Stammering considered with reference to its cure by the application of those laws which regulate utterance : in a letter addressed to George Birkbeck ... / by Richard Cull.

  • Cull, Richard
Date:
1835
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Stammering considered with reference to its cure by the application of those laws which regulate utterance : in a letter addressed to George Birkbeck ... / by Richard Cull. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    A LETTER, ETC. D ear Doctor, The varied and generally unsucessful treatment of impediments of speech has led to the prevailing notion that they are incurable : although that opinion is inaccurate, the weight of evidence is such as to force on us the conclusion that, in the majority of successful cases, the cure is more attributable to chance than to the application of known principles. The greater number of beneficially treated cases have been by an avoidance of, a sort of dodging with the difficulty, not surmounting it. “ The peculiarity of their speech/’ says Dr. Bostock, “ indicates that the difficulty is rather evaded than obviated*.” v Different expedients have been resorted to for this purpose. One means of avoidance has been to re¬ ject, to throw out of use, all such words as experience ascertained to break the continuity of utterance, and to substitute others of proximate signification. This is the extension of a principle instinctively adopted by those whose speech is liable to interruption, and * Medico-Chirurgical Transactions, vol. xvi., page 72. B
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