LOGOMA'NIA, Or DISEASE OF TILE FACULTY OF LANGUAGE. It frequently happens that, while the idea is clear and distinct, all trace of its representative sound has disap peared; or another sign, or one conveying the converse of what is intended, is used. Such a condition is often associated with organic disease of the nervous structure, as in paralytics. In certain cases, there is an hTesistible rapidity of utterance, or, apparently, an involuntary utterance of certain words or phrases foreign to the character of the individual. In -nother class of cases, memory- appears to be chiefly at fault; there may be the oblivion or all words; the forgetfulness of certain classes of words, such as sub stantives, while others are recollected and correctly applied; the forgetfulness of par ticular words, as of the individual's own name; or of parts of words, as occurs in gen eral paralysis, where the last or penultimate syllable escapes attention, and is generally omitted;•or there may be confusion as to orthography, and this has been observed when limited to a single letter. Dr. Graves, Dublin, mentions a farmer who retained a knowledge of all parts of speech except nouns and proper names; but even of these he recollected the initial letter: he carried a pocket-dictionary, and when about to use such words as " Cow" or " Dublin," turned to the letters " C ' and "D," and then recalled what he wished. Patients are found who impose upon themselves a mutism as to cer tain phrases, and limit their vocabulary to particular expressions. In others, there is
invariably a transposition of words; such as when, in place of saying, "the rose is beautiful, ' a paralytic recasts the sentence, " beautiful rose is," and all other sentences in a similar fashion. Fever, in Mezzofanti, is said to have swept away in an hour, his vast acquisitions in 60 languages; in other cases, it has recalled dialects forgotten for half a century; and mere excitement seems capable of inventing or inspirine, a vast number of sounds assuming the aspect, and even the relations of a language so elhosely as to suggest doubts as to whether they are creations such as those of Psalmanazar, which deceived the ling-uists of the royal society, or those ebullitions of devotional feeling designated " unknown tc--gues." In other forms of disease, the cries of animals or natural signs are resorted to in place of words; or the ordinary language is sung or chanted, or used rhyth mically; or a foreign language may be employed or imitated. The bearing of such alterations upon the philosophy of mind, and upon any theory as to the origin of lan guage, must be obvious; but they possess a still more intimate connection with the amowit of intelligence and responsibility predicable in every case.of disease of the nervous system.—Calmiel, De la Paralysie consider& chez les Alzenes; Phrenologtcal Journal, No. 47; Coleridge, Biographia Literaria, vol. i. p. 112.