Aphasia, or Loss of Speech

Abstract

THE subject of aphasia has always been, and still is, not only of the greatest interest, but also of the greatest difficulty. Its interest is, of course, largely due to the fact that a study of partial or total loss of language may not only help in an analysis of language itself, but also may throw light on the exact anatomical situation of that function which has been said to set up an insurmountable barrier between man and the lower animals. Its difficulty is greatly increased by the fact that each investigator seems to define it in a different way. For instance, in the book whose title is given above, which is a second and greatly enlarged edition of Dr. Bateman's “Aphasia,’first published twenty years ago, two entirely different definitions are accepted as correct. In the opening chapter aphasia is defined as “the term which has recently been given to the loss of faculty of language, and of the power of giving expression to thought, the organs of phonation and of articulation, as well as the intelligence, being unimpaired.” On p. 154, however, Dr. Bateman states that he will “employ the term as a title for the whole group of disorders of speech, thus embracing not only the loss, but all the various degrees of impairment, of that faculty.” This latter definition will, of course, denote an enormous number of affections, such as all the losses or alterations of speech due to gross cerebral lesions, to insanity, diseases of the medulla, cretinism, deaf-mutism, chorea, and so forth, many of which have hardly been touched upon in this work. The former definition also, in spite of its greater connotation, would include such diseases as deaf-mutism, which is hardly a form of true aphasia.

On Aphasia, or Loss of Speech, and the Localization of the Faculty of Articulate Language.

By Frederic Bateman, Senior Physician to the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital, &c. Second Edition, greatly enlarged. (London: J. and A. Churchill, 1890.)