Fisher come in and see her. So Fisher came in and did what he did best, observe the patient in a fashion that made him both admired and annoying: he sat for three hours and copied everything the woman said verbatim, and then went on to publish an influential paper about the incident.
The case was notable for the fact that the woman had fallen backward off the chair she had been standing on, had hit her head, and when confronted almost immediately by her daughter-in-law—whom she had known for the past twenty-eight years—had said, “Who are you?” It seemed to be a case of concussive amnesia, but, as often happens, no one witnessed a loss of consciousness. The odd thing was that most of the previous year was gone from her memory, along with selective bits of memory going back over thirty years.
During her examination, the woman was alert and conversed readily, if somewhat hesitantly. She gave correct details of her personallife, including having been born in Lynn, Massachusetts, having left high school in her second year, finishing at night school, then having worked successively at the Preston shoe factory for a year, at the naval shipyard during World War II, at another shoe factory briefly, and then at a Boston bank for fifteen years. She was able to give some details of her marriage, but not of the recent death of her mother and older brother. She gave all of her children’s ages minus one year. She identified Kennedy as the president, and when challenged about it, was unaware of the assassination a year earlier. She had not heard of Barry Goldwater, but was able to give a few of the names of her grade school teachers. Most striking, she could not retain Dr. Fisher’s name for more than thirty seconds, or even recall having been told it. She kept saying, “I think I’ve seen you before.” She gave the date as six months before the actual date, and many answers were given in an uncertain fashion, usually followed by the question, “Is that right?”
Four hours after their first meeting, she was still unable to retain Fisher’s name, but slowly brought into focus the death of her mother and brother. At five hours, she recalled the assassination of the president. One of the most unusual features of the case, similar to transient global amnesia, was that she repeated the same comment with the same inflection each time Dr. Fisher told her his name. “Oh, that’s like my maiden name. I won’t forget it.” (Her maiden name was Fistay.) Other comments she kept repeating were: “What happened to me?” “I think I’ve seen you before.” “Did I fall? I must’ve fallen on my head because I feel a bump.” She improved hour by hour, and after ten hours she was fully oriented to the time, the place, and her situation. Yet on the following morning, the woman could not recall ever having met Dr. Fisher. Her first memory was from ten hours before the concussion, her prior memories having returned, and she could now provide far more accurate details of her early schooling, the principal of her high school, and every one of her schoolteachers.
Amnesia from concussion without loss of consciousness was not unprecedented, and in his paper, Fisher recounted some notable casesin the literature. The most spectacular took place during the Harvard-Yale football game of 1941. When Harvard got the ball to start the game, the quarterback called an incomprehensible play. His stunned teammates naturally failed to execute it, and the team lost yardage. On the next play, the quarterback repeated the same set of signals, with a similar result. On third down, one of his offensive lineman figured it out: The quarterback was calling a favorite play from four years earlier when they were both on the same prep school team. The old play was stuck in his head. “It developed that on the kickoff,” Fisher wrote, “the quarterback had received an inobvious blow on the head. By the end of the game his memory had returned, but he remained
The case was notable for the fact that the woman had fallen backward off the chair she had been standing on, had hit her head, and when confronted almost immediately by her daughter-in-law—whom she had known for the past twenty-eight years—had said, “Who are you?” It seemed to be a case of concussive amnesia, but, as often happens, no one witnessed a loss of consciousness. The odd thing was that most of the previous year was gone from her memory, along with selective bits of memory going back over thirty years.
During her examination, the woman was alert and conversed readily, if somewhat hesitantly. She gave correct details of her personallife, including having been born in Lynn, Massachusetts, having left high school in her second year, finishing at night school, then having worked successively at the Preston shoe factory for a year, at the naval shipyard during World War II, at another shoe factory briefly, and then at a Boston bank for fifteen years. She was able to give some details of her marriage, but not of the recent death of her mother and older brother. She gave all of her children’s ages minus one year. She identified Kennedy as the president, and when challenged about it, was unaware of the assassination a year earlier. She had not heard of Barry Goldwater, but was able to give a few of the names of her grade school teachers. Most striking, she could not retain Dr. Fisher’s name for more than thirty seconds, or even recall having been told it. She kept saying, “I think I’ve seen you before.” She gave the date as six months before the actual date, and many answers were given in an uncertain fashion, usually followed by the question, “Is that right?”
Four hours after their first meeting, she was still unable to retain Fisher’s name, but slowly brought into focus the death of her mother and brother. At five hours, she recalled the assassination of the president. One of the most unusual features of the case, similar to transient global amnesia, was that she repeated the same comment with the same inflection each time Dr. Fisher told her his name. “Oh, that’s like my maiden name. I won’t forget it.” (Her maiden name was Fistay.) Other comments she kept repeating were: “What happened to me?” “I think I’ve seen you before.” “Did I fall? I must’ve fallen on my head because I feel a bump.” She improved hour by hour, and after ten hours she was fully oriented to the time, the place, and her situation. Yet on the following morning, the woman could not recall ever having met Dr. Fisher. Her first memory was from ten hours before the concussion, her prior memories having returned, and she could now provide far more accurate details of her early schooling, the principal of her high school, and every one of her schoolteachers.
Amnesia from concussion without loss of consciousness was not unprecedented, and in his paper, Fisher recounted some notable casesin the literature. The most spectacular took place during the Harvard-Yale football game of 1941. When Harvard got the ball to start the game, the quarterback called an incomprehensible play. His stunned teammates naturally failed to execute it, and the team lost yardage. On the next play, the quarterback repeated the same set of signals, with a similar result. On third down, one of his offensive lineman figured it out: The quarterback was calling a favorite play from four years earlier when they were both on the same prep school team. The old play was stuck in his head. “It developed that on the kickoff,” Fisher wrote, “the quarterback had received an inobvious blow on the head. By the end of the game his memory had returned, but he remained
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