Lip chorea and paresis of the external pterygoid muscles : commonly called 'stammering' / by Edward Blake.

  • Blake, Edward.
Date:
1890
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Lip chorea and paresis of the external pterygoid muscles : commonly called 'stammering' / by Edward Blake. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.

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    I know that medical men will be the first to admit that they have not been at the pains to study the precise nature of stammering. The busy practitioner may be excused when he pleads that his life leaves no leisure for luxuries. But the neurologist even, to whom these sufferers should, by right, be able to turn for relief, have not given this grave subject the serious attention it demands. The distinction between stammering and stut- tering, though sometimes convenient, is quite arbitrary and artificial. There is no pathologic difference between them; the subj ects of both recover under the same treatment. On the other hand it is beyond the range of doubt that wide differences reign between cases of stammering, which present a strong family likeness to the superficial observer. We shall presently see that stammering has a very wide etiology. There is no royal road to the cure of every case of speech hesitancy. The successful management of stammering requires immense and most plastic resource. The plan of campaign must be at least as complex in character as the causation of the disorder. Above all each case calls imperatively for individualisation. Each must be treated on its own merits. It is quite impossible for a layman to cover the whole ground needful either for a perfect recogni-