r who reported that he had been
given carbolic acid, by mistake, when a child and that he had stammered
ever since. This, like the case of the boy who swallowed the nail,
might be expected to prove a case of absolute physical injury or
impairment of the vocal chords, but once again, it was clear that such
was not the case and that the stammering was brought about solely from
the nervous shock which came as a result of taking carbolic acid.

There is still another case of a boy who felt that he was continually
being followed. This was of course merely a hallucination, but the
fright that this boy's state of mind brought on soon caused him to
stutter and stammer in a very pronounced manner.

Fright is a prolific cause of stuttering in small children and may be
traced in a great many cases to parents or nurses who persist in
telling children stories of a frightful nature, or who, as a means of
discipline, scare them by locking them up in the cellar, the closet or
the garret. To these scare-tales told to children should be added the
misguided practice of telling children that "the bogey-man will get
you" or "the policeman is after you" or some such tale to enforce
parental commands. An instance is recalled of a woman who created out
of a morbid imagination a phantom of terrible mien, who abode in the
garret and was constantly lying in wait for the small children of the
household with the professed intention of "eating them alive."

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