Stammering
or STUTTERING, an infirmity of speech, the result of fail ure in co-ordinate action of certain muscles and their appropriate nerves. It is analogous to some kinds of lameness, to cramp or spasm, or partial paralysis of the arms, wrists, hands, and nd fingers, occasionally suffered by violinists, pianists, and swordsmen; to the scrivener's palsy, or writer's cramp, of men who write much.
Stammering may be hereditary, and it may be acquired by imitation. It may be the result of mental strain or shock.
Fever may bring it on, epilepsy, hysteria, and nervous affection, temporary failure of health, any excitement, soreness of the mouth. It rarely shows itself earlier than at 4 or 5 years of age. It usually begins in youth, but may be produced at any later age.
Stammering occurs in the mouth, the organ of articulation. Its proximate cause is always in the larynx, the organ of voice. Sometimes the lungs, the organ of breathing, complicate the uncertainty and unsteadiness of the vocal cords and the vocal chink in the larynx.
Stammering can be cured. It often