Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1890-03-02
SUFFERING TONGUES.
The Words, s'Win You Marry SIe?'' Bother
Many a Tongue-The Remedy.

The Words, f'Wnl You Marry BIe?' Bother
Many Tongue-The Remedy.
Although Moses was a great leader and law
giver, yet we have good reason to believe that he
suffered for when commanded by the Lord to
speak for his people he made reply that he was
''slow of speech and of heavy tongue.' So
Aaron was deputed to act as spokesman. we
have here probably the earliest reference to a
singular characteristic OF the suffering evil,
viz, the increase of the trouble when the person
affected attempts to speak in the presence of
strangers or superiors. In quiet family inter
course the child will give no sign of the affection
for weeks, even months, when the sudden en-
trance OF stranger return to sch COL Will at
once bring on the evil. In popping the queS-
tom the sufferer finds his greatest difficulty
Ridicule and Impotence on the part of listen
ers serve only to increase the tendency to slut
ter. 1t is a common mistake to confound slut
ter1ng with stammering; in the latter case there
IS never q moment when the StGmmerer, HSper,
etc. is not under the ban of his defect while in
the former the person afflicted may go for a con-
siderable length OF time without the slightest
display of the almost. Not until the happen
ings of the disturbing cause does the stutterer
lose his power to set his thoughts to words and
express them intelligently.
In the most ordinary form of thi ailment, the
speaker begins in a natural manner, when sud-
denly a certain word, or syllable in a word, ar
rests his course violently; the face twitches and
jerks; all will power TO open or close the mouth
is lost; the eyelids rise and fall quite independ-
emily of the Sufferers control, and the head is
thrown forward, backward or sidewise. This
wild play OF the muscles arises from the fact that
the patient is now seeking in a round about way
to grasp the power OF speech which has slipped
away from him, and in so doing he sets in mo-
ton an allied set OF muscles, and IN turn loses
control over them, too. IN his desperate attempt
to recover control Of the organs and muscles OF
speech, he violently diSturbs his breathing ap-
paratus and presents in extreme cases the spec
tacle of person threatened with death by stran-
gulation. In some forms of the disease the
patient stamps his feet. saws the air with one or
both arms, or turns entirely around.
In another form of the disease, but one of rarer
occurrence, the speaker suddenly comes to halt
without the slightest outward manifestations of
any twitching in the face or body.
Only the change in the color of his face or
drops of precipitation give evidence of the con-
fiict going on.
After a few seconds the power of speech is fully
recovered.
There are almost as many theories regarding
suffering as there are experts.
The Frenchman Colombat de nIsere attributes
it to lack of harmony between the nerve force
which follows the thought and the movement of
the muscles which ought to give it expression.
Froriep locates the difficulty in mechanical
defect of the organs regulating the movement
of the tongue. Kleucke lays the cause of the
evil upon scrofula, manifest latent.
Coen holds ill-regulated breathing respon-
sible for it, and Schrank affir1ns that
the evil has its seat in organic disease of the
cerebrum. Our own opinion is that suffering is
the result of a sudden change in the pressure of
center of speech. and that such changes are the
result of mental influences. To support this
theory, we have only to point out the fact that
persons with perfect powers of speech. in mo-
ments of great mental excitement, become alter
nately red and pale in the face and lose control
over their organs of speech.
When sufferer is alone, or believes himself
to be alone, he in most cases read or de-
claim any matter without the Sigh test difTi-
Guilty. So, too, in chorGscs, he finds no diff
Guilty in singing or speaking, for he feels that
the attention of nobody is especially directed to
him, and consequently he is in the enjoyment of
psychic repose. All at, emptS to cure this malady
must be based upon efforts to turn the sufferer
thoughts in channel away from his defect and
thus to free him from the pressure which the
lack Of confidence in his powers of utterance
exerts upon him.
Regular breathing and keeping time while
speaking viii serve to turn the thoughts of the
patient from his dread of his ailment.
Greater or less success VIII follow all at
tempted cures according to the amount of intel
igenCe and patience put into the task:
DR.. J. RUFF.