extreme defect in intellectual 

 expression by Writing. Though made up of properly 

 written words, the mode of collocation of the latter was 

 such as to convey no intelligible propositions. 



The explanation of the 'paralytic' defects of Verbal 

 Memory is a problem presenting no particular difficulties ; 

 but the same cannot be said in regard to these 'inco- 

 ordinate ' affections. There is an obvious reason, how- 



* "Paralysis from Brain Disease," 1875, p. 189, 



