The Bismarck Tribune Newspaper, January 15, 1931, Page 11

mv ~MTUIAAUATAOOSSUOAEGO AUDA AOAEAE NAUSEA HOTTA AUAUA A RMB ANTUAAA EAC AC Ace eA RR IA AUCN CUCL BUA cc | amr + perfect sheets, just as you would peel a postage stamp from * unhesitating stream a full . their appearance in most circumstances. AH BT mi i ‘Where genius leaves off and insanity begins still puzzles specialists in diseases of the mind, even after long study of musical and mathematical prodigies and wise idiots By MORRIS FISHBEIN, M. D. Editor of the Journal of the American Medical Association, developed to a phenomenal extent, though the mind in general is subnormal or even: idiotic. Psychiatrists have studied such irregular developing brains ‘carefully; but they differ as to how such persons should be classified. Tredgold, lecturer on mental deficiency at London University. _ uses the extraordinary title of “idiot savants.” Probably most of them might properly be classified as imbeciles or merely feeble-minded. Despite a brain that is idiotic or. feeble-minded. when attacking the ordinary problems of life, such patients often show remarkable development of one of the eenses, and can perform feats which would be impossible to a completely. normal person. ‘ Tn one English asylum was a boy with such a fine sense of touch that he could split a newspaper page into two 1: TS well, known that in cases of irregulaPmental development, one ‘particular ability is sometimes an envelope. 4 In other types, the memory seems to be especially gifted. Inthe Earlswood asylum is a man 65 years of age who has no ability to use. his mind for ordinai poses, but who has memorized a complete biographical dictionary and is able, on mention of af name in it, to reel off in a steady, account of the person's birth, life and death, In Normansfield, another institution, is an imbecile, 38 years of age, who, if given any date during the last five years, can state the day of the week correctly without hes- itation. NOTHER inmate, who in addition to being men- tally enfeebled, was completely blind, had devel- oped the faculty of calculating to a degree little short of marvelous. Within four seconds he could give the square root of any number running into four figures, and within six seconds the cube root of any number with six figures. Tredgold suggests that such instances represent the concentration of. all the mental faculties along a single groove, because of some physical impossibility to develop the mind in the normal manner. Everyone is interested in lightning calculators, and particularly in children who develop unusual gifts in a ae of memory or ae ta ee who study eugenics, genetics a! relationship o! heredity to the production of such geniuses, have not been able to find quite satisfactory explanations for nces. Popenoe has recently described some of the prodi- ies of remarkable ability who have appeared in the nited States. A nine-year-old boy from Vermont was able to answer in a minute the question as to the number of seconds in 1813 years, 7 months and 27 days. His facility was first noted when he was six years of age, at which time he was able to answer immediately such questions as 13 times 97. With a minute's thought he could-raise the number eight to the sixteenth power. This boy lived about the time of Napoleon, became a teacher and Methodist preacher, and eventually professor of languages in the University of Vermont. His mental powers declined rap- idly and he died at the age of 38 with only ordinary mental ability. This boy's name was erah Colburn. A lightning calculator on the, vaudeville stage could: answer immediately the population by the 1920 census of every town and city of over 5000 in the United States; the names, num- ber of rooms and location of 2000 leading hotels; the county seats of every county in the United States; the population of 1800 leading foreign cities; the MEMORY READING, CENTER, . SENSORY READING CENTER Diagram of the brain . . cago and New York. His expla- others stunted, nation of his remarkable mem- ory was that he associated every figure with some fact which good at the ready development of couplets that he com- he carried in his ‘ mercialized his art, selling rhymes and epitaphs. One time Simonides was attending a banquet. He IONTESTS have been ‘held between memory experts. - went out for a moment and while he was gone the roof and a Norwegian philologist, Paula Bergh, learned fell in, killing everyone present. Simonides was able to 408 figures in 104 minutes, thus bréakii g the world identify, everyone at the banquet by remembering their record held by a professor named Di. who ‘had positions at the table. This called his attention’ to the learned 200 figures in 75 minutes. Then a German named fact that arrangement is the greatest aid to memory. Ruckle lea: 504 figures in 40 minutes. It appears that Mathematical talent seems to be an dereditary trait Paula Bergh also remembers figures by individualizing them primarily. Popenoe lists a. French: family. which pro- as objects. duced eight outstanding mathematicians in three gener- ee, A Ponenes: there is no re ing as @ spe~ sts and be He eo atody 3 fie By ; ae cial memory for figures or anything to cal sylvania made by mine E, Key. In family ofthat development. He believes the achievement pe ciod of mental deh i wil tally defective who devel al abilities meat and potatoes that his wife prepared Haney field of os ee Tha eer Tf he left ‘his to her, as aie had. ‘absol Sidis, Nhe cetoenred wi wi * subsequent]; jl deemed ‘and was last heard of as a street car con- el. AVRITING CENTER SPEECH CENTER 7 « showing location of the association ceriters . . the ages at which various sections normally develop. . . . In the case of an di of all cities from Chic “idiot savant,” one section of the brain develops abnormally . . .*leaving the i Va cauette het eee ale oe lentes tnot Cece Gedte tar ae of gees Got ae i t is in ot js i that absolutely lacked any sense of quantit - with excepti Seana lies of fatigabilit i aH One rh the men named Aaron Ruter, hat Tt has been recognized that there are many kinds of went out to work in the morning, had to measure the ilitis for the dinner. frequently carried the son of Profe Bee: the might caok gapign fet ee nies h i ts of tit she might cook. eno infaut Sidis, who. dem Ther Pualbematic to.the profes or enough for a baseball team, Iai one Tine of this fab wi ly devel men- ily the defect has persisted for five generations. An outrageous fake . . . of the re the [8th century. his quack is making an incision in a woman's head . . . and pretending to remove a stone which he says is causing insanity. days ‘befo - and ductor and as the author of a book on the collecting of I: MANY instances ‘mathematical ‘prodigies are not street car transfers asa In an asylum for the insane in Great Britain there was essay on “Idiot Savants” were al freaks, although many. listed by Tredgold in his mentally. ‘Watt, one of the inventors of the a mentally defective sailor who could read the first page of Among famous ee who were mathematical prodigies james William nd then repeat it word for jvord without ref- in youth we erence to the original text. ia re fiedia engine Herschel, the astronomer; P. S. Mozart... cart and his sister . . Laplace, the astronomer; Isaac. Newton, who had invented . SHE explanation, however, that all lightning calculators the differential calculus before he was 24; A. M . possesso: systems mathe- the physicist, and men who dévoted their lives to mathe- Cpt Ss as i tye mai oF seat atica, such as 'K. F. Gauss, L. Euler, ‘Th, Joung, and sons. Popence is convinced that such mances Te- George Bidder. ire not only a system, but gift. He relates the : One of the most interesting cases that has disturbed: the St Pee hes od cae ideod c's mig ofthe pail the abject of ma memory Greece’ from 556 to 468 B, C, Thete seems to be no doubt. but that many people are espe- + ~ Simonides was not only a first-class poet, bus was so: cially gifted in this field. However, musically ‘gifted peo- a ~ st aT TT What Science Knows About Freak Brains This man was feeble-minded, absolutely unable to cope with the simplest mental eaten - «+ Yet when the asylum keepers Hae him an admiral’s uniform... built this remarkable ship mo . and was quite happy in his work. when they were studied by Voltaire, famous philosopher, wrote verses almost as two famous German psychol- soonas he was able to talk. Coleridge, famous poet and ogists. author, read a chapter from the Bible when he was three When ‘a person is born years old. Mozart, among the most eminent of composers with the urge for mathematics, of music, composed a minuet when he was five years old. it comes out sooner or later Goethe, greatest of German minds, when he was eight as the dominating factor in years old could speak several languages and produced lit- his career. Several of the fa- erary work better than that produced by most adults. mous French family that has Garibaldi, courageous Italian leader, saved’ a woman been. mentioned were -edu- from drowning when he was eight years old, and at the cated for other careers, but age of 12 saved several boys whose boat had capsized. sooner or later all of them The famous Austrian composer Haydn beat time for music gave up everything clse for at the age of six, and between the ages of six and eight he carved and ‘mathematics. The famous learned in one lesson to play well on the drum. Balzac geneticist, Karl Pearson, was composed comedies before he was eight years old. educated as a lawyer, but Avhigh degree of intelligence in childhood is, of course, under the drive of his heredi- of the greatest importance in achieving greatness, but will tary interest, he turned to mathematics. not itself necessarily insure greatness. Ohhere Not long ago members of the department of psychology other factors required besides intellectual capacity. of Stanford University studied the life records of 300 We marvel today at the appointment of a university eminent men and women in history, paying attention to their president at the age of 30 years. Nevertheless Milton hac early behavior and brightness while young, and energy, an- written an ode pronounced by an eminent critic as perhaps cestry and their body build to find out what were traits in the most’ beautiful in the English language, before he was the young that insured greatness. 21. Hume had defined his views before he was 25. Peel There were among the most ctninent many who in child- . was chief secretary for Ireland before he was 24, Raphael hood: had intelligence below the highest order. This is had painted the Granduca Madonna at 21, Beethoven explained on the grounds that a high but not the highest intelligence combined with a good deal of persistence may other weaknesses by ‘special attention to memory or some However, in the majority of instances other:.faculty. Such an explanation might be attached to personality of genius is emphasized the case of one boy who is, at 19, a characteristic mental behavior that differs from that of defective, yet who never forgets the geographic name of the average child so pronouncedly that the record of its any little or obscure place, or the date of any event. appearance is preserved. : Children who achieve eminence have in general parents beyond the human understanding. ‘The brain represents an above the average and many. superior advantages in their evolution of thousands and thousands of i Not all of the sens of eminent people: are, simple-nerve cord of the lowest species to the lead to greatness. the rare and striking even in: early youth by ‘surroundings. however, successful. A favorable heredity is undoubtedly an asset. the cranium of a typical leader of civilized men. (Copyright, 1981, by EveryWeek Magazine—Printed in U. S. A.) Seer Mi nnnmas . At four, he had mastered the clavichord, and composed minuets. . . . man brains develop in such # At.10 a concert performer and composer of symphonies. . . . This picture shows Mo- curious one-sided fashion. Cer- . two children with abnormal,~but not freak brains’... perform- tain psychologists claim - that ing at the court of Maria Theresa of Austria. ¢ vA NL A AOUVMAAUUMOTVSVUAYELAIRUGUL AEA Abnormal Isaac Watt. . . whose youthful thoughts led to discovery of the steam i He was a moody youth, who sat for hours . . . watching a kettle boil No doubt gaining his mother’s displeasure as an impractical dreamer. ple did not sem to-have any = * UT as with genius in mathematics or in music, there is more ability in mathematics some special combination of related traits in most in- * than the rest of their families stances that leads to eminence. ‘was appointea chamber musician to the king at 18, New- ton had developed his views of light and colors before he was 20. Bacon wrote a philosophi- cal work before he was 20, Montesquieu had sketched his “Spirit of Laws" at a similar age, and the Englishman, Jen ner, even before 20, had thought out the processes that led to his discovery of vaccitiation. OT all the members of the LX same family may have the ~ "~ gift which reaches a high development in one member of it. This sppies as well to geniuses as to the “idiot savants.”” famous mathematical calcu- lator named Inaudi was able to capitalize his ability to such an extent that his brothers got the idea that they might as well get in on a good thing themselves. hey thereupon tried to set themselves up in the same busi- ness, but all of them failed. Though they were blood broth- ers, the unusual: ability of one was not ccmmon to any of the others, Various cxplanations have been advanced with the hope of explaining the reasons why bu- such prodigies are the result of strange psychologic states, caus- ing them to compensate for ‘There are many factors of the human mind that are still years, from the, ly com- plex, intricate, remarkable organ that today is enclosed in ccc TAO MOM