Hunter was subject,
though not at this time labouring under a paroxysm. The late Bishop of
Landaff, Dr. Watson, gives a singular case of partial amnesia in his
father, the result of an apoplectic attack. "I have heard him ask twenty
times a-day," says Dr. Watson, "What is the name of the lad that is at
college?" (my elder brother); and yet he was able to repeat, without a
blunder, hundreds of lines out of classic authors. And hence, there is
no reason for discrediting the story of a German statesman, a Mr. Von B.
related in the seventh volume of the _Psycological Magazine_, who
having called at a gentleman's house, the servants of which did not know
him, was under the necessity of giving in his name; but unfortunately at
that moment he had forgotten it, and excited no small laughter by turning
round to a friend who accompanied him, and saying with great earnestness,
"Pray tell me who I am, for I cannot recollect."
From severe suffering of the head in many fevers a great inroad is
frequently made upon the memory, and it is long before the convalescent
can rightly put together all the ideas of his past life.
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