658 THE CEREBRAL RELATIONS OF 



and ability to Speak, would remain intact. This is a 

 perfectly possible condition, and that, too, from a small 

 lesion in one or other of various situations. The lesion 

 might implicate the fibres which conduct the stimulus 

 from the Visual Word- Centre to the Kinaesthetic Word- 

 Centre, or it might involve this latter Centre itself, or, 

 lastly, it might destroy, in some parts of their course, the 

 fibres passing from the Kinaesthetic Word- Centre to the 

 related motor centres in the Corpus Striatum. In either 

 of these ways it is conceivable that a person might lose 

 his ability to Write, alone and without other defect. 



Should the individual, however, be paralysed on the 

 right side of the body any such special defect would be 

 hidden by the more general loss of power occasioned by 

 paralysis of the right arm. But if such a person were 

 to attempt to learn to Write with the left hand, there is 

 no reason why he might not succeed, provided the left 

 Visual Word- Centre were itself uninjured and in free 

 communication through callosal fibres with its fellow of 

 the opposite Hemisphere. 



A person affected with right Hemiplegia would, however, 

 probably be incapable of re-acquiring the art of Writing, 

 with the left hand, if the left Visual Word-Centre itself 

 were damaged. But with the existence of such a lesion 

 the patient would also be unable to comprehend written 

 or printed language. This seems to have been the case, 

 for instance, with Trousseau's patient — M. X — , who, 

 notwithstanding all his intelligence, could not, after three 

 years, write with his left hand (see p. 652). 



The Agraphic defect is almost never met with alone. 

 It is most frequently associated with some mental defects, 

 or with defects of Articulate Speech . 



Again, the same term. Agraphia, may be appro- 

 priately enough allowed to include ' incoordinate ' as well 



