A NOVEL IDEA.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XVI, Issue XII, 21 March 1896, Page 310

A NOVEL IDEA.

IT is well known that each side of the brain is connected with the movements and sensations mainly on the opposite side of the body ; the right brain moves the left arm and leg, and vice verm. Cases are not infrequent in which with ‘ a shock ’ on the right side of the body, the faculty of recalling and reproducing spoken words is totally or almost totally lost. Such loss of speech is technically called aphasia. It was first shown some thirty-five years ago by a French physician that this particular symptom is associated with damage to a limited and very definite part of the brain-substance on the left side, which has since been known, in honour of its discoverer, as Broca’s convolution. When the power of speech has thus been lost, it is possible, if the mental faculties are not otherwise damaged, to acquire it again, but just such a course of training as the child passes through in learning to speak at first, even where Broca’s convolution has been so damaged as to be quite incapable of performing its functions. In such a case, the portion of the brain on

the right side corresponding to Broca’s convolution is capable of taking up its work ; but only by being educated to do so, just as the damaged portion of the brain had been originally. It is thus clear that there are two organs or portions of the brain capable of controlling speech ; and that under ordinary circumstances only one of them is trained to do so, the other lying tallow. All the education is given to one favoured side, and all the work is done by it ; but the neglected one, if called by necessity to undertake the work, can be trained to do it, and to do it. apparently, as satisfactory as the other. T ae active speech centre is that on the left side ; in the case of the great majority of individuals. But occasionally it is found that the right, and not the left side of the brain, has been educated as regards speech. When this is the case it is alwavs found that the individual has been left handed. Whatever then is the cause of right-handedness, it is closely associated with left-brainedness, and some people go so far as to hold that right-handedness in some cases precedes and determines the use of the left brain for the interpretation and reproduction of speech, both spoken and written, and ask may not a greater use of the left hand lead to a

better development of the right brain ? There is no proof they say that a man becomes any wiser by being able to use both hands alike. But it is quite conceivable that an education of the two hands indifferent directions might enable the brain to do more work, or to do it more easily. The early use of the right hand has, they believe, led to our storing in our left brains all the memories of our mother tongue ; and the other languages we acquire are registered on the same side. Would it not be a distinct advantage if the unused side could be made to discharge this office in acquiring a foreign tongue ? It seems that it might be worth while to try whether this could not be done. Let the lefthand be used for all actions habitually performed by the right while learning French, say : let the book be held with the left hand, and let the right be allowed to be as nearly as possible inactive. It is at least possible that such a method, carefully carried out, would lead to the acquisition of the language by the unused right brain centres; and if this were so, the capacity of the brain for languages would be doubled. We may imagine some future generations keeping their left brains for the Teutonic languages, and storing the Romance languages on the right side.