600 THE CEREBRAL RELATIONS OF 



Unfortunately it is not stated whether this woman was 

 able thoroughly to comprehend written or printed cha- 

 racters, and without knowing her condition in this respect, 

 no safe diagnosis can be made. There was in her case 

 an ability to form letters, but an inability to group 

 them into proper words and thus a complete inability to 

 express her thoughts by Writing, even though her errors 

 in Articulate Speech were comparatively few. 



The next case is one which came under the writer's own 

 observation. It is by no means typical, but very peculiar 

 in many respects. The man was a Criminal Lunatic one 

 who had been some years before absolved from the penalty 

 otherwise attaching to a murderous act, on the ground 

 that he was an irresponsible agent.* 



The patient, originally a sailor, is now about 45 years of age, and 

 partially demented ; lie was formerly violent and dangerous, but 

 without obvious delusions, and was certified to be insane in 1855. 

 It was not till about the year 1857, or later, that he began 

 to write in an extraordinary manner ; previous to this date his 

 letters to his friends are stated to have been written in an in- 

 telligible style. The peculiarity manifested itself first in this way : 

 he commenced the writing of each word correctly, and then in the 

 place of some of the remaining letters he wrote ffg. Afterwards, 

 the whole character of the word became altered, and duplication of 

 many of the consonants, together with an almost invariable termi- 

 nation with the letters ndendd, or, at least, endd, became the most 

 noteworthy features of writing which though produced volumi- 

 nously was almost utterly unintelligible.! When I was in the habit 



* The particulars are given nearly as they were recorded in the 

 " Med. Chir. Bev." for Jan, 1869. 



! Trousseau speaks of a case of Aphasia in which the person 

 during recovery, when he became able to utter a few monosyllables, 

 always ended them by tif; and if he wished to say a word of 

 several syllables, he only pronounced the first syllable, and added 

 tif to it, saying, for example, " montif" for "monsieur," "bontif" 

 for " bonjour," etc. We have thus additional evidence of the simi- 

 larities existing between the different kinds of defective Speech 

 and defective Writing. 



