Stammering, its cause and cure

by Benjamin Nathaniel Bogue

It would be naturally expected that his symptoms would indicate Thought-Stammering, but this is not true. Instead I found his to be a bad case of Spasmodic Stammering, in which the convulsive action took place immediately upon an effort to speak and which resulted, therefore, in the inability to express a sound—the "sticking" tendency so common to stammering and particularly to this type.

While the worry over his stammering had left him in a mental state that made him impotent so far as normal mental accomplishments were concerned, still the removal of his stammering by the eradication of the cause would, I felt, entirely relieve the condition of mental flurry and stop the nervousness.

The case was so urgent that the boy's parents decided to place him for treatment immediately. The results were so gratifying as to be almost unbelievable. By the end of the first day's work, the boy's whole mental attitude was changed. His outlook on life was different. He felt the thrill of conquering his difficulty and before many days, he was working like a Trojan to make his cure complete and permanent. At my suggestion, he remained with me for seven weeks, at the end of which time he went back East, entirely changed in every particular. He was smiling now, where before he seemed to have forgotten how to smile. He was full of life, enthusiasm and ambition—no one who had seen him the day he first came here, could realize that this was the same boy that entered a few weeks before with the desire-to-live almost extinct. There are hundreds of cases riot far different from this—I have cited the case of this Polish boy to show what a complete transformation is made in the mental state by a few weeks' work along the right lines.

Case No. 87.522—Here was a case of a type that is very, very common. It was that of a girl, 17 years of age, from a good family, well-educated and having all the marks of careful training in a home of refinement. The most marked characteristic of her case was the tendency to recur. In other words, she was an Intermittent Stammerer, who had believed (as had her parents) that the tendency to get better was an indication that she would soon outgrow the trouble. "If Marie still stammers by the time she is 18—" this had come to be almost a household word, for if she stammered at that time, it was the intention of her parents (so they said) to have the girl placed under treatment. As was to be expected, she continued to stammer and continued to get steadily worse, although the tendency to be better and worse by turns was maintained throughout the years. The periods of improvement were eagerly seized by her parents, year after year, as indications of out-growing, while the periods of relapse were seldom spoken of and usually ignored. It was another case of the old saying that: "We like to think that the thing will happen which we want to happen," and since they wanted the daughter to outgrow her trouble, they insisted in believing, despite their own unexpressed fears, that the daughter would "eventually get over it!"

She did not get over it, however, and the critical age of 16 brought on a condition so severe that her parents became alarmed about her and sought advice as to what should be done.

An examination of her case brought out the fact that she had probably inherited a predisposition to stammer, but that the immediate cause of the trouble had been fright, caused by a nurse who had tried to discipline the girl when small, by telling her that the "bogey-man" would get her if she didn't do certain things as told. This disciplining by means of fear is never a safe procedure and in this case had been carried to extremes on many occasions, finally resulting in the child becoming a stammerer.

She had a case of Genuine Stammering in its second stage and, according to her own statement at the time the examination was made, had become much worse in the last two years. At age 15 it seems that everyone felt secure in the belief that her trouble would pass away, but at age 17, the condition became critical, the disorder having previously passed into the second stage.

Two and a half weeks worked a wonderful improvement in the girl's condition, at the end of which time she was compelled to return to her home on account of a death in the family. She remained at home for almost a month, after which she returned to me to complete the cure. Even under such an unusual and unfavorable circumstance as this, she remained with me the last time only four weeks, and has, according to her report, never stammered since, nor has she been oppressed by the overpowering sense of fear that formerly seized her when she thought of trying to talk.

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.