Association Areas of Brain 151 



the action of the muscles of our bodies and 

 limbs. 



In order to comprehend the working of this 

 system, it is well in the first place to remember 

 the part taken by the sensory organs of our 

 bodies as receptors, and modifiers of energy 

 derived from external and internal sources, by 

 which energy the system we have above referred 

 to is ordinarily kept in action. To illustrate this 

 point we can hardly do better than study the 

 effects produced on the normal development of 

 a child's intellectual powers when, in his early 

 life, the principal portals by which energy 

 passes to his brain are destroyed. 



Laura Bridgeman was a healthy infant, and 

 grew in body and in intelligence until she had 

 reached her second year of age, when she was 

 attacked by fever which completely destroyed 

 her eyesight and her power of hearing. Laura's 

 mother, in spite of all her efforts, was unable 

 to teach her child to speak or to notice any 

 sound. Laura Bridgeman, in fact, from her 

 second until between her seventh and eighth 

 year of age was dumb as well as deaf and blind. 

 Dr. Howe states, that until Laura was over 



