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Obviously, a satisfactory answer to the third question is imperative, if the argument is to get under way at all, for if there is any possibility of doubt whether the patient's tactual sensitivity had been impaired by the occipital lesion, any findings whatsoever in regard to the first question become completely ambiguous and fail altogether, of course, as evidence to establish the desired conclusion.

The answer the authors give to it, therefore, is of supreme importance.

It is as follows: `` The usual sensitivity tests showed that the specific qualities of skin-perceptiveness ( pressure, pain, temperature ), as well as the kinesthetic sensations ( muscular feelings, feelings in the tendons and joints ), were, as such, essentially intact, although they seemed, in comparison with normal reactions, to be somewhat diminished over the entire body.

The supposed tactual sense of spatial location and orientation in the patient and his ability to specify the location of a member, as well as the direction and scope of a movement, passively executed ( with one of his members ), proved to have been, on the contrary, very considerably affected ''.

The authors insist, however, that these abnormalities in the sense of touch were due absolutely to no organic disorders in that sense faculty but rather to the injuries which the patient had sustained to the sense of sight.