On Tuesday, amidst the rather trumpery papers which are often
read in the Biological Section, Dr. Stone gave an account of a very curious modification of aphasia which is occasionally observed. The patient who cannot express his thought accurately in words is occasionally unable to do so in writing, and Dr. Stone himself, when recovering from a mental attack produced by overwork, found himself reduplicating words,
and even letters, in his correspondence. The " trick of including otiose letters in familiar words lasted for some time." The oddity of this occurrence consists in this, that the usual explanation of aphasia, the inability of the brain to control the nerves which regulate the mouth in speech, does not apply. The brain guides the hand rightly, but occasionally guides it twice over, doing more than its work, instead of less. The only possible explanation is that the two lobes of the brain are doing the same work separately and with an interval, as is believed to happen in that curious mental phenomenon, the existence of an impression that you have been similarly situated before. The separation of the two orders to write the same letter is, however, much more definite, the delay within the brain, as it were, automatically recording itself.
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