The terms stuttering and stammering are often used synonymonsly, but the former term is properly, or, aeleast, conveniently, limited to a loose and imperfect uuction of the organs of articulation, as distinguished from the irregularity of breathing and the convulsive and choking symptoms which invariably accompany at:tunnel-hos In stut tering. the organs meet- and rebound again and again in reiteration of syllables before words can be fully formed. The source of this difficulty lies in the lower jaw. When this organ is brought under control, and the effort of speech transferred from the month to the throat—where all voice is formed—the power of fluency is readily obtained. But stuttering is rarely unaccompanied by some degree of spasmodic stain merinss and the two forms of impediment, while theoretically distinct, are generally blended in mutual aggravation.
Stainmering is. in nearly every case, perfectly curable, as it seldom arises from organic defect. The means of cure must, however, often be continued for a length of time before the stammerer is free from the danger of relapse. The best time for the cure is undoubtedly the earliest, before the habit has acquired full strength, and before the sufferer has endured the most grievous mortifications and drawbacks of the iinpedi meat. But the adult stammerer generally brings to the curative task a higher appreci ation of its importance, and a greater care and concentration of effort than the child is capable of; and these qualities almost compensate for the disadvantage of long-established habit. Parents often unwisely defer-the attempt to correct impediments of speech, in the hope that the defects will diskuppear as the child gains strength and reaches riper years. But the hope is very rarely realized; and were it otherwise, the misery of years of impediment, and the hindrance to education which stammering certainly involves, are evils to be avoided by all possible means. With this, as with all habits, " prevention is better than cure;" and stammering would be easily and certainly prevented by timely advice carried out with ordinary care in the nursery.
The means that have been proposed for the cure of stammering have been as various as the theories of the nature of the defect: and sometimes the "cure" has been appar ently but little better than the disease. Drawling, singing• interpolations or elisions of letters. speaking with the teeth closed, or with the tongue pressed to the roof of the month. sniffling, whistling between words, heating time to utterance• stamping the foot, jerking the body, forks on the tongue, pebbles in the month, or tubes fixed between the organs, bands the larynx. and other absurd and uncouth devices, have been, under cover of expedient practiced on unhappy stammerers. But the removal of this defect, as above shown, depends on the skillful application of scientific principles, respecting which there is no mystery save that which arises from the little attention that has been paid to the science of speech.
From the account of the nature of stammering, it is almost superfluous to add that the cure of this impediment does not fall within the province of surgery. Yet
the barbarous operation of cutting a wedge front the rout t rod need from Germany about Sifi years ago—and the equally futile and cruel operation of excising the tonsils, have been, within no distant date, extensively practiced by surgeons in this country.
The habit of stammering can only be counteracted by the cultivation of a habit of correct sneaking; and latter can only be noquired by stuslying the processes of speech, the relation of breath to articulate sounds. the positions of the tongue and the other oral organs in molding the ()Inward stream of air; and by a patient application of these principles in slow and watchful exercise. The lungs constitute a 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 expelled 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 articulating organs. which must be kept passire, yielding to the air, always opening to give it exit, and never resisting it by ascent of the or of the jaw. The head must be held firmly on the neck. to give free play to the attached organs; and the great principle must never be lost sight of that speech is breath ; and that, whit' distinctness depends on precision and sharpness of the oral actions. fluency depeuds on the unrestrained emission of the material of speech— the air we breathe.
Besides stammering and stuttering, there are many other forms of vicious articula tion, which are rather defects than impediments of speech. The elementary sounds most subject to mispronunciation are those of r and s, giving rise to the common defects of burring and lisping. Burring consists in vibrating the uvu:a (4r the edge of the soft palate, instead of the tip of the tongue; and lisping consists in applying the townie to the teeth or the gum, so as to intercept the breath, and force it over the sides instead of the center of the tongue. The sound of 1 also is often defective, gr, y, IT, or a towel being substituted for the lingual articulation. Other substitutions of one elt meat for another are common, such as t, d, and a, for k, and 2,g; s or z for th; s for sie, etc. There are also defects which arise from organic malformation, and require the aid of surgery; as when fissure exists in the palate, and the breath cannot be enclosed behind the lips or tongue. hut escapes into the nostrils; when the tongue is too closely tied to the bed of the mouth, and the tip cannot be raised to the palate; when the teeth are so irregular or abnormally numerous as to leave the tongue too little room to act, etc. In some cases the breath escapes into the nostrils when there is no organic cause for the peculiar ity. and r, 1, s, and other elements arc nasally sin (teed, merely from habit. The nasal passages arc, in other cases, insufficieutly free, and ni n, and any are scarcely distinguish able from b, d, and g.