336 ILLINOIS STATE ACADEMY OF SCIENCE 



A NEW PRINCIPLE ESSENTIAL TO CORRECT 

 SPEECH IN THE TREATMENT OF COM- 

 PLETE CONGENITAL CLEFT PALATE 



Truman W. Brophy, M. D., Chicago 



The subject of defective speech due to congenital de- 

 fects of the lips and palate claimed the attention of sur- 

 geons as early as the beginning of the Christian Era, the 

 lip being operated upon by Celsus, who lived during the 

 period of 42 B. C. to 37 A. D., but history does not re- 

 cord any operation on palatal deformities until 1764 

 when La.Monier, a French dentist, performed the oper- 

 ation. 



There is no more prevalent misunderstanding of the 

 functions of the various organs of the body than regard- 

 ing those which enter into the production of speech. Jt 

 is almost universally believed that the tongue is the prin- 

 cipal organ of speech. On the contrary, while the tongue, 

 lips, teeth, cheeks, vocal cords, pharynx and palate 

 are all important vocal organs and do their part in clari- 

 fying enunciation, in the distinct articulation of conso- 

 nant sounds, in the perfection of vocal resonance, the 

 palate is supreme. In 1887, the late Dr. G. V. Black 

 said: "There is a peculiar fact in connection with the 

 phenomenon of cleft palate. We may cut away the lips, 

 the teeth and the tongue and the patient may talk plainly 

 after all, but if we cut away the soft palate, it seems to 

 be utterly impossible for the patient to speak perfectly. ' ' 



To corroborate the above, I quote from the late Dr. G. 

 Hudson-Makuea: "The vowel sounds may be articu- 

 lated when the palate is defective, but their resonance is 

 so much impaired that they are scarcely recognizable and 

 their pitch cannot be changed with any degree of accur- 

 acy. It is in the articulation of consonant sounds, how- 

 ever, that the palate is especially essential. . 



"Of the twenty-three consonant sounds, only two, the 

 "m" and "n", can be given intelligibly when the palate 

 is not intact, and even in these the resonance is some- 

 what impaired. All those consonant sounds in the enun- 

 ciation of which the tongue is a conspicuous factor, as 

 s, z, t, d, 1, etc., as well as those in which the lips and 



