Such was one of
the effects of the plague at Athens, as we learn from Thucydides; "and
many, on recovery, still experienced such any extraordinary oblivion of
all things that they knew neither themselves nor their friends." A few
years ago a man with a brain-fever was taken into St. Thomas's Hospital,
who as he grew better spoke to his attendants, but in a language they
did not understand. A Welsh milk-woman going by accident into the ward,
heard him, answered him and conversed with him. It was then found that
the patient was by birth a Welshman, but had left his native land in
his youth, forgotten his native dialect, and used English for the last
thirty years. Yet, in consequence of this fever he had now forgotten the
English tongue, and suddenly recovered the Welsh.
Boerhaave, however, gives a still more extraordinary instance of
oblivion in the case of a Spanish tragic author who had composed many
excellent pieces, but so completely lost his memory in consequence of
an acute fever, that he forgot not only the languages he had formerly
learnt, but even the alphabet; and was hence under the necessity of
beginning to read again.
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