Johann August Philipp Gesner (1738-1801). A review of his essay "The language amnesia" in the bicentennial anniversary of his death.
On the 200th anniversary of Johann August Philipp Gesner's death, this paper summarizes and discusses a paper on language amnesia published in 1770. The author had clear knowledge of selective mental impairments resulting from brain diseases, and of separate mental representations for words and their underlying concepts. However, to explain the language impairment, Gesner suggested that it would not be caused by focal damage to a specific anatomic and functional unit of the mind, but is the consequence of a general sluggishness of the mental processes.
Luzzatti
Claudio
C
Department of Psychology, State University of Milano-Bicocca, Bdg U6, Piazza dell'Ateneo Nuovo 1, I-20126 Milano, Italy. luzz@unimib.it
D001037:Aphasia / Q000266:history*; D005858:Germany; D049671:History, 18th Century; D006801:Humans