The article by Richard et al.1 was most interesting. I just would like to add to the list mentioned in the above article other cases featured in Dickens' novels:2
Mrs Gargery (Great Expectations, 1861), a victim of attempted murder. She was struck at the back of her head and spine. The head injury resulted in an impairment of hearing and cognitive abilities and left her with an intelligible speech. She suffered from sensory dysphasia and thus when she wanted to ask for Orlik, ‘She had lost his name, and would only signify him by his hammer’.
Mrs Skewton (Dombey and Son, 1846–1884) lost her speech with paralysis of the right side of the body. She evidently had a stroke: ‘There she lay speechless and starring at the ceiling for days’. However, on recovery: ‘At length she began to recover consciousness and in some degree the power of motion, but not yet of speech’.
In the obituary3 for Dickens in the BMJ it was commented that: ‘The physician often felt tempted to say “what a gain it would have been to physic if one so keen to observe and so facile to describe had devoted his powers to the medical art.”’
Competing interests
None declared
References
- 1. Richard S, Christine W and Gina T. Neurological speech defects as plot devices in novels. J R Soc Med 2012;105:530–534.
- 2.Pahor AL. Charles Dickens and the ear, nose and throat. Arch Otolaryngol 1979; 105: 1–5 [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- 3. Obituary. Br Med J 1870;1:636.