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
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

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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    ripened into inveterate impediment, if the accident of my going into the shop, to furnish myself with an article I wanted, had not brought me acquainted with the circumstance. Half an hour’s attention, however, and the imposition of a very acceptable task (the reiterated pronunciation of a short, ridi- culous sentence) enabled me to put them into a train of as intelligible utterance as any of the people by whem they were surrounded. | “'To conclude.—Let it not be supposed, upon one hand, that wherever there is a thickness of ut- terance, or indistinct enunciation, there must ne- cessarily be any defect in the physical state of the organs ; or, on the other,—that, even where the fre- num has been inj udiciously separated, or the tongue, from any other circumstance, is more loosely situ- ated in the mouth than usual, that a mumbling: ful- ness must inevitably exist. Natural impediments (properly understood) are, indeed, exceedingly rare. Deafness and mental imbecility excepted,— they can only originate from extreme obstinacy of stricture in the frenum, from hare-lip, from mal- conformation of the jaw, or from fissure of the roof and obliteration of the woula; and even of these, fortunately, there 1s not one which is beyond