The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1886-03-20
STAN M ERING.
An AfiictiOn Which Can Be Easily Cured
by Proper Treatment.

An An1iction Which Can Be Easily Cured
by Proper Treatment.
Stammering is an affection of she
vocal organs, causing hesitancy and
difficulty of utterance. The best
authorities now regard its origin as dis
tinct from any physical defect. There
can be no doubt that the impediment
is aggravated by physical weakness or
debility of any kind, but these in
tiuences have nothing to do with the
primary cause of the infrmity. A
nervous dread of speaking is usually
associated with stammering but this is
rather result than cause. If con-
stitutiOnal nervousness were productive
of stammering the number of cases
would be much greater and include an
excess of females over males, whereas
the fact is that men furnish by far the
greater proportion of those so affected,
besides, stammerers are not in general
persons of weak nerves otherwise than
in the act of speaking. Nervousness
is associated with speech in stammer-
ing because of the consciousness that
the defect is made the subject of
observation. The strength of the
impeachment lies in habit, in
mismanagement of the breath and
organs of utterance, rendered habitual
in extreme youth and the removal of
the defect depends upon the acquire
ment of voluntary control over the or
gans of speech. Children have often
been known to be infected with the
habit by the most casual example. If,
on the first appearance of this defect on
the part of child, parents and nurses
were careful to check it by patient di-
rection and instruction, an unfortu-
nate habit of Il lifetime might
always be prevented. Stammering
usually makes its appearance at
about the fifth year, but harshness
and Impotence with children especial
ly if there is constitutional timidity
combined with natural slowness of men
| tai action, may induce it at even a much
later period. The varieties of stammer-
ing are very great. Sometimes there
is great muscular disturbance and
painful effort to articulate certain let
| tiers. This trouble arises from disordered
respiration and disappears when the
habit of closing the CLOTHS is overcome
and the air is allowed to pass freely in
and out of the lungs Another trouble
consists in the reiteration of syllables
before words can be fully form. The
source of this difficulty arises from the
habit of trying to speak with
the mouth rather than the throat. All
effort ofspeech should proceed from the
throat, and when this change is made
fluency can be easily regained. SIAM
mering is in nearly every case quite
durable by the cultivation of a habit of
correct speaking. This can only be ac-
| quired by studying the processes of
speech, the relation of breath to articu-
late sounds, the position of the tongue
and other vocal organs, and patient
application of these principles in slow
and watchful exercise. The lungs con-
stitute pair of bellows, and the mouth,
in all its varying shapes the nozzle of
| the bellows. The passage of the throat
must be kept open and the breath eX-
| PEELED by means of the ascent of the
diaphragm, not by downward pressure
of the chest. All sound originates in
the throat, and all effort in speech
must be thrown back behind the articu-
lating organs, which must be kept
passive, yielding to the air, always
opening to give it exit, and never re-
sisting it by the ascent of the tongue or
of the jaw. The head must be held
firmly on the neck to give free play to
the organs, and the factn forgotten
that tiuency of speech depends upon
the unrestrained emission of the material
of speech, which is breath. The one
difficulty found in curing stammering
by the application of these common
sense principles is that the victim of the
habit has not the needed patience and
persistence to apply them Chicago
Inter Ocean.