The farmer and mechanic. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 18??-19??, 1915-01-26
HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS 81 ]FFER
FROM THE SUFFERING MAI ADV

heurasthenlcS or the fear OF open
places OF certain Of the crazy. II
realty IS IN 2 mild way, the fit of
insanity that it often seems
Suffering is, therefore, not nearly
SO funny AS it looks. The hyper
phonlcs' are a, high strung nervous
folk, self-conscious and sensitive to |
rdlcule, for stupid, thick skinned per |
sons rarely stutter. Nine-tenths Of |
them begin before they are ten wears |
OF age, so that virtually never, dur
ing their entire lives, do they know |
what 1t rs to be free from the hourly |
evaporation Of their affhction
Imagine an intelligent child with
no other memories Of his school days
than the merriment Of his comrades
and the annoyance Of his teachers
Think what it must be during the
storm and stress Of adolescence, bad
enough at best, to be always an OBJ
ject to remark, OF mocl1ery or of pity.
to live in dread OF making ones self
absurd; to be cut off from spontane-
Gus normal social life; to be always
seeking for cure and to find only
the hope long deferred that maketh
the heart sick. No wonder that many
a sufferer who begins life as whole
some minded and normal as any OF
us turns Grabbed and misanthropic
under his torment or breaks down
nervo1sly under his extra load
cite actual caSes-to enter shop, see
somebody that one knows and then tc
sneak out unobserved because that
i particular confederation always starts
| the fit; to stand open mouthed and
| dumb before an office window while
an impatient line say things behind;
| to be forced always to buy railway
tickets to the station beyond ones
! home because the name of ones own
| town contains the unSpeakable let
| ter group; to know that although one
is tongue free with family and
! friends one is forever fated to enter
! tain strangers in a sense quite other
| than the scriptural. Even that
stock joke of the humorist, the slut
terer trying to propose, isn't SO aw-
fully funny to either of the two per
sons most concerned.
Moreover, the mere bread and but
ter problem may loom large. No
| body wants to hire an office clerk or
stenOgrapher who cannot be trusted
to answer the telephone. A stutter-
ing salesman is quite iInpOSSi bic. An
occasional lawyer or doctor does ar
rive in spite of his handicap-but
never clergyman or a teacher.
Serious hyperhonia cuts one of
from half the vcr ions of civilized
life; so that. MAJ suffering i'm
!; migrants are refused admission tC
makes them likely to become a pub
| lie charge. At least one stutterer-s
| railway engineer, whose troubles
came on suddenly after the shock o:
an acCident-has been adjudged in
| sane and shut UP in a mad house.
Suffering, in short, is not a joke
7 but a disease, a disease moreover 81
5 distressing in its symptoms and 81
E serious inits consequences that if
:, 31a no. ~
better take the chances will
p pneum onia or typhoid, be killed O
8 cured at once, and have it over with
The malady afflicts more than
r quarter million persons in the Unite,
$ States Sufferers and stammerers to
Il gether outnumber the blind or tn
!, deaf and dumb and compare wit
! the insane and feeble-minded.
4 Yet virtually nothing is done 70
their relief In all this kindly lane
q | where there are free clinics for sic.
: horses and endowed homes for stra
# / cats, where the lame, the halt, tn
o ! blind, the vicious and the lazy are g.
provided for, there is neither luz
o nor hospital nor diSpenSary to whic
g the victim of speech defect can tur
{. for aid. The general practitioner ca
;. do nothing for him, nor the school
n If he cannot employ oneo f the ha
% dozen competent men in the countI
re- he IHuSl go uHIfelpeu, OF ldlI INTO lie
+ hands Of quackS who leave his Ia.
n state worse than the first. In Japa
&c there is public provision for TT
# sufferer as for other detectives; bl
: not in the United States of America
re The trouble commonly begins b.
fore ten years Of age-after one h;
at learned to speak, but before years
re practice have drilled in all the del
ne cate muscular adjustments.
81 A child is i'll, nervous, run dow
or He gets a fall, or a bad fright. Son
en- sort of shock breaks into his spol
d. taneOus unthinking life. Sonnebo(
an tells him a hair raising ghost stOr
he Even a failure at school or a scol
it ing at home may start up a Vagu
ar nervOusd read that is the beginning
he all sorts Of troubles. After that it
more or less of toss-up whether Il