The Forest Republican. [volume] (Tionesta, Pa.) 1869-1952, 1890-11-05
CORKS CURE SUFFERING.
A SIMPLE DEVICE FOR THE RELIEF
OF sTAMMERERs.
What Makes People Stutter-Tongue-
tied Women AreHare-A Majority
of Stammerers Are Tentons.

tied Women Are Rare-A Majority
of Stammerers Are Teutons.
Curiously enough, from statistics II APP
pears that the Germans, though reported
to be such slow-speaking people, have
larger percentage Of stutterers among
them than any other nation. Next to
them are the English. Americans are
noticea4y free from this failing. It is
probably because Of this that there are
but two training schools for Sufferers in
the whole country. One is in New York
and the other is in Chicago. The one in
this city was started three months ago by
DR.. Lothar SchwarL, young German
specialist, who gathered practical expert
ence in his chosen line in some OF the
best institutions of this character In Ger
many. He has had twelve resident pa
tients, some of whom are from neighbor-
ing States. He has been able te effect q
number of cures during the brief time he
has managed his institution.
DR.. Schwarz says that the causes of
stammering are varied. In majority Of
cases the trouble originates during baby
hood, the child being either too lazy to
initiate sounds correctly or else some
what deaf and unable to hear sounds
properly. Sudden fright, diseases like
diphtheria, typhoid or scarlet fever often
! bring about partial inability of the ton
| que to enunciate clearly. Again, de-
fective formation of muscles or OF organs
such as the larynx, the tongue, the palate
or the mouth is often the cause of the
trouble. In number of cases, too, the
lungs are not trained to perform the func-
tions properly during speaking, so that
the stutterer attempts to breathe while
speaking, thus causing an interruption of
the voice. The forceful grimaces made
by so many Sufferers while trying to
pronounce difficult letters, such as I'D"
lad at, f" "f" and "p," ''m" and "n"
= Ia IS, are due to the violent contrac-
9tion of the facial muscles. In regard to
I a cure to be effected the doctor said:
s'The first means to be employed-that
is, the means which are most effective and
rapid in nearly all cases-is the one
brought into system and first made
public by Professor Koen. This is
system by which the tongue above all is
carefully trained to perform its manifold
duties. The tongue is exercised, made
pliable, and is taught to do always that
which the owner means to have it do,
To accomplish this the stutterer is sub
jected to o regular course of exercises,
some of them quite disagreeable and
wearisome. For instance, he has to hold
a cork between his teeth, and then his
tongue must try and pronounce words,
syllables, letters, and even whole sem
tences distinctly without dropping the
cork. BY all sorts of tricks the tongue
is forced to attain proficiency in pro-
nouhcing Just those letters or combina-
tions of letters which it was formerly un-
able to pronounce, except perhaps with
great difficulty.
While the specialist was talking he
entered a room in which the handsome
twelve-year-ol son of well known
college professor in Iowa was just under
going one of those exercises the doctor
was discussing. The boys organs OF
speech had normally developed until a
year ago, when he met with an accident
"a heavy fall from his velocipede. Since
that time he was unable to speak two
words in succession without feeling pain
and discomfort. The muscles of his
face contracted and his cheeks and brow
became suffused with blood in his violent
efforts to speak AS he stood before the
specialist his eyes were fixed upon the
wall, and he repeated for the hundredth
time "Don't do wrong Where will
you be tomorrow" and other phrases
difficult for him to enunciate. He pro-
nounced them after fortnight's treat
ment, plainly, but very slowly and with
evident effort. Before each word he
drew deep breath and there was queer
whizzing sound from his lips. "That
will soon disappear" said the doctor,
"but with all this brave boys persistence
it will require at last another month to
rid him completely of his abnormal
peculiarities of speech"
Girls have this aiIiiction much more
rarely than boys. Their tongue appears
to be more elastic than is the tongue OF
the opposite sex. Women who are una
BILE to speak quickly and plainly are very
rare, according to scientific writers on
the subject The largest percentage of
Sufferers is furnished by boyhood, es-
pecially between the tenth and fifteenth
year. This is due, in part, to an impet-
uosity of speech, which gradually disap-
pears as the boy learns little more
sense and reserve. There are no reliable
statistics to show the percentage of those
having some impediment in their speech
in the different countries on the globe.
But the fact is sufficiently established
that this percentage is much smaller In
all the Latin countries, such as France,
Italy, SPAN, Portugal and South Amer
lea than it is in the Teutonic lands.
This is said to be largely due to the fact
that the Germanic tongue is less voluble
than the Latin one; that the languages
derived in part from the old Latin are
more easy of pronunciation than those
descended from the old Teuton linguis-
tic stock, and that there are more yowels
and less difficult combinations of conso-
nants in them. This theory seems to
find support in the fact that the English
speaking people, who talk tongue
about evenly made up or Teuton and
Latin words, have far less Sufferers
among them than the Germans and Scan
'dinavians, while there are at the same
time more Sufferers among them than
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