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Excerpt from The Dublin Quarterly Journal of Medical Science, Vol. 44: August and November, 1867 Still, as M. Jules Falret has shown in his very able digest, information of much value upon this subject can be gleaned from the medical writings of our forefathers, an old mine newly opened, and still unexhausted. Many of the examples, it is true, have the air more of singularities, whose interpretation is tacitly bequeathed to the future, than of duly estimated pathological truths. The first step in advance was made, when it occurred to the fertile genius of M. Bouillaud to invert the problem and boldly regard disordered speech as a disease sui generis, with its own seat and laws. Although the views of M. Bouillaud respecting the anterior lobes of the brain as the foci of language have not as yet been substantiated, they have the credit of originating theories of even greater interest. Such are those of MM. Dax and Broca, the former limiting the cerebral scat of the speech-faculty to the left hemisphere; the latter fixing its locus in the third left frontal convolution. The claims of "cerebral loss of speech" to rank as a disease in its own right, elicited the widest diversity of opinion in the debates at the Academic dc Medecine in 1865. Omitting details on minor points, one section with M. Trousseau sanctioned it, with some modification, as a substantive disease. A second section, including MM. Piorry and Cerise, pronounced it a phantom-malady, a symptom appertaining to various diseases of the brain, and, like the famous Avvocato del Dinvolo, protested against its admission into the Kalendar. A third section agreed with M. Bail larger, the excellent alienist physician, that while there are some grounds for believing in a special lesion, a positive decision thereupon is premature; so that instead of forcing laws to accord with facts, we should go back and collect facts for laws. In responding to such an invitation, it is not easy for a writer to avoid saying things as well or better said already. In these countries medical opinion has, on the whole, been favourable to the so-called aphasia. This is due in part to the eloquent lecons of M. Trousseau. But we owe it to the memory of the late Professor Jonathan Osborne, to say that his communication "On the Loss of the Faculty of Speech Depending on Forgetfulness of the Art of using the Vocal Organs," in the Dublin Journal, November, 1833, anticipated the explanation for which M. Baillarger has received the credit, and was far in advance of his time. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
