Unfortunately, these data are scanty and scattered.
Very important, too, for psychogenesis, are reports concerning the
physiological condition and activity of children whose mental
development has seemed to be stopped for months, or to be made
considerably slower, or to be unusually hastened.
Scanty as are the notes I have met with on this matter, after much
search, yet I collect and present some of them, in the hope that they
will incite to more abundant and more careful observation in the future
than has been made up to this time.
A good many data concerning the behavior of cretin children are to be
found in the very painstaking book, "Neue Untersuchungen ueber den
Kretinismus oder die Entartung des Menschen in ihren verschiedenen
Graden und Formen" ("New Investigations concerning Cretinism, or Human
Deterioration, in its Various Forms and Degrees"), by Maffei and Roesch
(two vols, Erlangen, 1844). But, in order that these data should be of
value, the observed anomalies and defects of the cerebral functions
ought to be capable of being referred to careful morphological
investigations of the cretin brain. As the authors give no results of
_post-mortem_ examinations, I simply refer to their work here.
I once had the opportunity myself of seeing a hemicephalus, living, who
was brought to the clinic of my respected colleague, Prof. B. Schultze,
in Jena. The child was of the male sex, and was born on the 1st of July,
1883, at noon, along with a perfectly normal twin sister.
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