A letter to Henry Cline, on imperfect developments of the faculties, mental and moral, as well as constitutional and organic, and on the treatment of impediments of speech.

Thelwall, John, 1764-1834.

Date:: 1810

Credit: A letter to Henry Cline, on imperfect developments of the faculties, mental and moral, as well as constitutional and organic, and on the treatment of impediments of speech. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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$ture was so obstinate as, not merely “to form a “‘small‘indentation at the extremity,” but even to divide the tongue, in its attempts to advance beyond the teeth, into two thick lobes; which interdicted the-complete formation of the element th, and im- parted a sort of thickness to the whole enunciation. In both these cases, after reiterating every experi- ment, which, in other instances, I had found efft- cacious in subduing similar impediments, I was obliged to invite the assistance of the surgeon ; whose operation, most assuredly, was considerably assistant to the efficacy of my instructions. _“ There is, also, another observation in’ Dr. Denman’s communication, which may, perhaps, be liable to some misapprehension ; the statement, I mean, that “ what is called speaking thick, pleno “ore, is occasioned by cutting the frenum.” In its present unqualified shape, this position is, cer- tainly, much too general; for tho the officiousness of nurses and gossips, in this particular, is one of the primary causes of such impediment, yet does not the defect, on one hand, irremediably en- sue, nor, on the other, does thickness of enuncia- \ tion necessarily suppose any such peculiarity. or injury in the physical state of the organs; two P 2$