767 



STAMMER. 



STAMMER, 



758 



and comfort of the animal will be most profitable to the feeder. When 

 a beast has acquired a certain degree of fatness, it is a nice point to 

 decide whether it would be best to send him to market or continue to 

 feed him. This is often decided by mere caprice or fancy ; but if the 

 food baa been weighed, and the weekly increase of the beast is noted, 

 which is best done by weighing, but may nearly be guessed by mea- 

 suring, it becomes a mere question in arithmetic to determine whether 

 his increase pays for his food and attendance ; if it does not, there is a 

 Iocs in keeping him ; and if a lean animal put in his stead would in- 

 crease faster on the same food, every day he is kept there is a loss of 

 the difference between the increase of the two. The pride of pro- 

 ducing a wonderful animal at a fair or show may be dearly paid for, 

 and must be put down to the account of luxuries, like the keeping 

 of hunters or racehorses. 



The most profitable food for fattening cattle is, in general, the pro- 

 duce of the farm : the expense of all purchased food is increased by 

 the profit of the dealer and the carriage of it. And the only com- 

 pensation for this additional cost may be in increasing the manure, 

 where the straw and roots of the farm are deficient : in that case oil- 

 cake, or even corn, may be purchased with advantage, since by means 

 of the manure crops may be raised which without it must fail. The 

 stalling of cattle, as well as the fatting of pigs, is in many situations 

 the best means of carrying the produce of the farm to market. An ox 

 can be driven many miles, whilst the food he has consumed would not 

 repay the carriage, and all the manure would be lost, and must be 

 purchased at a great expense, if it can be had at all . If a fanner can 

 feed cattle, so as to pay him a fair market-price for the food consumed, 

 and something for the risk of accidental loss, he may be well contented 

 to have the manure for his trouble : few stall-feeders get more than 

 this in the long run. 



It may be proper to add to the above, that the box-feeding where 

 the animal is loose in a space about 10 feet square, la more conducive 

 to health than stall-feeding where the animal is tied by the neck. The 

 box is littered every morning, and the animal is thus kept dry and clean 

 without the removal of the soiled litter, which thus kept from exposure 

 to air and rain, ultimately yields a much more fertilising manure than 

 that of the ordinary dung-heap. 



STAMMER. The terms stammer and stutter are synonymously 

 adopted to denote the involuntary interruption of utterance arising 

 from difficulty and often total inability to pronounce certain syllables, 

 the speech apparatus being frequently affected with spasm in the effort 

 to apeak. 



In some stammerers the spasm consists of involuntary movements 

 similar to chorea (St. Vitus'i dance), which occasionally affects other 

 than the speech muscles. Stammer with this spasm distorts the 

 utterance by an involuntary repetition of some part of the syllable, as 

 ge-ge-ge-good de-de-de-day. The repetitions may or may not be vocal. 

 In other stammerers the spasm consists of involuntary immobility, 

 similar to letama (lock-jaw), commonly of the form termed trismun, in 

 which the mouth is closed, and the jaw cannot move to open it ; and 

 sometimes of the form termed antitrimntu, in which the mouth is 

 open, and the jaw is equally incapable of moving to shut it. Stammer 

 with this spasui distorts the utterance by an involuntary extension of 

 some part of the syllable, as 1 augh, where the 2 is much pro- 

 longed. 



In the looseness of language resulting from inexact knowledge, all 

 kinds of difficult and defective utterance are misnamed stammer ; as 

 the difficult utterance of the intoxicated, the faltering utterance of the 

 paralytic, the imperfect utterance of deep emotion, as of fear, the 

 defective utterance of malformed organs of speech, and the hesita- 

 tion in discourse when the suitable word fails to present itself to a 

 speaker's mind. Such affections of the utterance, however, are distinct 

 from stammer, for 



1. The stammerer's inability to pronounce words remains during 

 health, soberness, calmness of mind, and also when the appropriate 

 words occur to him. 



-'. The stammerer feels his difficulty of utterance essentially to consist 

 in a refusal of some part of the speech apparatus to obey his will. 



3. The stammerer's utmost efforts to force out any difficult word 

 commonly excite spasm, and increase it if it previously existed. 



4. The stammerer's inability to speak is intermittent : the same 

 syllable it not always equally difficult to utter, and is sometimes 

 uttered with ease. 



Those circumstances will distinguish stammer from the misnamed 

 stammer of paralysis, intoxication, &c. 



Mow. to understand the nature of stammering, it is necessary to 

 know the audibility and mechanism of utterance, which may be thus 

 briefly described : 



The voice ia produced in the larynx, whence it issues into the 

 pharynx. The pharynx opens into the nose and into the mouth ; and 

 I iy means of a curtain valve, named the velum pendulum palati, we can 

 direct the issue of breath through the mouth or the nose, or through 

 both mouth and nose at once. The voice is produced in the larynx, 

 an audible sound, which may possess the distinctions of song-notes 

 (musical sounds), as those of pitch, loudness, and quality ; or it may 

 posroas the peculiar conditions of those distinctions which constitute 

 speech notes. In the pharynx and mouth the volume of'voice is 

 magnified, and its quality ia modified. 



Observation and experiment concur to prove that the production of 

 voice is an acoustic phenomenon depending on mechanical principles 

 similar to those which regulate the production of sound from an 

 inanimate instrument ; for it is now agreed that the upward current 

 of air passing through the larynx produces an effect on the vocal 

 ligaments precisely similar to what it would if the larynx were an 

 inanimate mechanism. The voluntary power over the larynx adjusts 

 it to be acted on by the current of air, and thus the voice is to be 

 regarded partly as a mechanical and partly aa a physiological result. 



Observation and experiment concur to prove that the modification 

 of voice into speech is also an acoustic phenomenon depending on 

 principles similar to those which regulate the modification of sound by 

 an inanimate instrument ; for it is now agreed that the modification 

 of voice into speech in passing through the variable cavity of the pha- 

 rynx, mouth, and nose, produces an effect precisely similar to what 

 would be produced if the variable cavity were an inanimate me- 

 chanism. 



Thus both in voice and speech the production and modification of 

 vocal sound depend on the laws of acoustics, while the adjustments of 

 the various parts of the apparatus which produce and modify the voice 

 depend on voluntary muscular movement. The one is mechanical, the 

 other physiological. 



It is familiarly known that the movement of every organ is effected 

 by muscular contraction ; that both voluntary and involuntary con- 

 traction of the muscles depend on the nerves ; that all voluntary 

 contraction is regulated by the brain ; and also that the voluntary 

 contraction of one muscle is accompanied by an adjusted voluntary 

 relaxation of its antagonist muscle. 



The speech apparatus may be considered as consisting of the lungs 

 or bellows, which can send a current of air through the trachea or 

 windpipe to the larynx, which is situated on its summit. In the 

 larynx this current of air can be vocalised at will into song, or into 

 speech-sounds, which, on passing through the variable cavity, consist- 

 ing of the mouth, pharynx, and nose, can be further modified into 

 speech. Thus the speech-apparatus, as a whole machine, consists of 

 the respiratory, the vocal, and the enunciative organs. 



The respiratory apparatus consists of the chest, the lungs, and the 

 air-passages. The respiratory movements are involuntary and periodic ; 

 the inspiration of breath alternates with its expiration ; and in both 

 acts the breath flows in a continuous stream. There is a periodic 

 action of the ingpiratory muscles, but whether their action alternates 

 with an action of the expiratory muscles, or simply with the spon- 

 taneous return of the parts by their elasticity and gravity, is yet un- 

 determined. The muscular actions during the tranquil respiration of 

 repose appear to be limited to periodic inspiratory movements. 



The movements of respiration include the motions of the diaphragm, 

 the abdominal and thoracic muscles, and those of the larynx, which 

 dilate and contract the aperture of the glottis. The nerves engaged in 

 these movements are the phrenic, the spinal accessory, the vagus, 

 many of the spinal nerves, and the portio dura of the seventh. The 

 will can influence and somewhat modify the movements of respiration; 

 thus we can prolong or shorten the duration of an inspiration, and 

 we can delay or.hasten to begin one. We have similar control over 

 the expiration of the breath ; and we have power also to limit, or 

 nearly so, the movements of respiration to sub-groups of muscles : thus 

 we can breathe by the diaphragm alone, or by the ribs alone. 



Indeed in the act of vocalising, whether for speech or song, the 

 involuntary is almost superseded by the voluntary act of respiration. 

 The will gives a different play to the chest. We breathe less by the 

 diaphragm and more by the ribs ; we shorten the duration of the 

 inspiration and completely change the character of the expiration. 



There are two modes of involuntary respiration : in the one, the 

 breath issues in one continuous unbroken stream, as in the ordinary 

 breathing of unruffled tranquillity, which by some emotions is hurried 

 and involuntarily vocalised, producing sighs, groans, &c. ; in the other 

 mode the stream of breath is interrupted so that it issues in detached 

 portions, which during', some emotions is also involuntarily vocalised, 

 producing laughter, crying, &c. 



The will has power to produce voluntary expirations in both modes. 

 The unbroken stream is termed the exhausting breath, which is often 

 required for a long-drawn note in song. The broken stream is termed 

 the holding breadth, which is constantly required in lengths suitably 

 adjusted to the demands of the syllables as they occur in speech. The 

 general conditions of respiration, vocalisation, enunciation, and articu- 

 lation, under which stammer occurs, are subjoined. 



I. Respiration. 1. Most stammerers manage their respiration 

 badly, although nearly all can speak freely in a whisper. 2. They feel 

 that they have insufficient breath to speak. This sensation, however, 

 arises less from an insufficiency than from attempting to speak on an 

 involuntary inspiration. The breath is expired to be vocalised by the 

 voluntary action of the ribs, which mechanically contract the chest's 

 cavity. The ribs, however, cannot accomplish this when they are in 

 the position in which an involuntary inspiration leaves them ; they 

 must be raised to that position to which a voluntary inspiration carries 

 them, before they can act with mechanical effect on the chest to expire 

 a holding breath for the purpose of conversation. 3. With the sensa- 

 tion of insufficiency of breath, some feel also a pain at the pit of the 

 stomach. This pain is connected with attempting to speak on an 



