Stammering, its cause and cureBogue, Benjamin Nathaniel
Science
Stammering, its cause and cure
Bogue, Benjamin Nathaniel
Stuttering
Case No. 84.563--This case first came to my attention over ten years
ago, when I was called upon to make a diagnosis. This showed the
trouble to be a case of Combined Stammering and Stuttering, originally
caused, it seemed, from having associated with an old man who was
janitor in a wood-working plant belonging to the father of the boy
whose case I am describing. The janitor had stammered ever since anyone
about the place had known him and probably all of his life. In his
early days, with his youth to carry him on, he had tried to hold down
several jobs of consequence, but with varying success, dropping down
the ladder rung by rung until he reached the place of janitor. The boy
in question, having associated with the old man, early acquired the
habit of mocking his defective speech, with the result that he himself
soon began to stutter, which later turned into a combined form of
disorder known as Combined Stammering and Stuttering.
He came to me at the time he was 28, having found it necessary to go to
work on his own account, upon the failure of his father's business. I
explained to him that his was a case of Combined Stammering and
Stuttering, outlined to him the probable course of his trouble and what
he might reasonably expect if he allowed it to continue. Having been
married only a short time and being rather reluctant to leave home for
the length of time necessary to take the course, he decided to postpone
treatment until some later date. I heard nothing more from him for
almost three years, when he walked in one day, looking like a shadow of
his former self. There were dark rings around his eyes, his gaze was
shifty and I could hardly believe that this was the young fellow who
had seen me three years ago. Nevertheless it was the same man, with a
story that pointed out the danger of postponement. His trouble had
become steadily worse, he said, until it had ruined his control over
himself. He had become nervous, irritable and cross, without meaning to
be so, had lost one good position after another and finally, as a
climax to a long string of misfortunes, his wife had left him,
declaring that she would not put up with him in such a condition.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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