LOST MEMORY REGAINED

Evening Post, Volume CIII, Issue 53, 4 March 1922, Page 9

LOST MEMORY REGAINED

FAMILIAR TUNE CAUSES RECOVERY

, <J!tOH OtJR , OWN COKKHPONBIHt.) , - ._,- ■■■•' SYDNEY, 15th February. A remarkable case of a man's, lost memory being! regained through hearing a familiar tune played on a violin has just occurred at Sydney Hospital. On Boxing Day a man named Charles Larsen was thrown on his head in the sand while surfing a* Coogee Beach. H* was!admitted.to Sydney Hospital, and; for six. weeks his memory was completely gone. He could no' even remember his name or recognise his relatives; and then, one evening last week; everything, came , back to him suddenly when he heard a fiurse playing on a violin a tune which was often played at his home.. Larsen's description, of bis recovery. is as follows: —"I. went out on to the , verandah and heard someone in the_ nurses' quarters playing a violin. . I seemed to remember, the tune, but not the name of it. The night nurse "did - not remember what it was, and for a while I was puzzled. But suddenly I recalled it. It was "Sympathy." And ■ then I remembered that I had heard it at home. I seemed to hear a great crash then, aSs though someone had slapped two boards against ray ears, and everything came back to me with a. rush. Although I had been at the Hospital'six weeks I thought it was still Boxing Night and asked for my clothes, because I would \be late home for tea. Someone told me to look over th.c balcony, and I realised that I was in hospital, and remembered everything." It was an extraordinary fact that while the patient was unable to remember any incident of his life, he several times dis- ( cussed with doctors, with, remarkable accuracy, Scandinavian mythology and ancient Grecian, history—subjects in which he was interested prior to the accident in the surf.

Asked how he learned to smoke again before his recovery, he explained that shortly after he-was taken to the hospital someone felt the lump behind his ear, and he smelt tobacco on the man's fingers. He gripped the hand and «Tielt again, and his visitor, seeing whit' had attracted his attention, gave him a cigarette. After that he soon took to &" pipe again. .