Aphasia did not start with Broca. In the New Testament,St.Luke reports that Zacharias could not speak but could write,showing the early recognition of the autonomy of different aspects of linguistic knowledge.In 30B.C.E. the Roman writer Valerius Maximus describes an Athenian who was unable to remember his letters after being hit in the head with a stroke of a stone he fell presently to forget his letter only and could read no more otherwise his memory served him well enough
Nemerous clinical description of patients with language deficits but intact non linguistic cognitive system were published between the fifteenth and eighteenth centuries.Johannes Gesner in 1770 did not attribute these language difficulties to either general intellectual deficits or loss of memory but to specific impairment to language memory .He wrote Just as some verbal powers can become weakened without injury to others memory also can be specifically impaired to greater or lesser degree with respect only certain classes of ideas.
Other report describe patients suffering from acquired dyslexia who nevertheless preserved their ability to write and patients who could write to diction but could not read back what they had written