422 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. IX., No. 221 



lay down a few rules that would enable us to 

 spell any geographical name correctly. The sys- 

 tem adopted by the Geographical society, how- 

 ever, is a decided improvement, inasQiuch as every 

 letter has only one meaning, and there is no room 

 for doubt in the pronunciation of a written name. 

 Therefore Science will adopt this system, with the 

 improvements made by the French geographical 

 society. 



. The pronunciation of letters will be as fol- 

 lows : — 



a = a in ' father.' 

 e = e in ' there.' 

 i ^ eeva ' feel.' 

 o = in 'mote,' 

 u = 00 in 'fool.' 

 = e in ' her.' 



ii = u in German : Mlinchen. 

 ai = i in 'ice.' 

 au =z ow ia ' how.' 

 b, d, f, j, k, I, m, n, p, r, s, th, t, v, w, z, ch, as in 



English. 

 g =z g in 'garden.' 



h is always pronounced, except in th, Teh, and gh. 

 Jch = the oriental guttural. 

 gh = another oriental guttural. 

 y =y in ' yard.' 



Vowels are lengthened by a circumflex. Letters 

 are only doubled when there is a distinct repeti- 

 tion of the single sound. 



PSYCHIC BLINDNESS. 



In this book Dr, Wilbrand has put together a 

 most valuable and interesting series of facts 

 and discussions concerning certain curious and 

 important morbid phenomena. The appearance 

 of such a book furnishes an excellent illustration of 

 the great value and importance of the new view of 

 brain-physiology. This view really takes its origin 

 in the discovery of the electric irritability of the 

 cortex by Fritsch and Hitzig in 1870. Their re- 

 sults at once led to more exact and adequate con- 

 ceptions of the nature of brain-centres ; and, when 

 the pathologist and alienist came to study the 

 forms of brain-lesion and impairment of func- 

 tion with the conceptions derived originally 

 from physiological experiments, the advance step 

 was a great one. And finally psychology must 

 already acknowledge a debt to pathology probably 

 greater than it owes to any other of the many 

 sciences with which it is so intimately associated. 

 Our mental structure is so extremely intricate and 

 so wonderfully formed, that we must use all pos- 



Die Seelenblindheit als Herderscheinung und ihre Be- 

 ziehungen zur Homonymen Hemianopsie zur Alexle und 

 Agraphie. Von Dr, Herrmann Wilbrand. Wiesb^deq, 



sible devices to simplify the problems it offers to 

 the psychologist : hence the study of the less com- 

 plex minds of the lower animals, the observation 

 of the developing faculties of children, and the 

 records of the primitive culture of man, derive their 

 importance. Pathology performs an even more 

 delicate service. It takes away or incapacitates 

 more or less of this complex machinery, and 

 shows in what way the working of the apparatus is 

 thereby aflfected. Just as we never reaUy appreci- 

 ate the value of an object until we are without it, 

 so the importance of certain brain-cells to mental 

 sanity is not realized until disease renders them 

 useless. 



Some years ago Professor Munk described the 

 condition of dogs from whose brains a certain 

 cortical area had been removed, and gave it the 

 name of ' psychic blindness ' (Seelenblindheit). A 

 dog in this condition can see, for he avoids all 

 obstacles as well as ever, but what he sees has lost 

 all meaning for him. If, for example, the dog 

 was accustomed to jump over a rod when it was 

 held before him, he no longer recognizes this sig- 

 nal : his whole psychic life is duller, and, in par- 

 ticular, the world of sight has lost all significance. 

 This is now only one of a large series of phenom- 

 ena which show that there is one centre in which 

 an object is seen and another centre in which it is 

 perceived, or, better, apperceived. Disease may in- 

 jure one and leave the other intact. Dr. Wil- 

 brand records two very remarkable cases of this 

 nature, in both of which the patient retained nor- 

 mal intelligence, and accurately described the 

 symptoms. The first is reported by Charcot, and 

 relates to a highly intelligent merchant well 

 versed in several languages, and reading the 

 classics fluently. Up to the time of his attack, he 

 could repeat the whole of the first book of the 

 Iliad, beginning at any point. He had from his 

 boyhood a most remarkable memory, which was 

 almost exclusively a visual one. He could read 

 pages of his favorite authors from the visualized 

 picture of the page which he carried in his mind. 

 If an incident of his many travels was spoken of, 

 the whole scene appeared before him, vivid and 

 complete in every detail. He was an expert 

 draughtsman, and often sketched interesting por- 

 tions of the landscape on his travels. As a con- 

 sequence of serious business troubles, his health 

 gave way : he became nervous and irritable, and 

 the peculiar visual symptoms appeared. He 

 found that the sight of the buildings and the scenes 

 of his daily walks seemed strange. If asked to 

 picture a certain place to himself, he was unable to 

 do so. The attempt to draw a church-spire resulted 

 in a rude childish scrawl. He could not remember 

 the faces of his wife and children, and even failed 



