THE PHYSIOLOGY OF STAMMERING

The dictionary defines stammering or stuttering as consisting in making involuntary stops in uttering syllables or words—a halting, defective utterance. Fortunately the time has gone by when any except the most inerudite regard stammering as primarily due to an anatomical defect of the mouth or the throat. It has become clear that the nervous system is in some way responsible. Various systems of overcoming stammering have been introduced with considerable success. The greatest promise of controlling this most embarrassing interruption of speech lies in ascertaining, first of all, precisely what physiologic and psychologic factors enter into and condition its manifestations.

Bluemel⁴ has defended the hypothesis that stammering is the result of cerebral congestion. There is reason to believe that such a circulatory disturbance affects speech as readily or even more easily than it does any other activity. The cerebral congestion is assumed, on Bluemel's theory, to blur verbal imagery,