On aphasia, or loss of speech in cerebral disease / by Frederic Bateman, M.D.

  • Bateman, Frederick, Sir, 1824-1904.
Date:
1869
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On aphasia, or loss of speech in cerebral disease / by Frederic Bateman, M.D. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    It may be, says Dr. Beale, that each little brain cell, j with its connected fibres, in some way resembles a minute voltaic battery with its wii*es; the matter of which the cell is composed undergoing chemical change, in the course of which slight electrical currents ai'e developed; these being trans- mitted by the fibres ramifying to different parts, exert an in- fluence upon tissues and organs amongst which they | ramify.* May not some thermal change, the result of chemical action, interfere with the exercise of speech ? Here I would observe that although we are living in an age when organic chemistry is vastly increasing our knowledge of the essential nature of disease, writers on disorders of the nervous system have paid but little attention to the chemical pathology of the brain, although Dr. Adam Addison has paved the way for more extensive researches on this subject by his extremely interesting and highly original paper in the Journal of Mental Science for July, 1866, in which he very justly says he is treading on a field which is a terra incognita of unknown extent. The result of Dr. Addison's observations—which are aU the more valuable because they are controlled by com- parison with those of Bibra, L'Heritier, Schlossberger and others—are as follows:— 1°. That the different anatomical parts of one and the same brain .. present great differences in their quantities of water and fat, | 2°. That the grey substance is far poorer in fat than the white. 1 3°. That the quantity of matters soluble in ether, stands in an in- I verse relation to the quantity of water. \ 4°. That the quantities of phosphorus do not have a parallel con- nexion with the degree of in* diligence. 5°. That in three cases of hemiplegia the average quantity of fat in the corpus striatum, optic thalamus, and grey substance of the hemi- \ sphere opposite the paralysis, was less than the average quantity in j the same parts of the other side. I I trust that Dr. Addison may be induced to supplement his most useful essay by a special chemical analysis of those particular portions of the brain in which the seat of speech has been severally placed by the various authors who have written upon the subject. * Lectures on the Germinal or Living Matter of Living Beings. Medioal Times, July 10, 1869. as