Such disciplinary methods of parents savor much of the Inquisition and the Dark Ages and should, for the good of the children and the future generation they represent, be totally abolished.  While these methods do not, in every case, result in stuttering or stammering, they make the child of a nervous disposition and lay him liable in later years to the afflictions which accompany nervous disorders.  In some cases “tickling” a child has caused stammering or stuttering.  Care should be exercised here as well, for prolonged tickling brings about intense muscular contraction especially of the diaphragmatic muscles, which contraction is accompanied by an agitated mental condition as well as extreme nervousness, all of which approaches very closely to the combination of abnormal conditions which are found to be present in stammering or stuttering.

Fall or injury as A cause:  Step into any gathering of average American parents for a half-hour and if the subject of the children should come up, you are sure to hear one or more dramatic recitals of the falls and injuries suffered by the junior members of the household, from the first time that Johnny fell out of bed and frightened his mother nearly to death, to the day that he was in an automobile crash at the age of 23.  And these tales are always closed with the profound bit of confided information that these falls are of no consequence—­“nothing ever comes of them.”

While in a great measure this is true, there are many falls and injuries suffered in childhood which are responsible for the ills of later life, although it is seldom indeed that they are blamed for the results which they bring about.

Injuries and falls are a frequent cause of stuttering and stammering.  Usually, however, an injury results in stuttering or stammering, not because of any change in the physical structure brought about by the injury but rather by the nervous shock attending it.  In other words, cases of stammering and stuttering caused apparently by injury might, if desired, be traced still further back, showing as the initial cause an injury but as a direct cause the fright or nervous shock resulting from that injury.

A good example of this is found in a case of a young man who came to me some years ago.  He said:  “When I was about five years old, my brother and I were playing in the cellar and I wanted to jump off the top step.  When I jumped, I hit my head on the cross-piece and it knocked me back on the steps and I slid down on my back, and ever since, for ten years, I have stammered.”

Here is a case where the blow on the head, or the succession of blows on the spinal column as the boy slid down the stairs, might have been the cause of the trouble.  More probably, it was the combined injury, undoubtedly resulting in a severe nervous shock from which the boy probably did not recover for many days.

Another man said, in describing his case during an examination:  “At the age of 16, I was hit on the head with a ball.  I lost my memory for one week and when I regained it, I was a stammerer.”  This is a plain case of injury resulting in immediate stammering.