(TO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR.") SIR, —I am not
sure I am correct in using the term "Aphasia" in my case, I leave your medical friends to judge.
I am now seventy-four years of age, and have always enjoyed the beet of health. When about eighteen, in a playful struggle, I first found that though I could utter words, I could not command the choice, this lasting for perhaps thirty or forty minutes ; when about twenty-six, and living freely, I found myself often attacked with the same symptoms—with numbness in the fingers and dim- ness of sight—and though I could see to read, I was not able to understand the words. From twenty-six to thirty, bleeding being then largely practised, I was frequently subjected to it, the medical men I consulted both in England and Scotland being equally at sea* and I may say, at fault upon the matter ; and bled I was, generally until I fainted; this was in Aberdeen, Edinburgh, Manchester, and Hull. When about thirty years of age, some one, not a doctor, recommended blue-pill and Epsom salts, and though I have been frequently troubled since .(even a fortnight since I bad i slight attack), all I find necessary is a trifling solu- tion of Epsom salts, my case of aphasia being merely a dis- arrangement of the stomach or bowels, evidently of a trifling
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