STAMMK1! 



STAMPING, STAMPING PRESS. 



190 



involuntary inspiration, and ita severity us commonly increased by 

 struggling to speak. 



II. Vutalisaiiu*. 1. Song-voice. The song condition of voice seldom 

 presents any difficulty to stammerers. Cue* of stammer in the soug- 

 voice occur but rarely. 



2. Speeck voice. Stammer occurs in all parts of the speech-note, 

 more frequently, however, in the middle than towards the end, but 

 most commonly at the initial. 



5. Pitch of Voirt. Changes of pitch, whether concrete or discrete 

 (slide or skip), through narrow intervals of the scale, present difficul- 

 ties which wider changes of pitch do not. Stammerers can mostly 

 declaim, if they cannot converse or quietly read ; and it is well known 

 that wider intervals of pitch occur in declamation than in ordinary 

 conversation. 



4. Lattdnea of Voice. When the loudnesa of the speech-note is of 

 the form of the musical diminuendo, which begins abruptly and 

 gradually diminishes in loudness, as thus figured == , a difficulty is 

 presented to the stammerer which does not occur if the form be the 

 musical crescendo, where the note begins feebly, and gradually increases 

 in loudness, as thus figured =rr. 



6. Quality of Voice. The conversation tone presents a greater 

 difficulty than the falsetto, or than the full enriched voice of epic 

 declamation. 



<t. Quantity or Duration of Syllable*. Short and inextensible syl- 

 lables present a greater difficulty than the long and extensible. 



7. Accent. The unaccented syllables of discourse seldom offer any 

 difficulty to stammerers. The element, or combination of elements, 

 which is difficult to utter with accent, is easy to utter without accent. 

 The accent given by stress is infinitely more difficult than that given 

 by extended duration. 



8. JlAythmia. The measured movement of verse is easier for the 

 stammerer than the unmeasured movement of prose and conversation. 



HI. Enunciation. Syllables are of two kinds, namely : 



1. Those composed of one elementary sound. 



2. Those composed of more than one elementary sound. 



1. Vovtlt. A vowel alone may constitute an accented syllable, and 

 even a whole word, of which the pronoun / and the article a are 

 familiar examples. Stammer often occurs on such syllables. 



2. CoMonavtt. When two or more are combined together without 

 a vowel to form a syllable, they occur only as unaccented final syllables 

 of words. The stammerer's difficulty is less to utter the elementary 

 sounds singly than to articulate them so as to form syllables. 



IV. Articulation. The elementary sounds are articulated in three 

 orders of succession : 



1 . The vowel followed by a consonant. 



2. The consonant followed by a vowel. 



3. The consonant followed by a consonant. 



Stammer occurs in each of these modes of articulation. There is 

 seldom any difficulty in articulating two consonants together ; some, 

 however, is felt in postfixing a consonant to a vowel, and the greatest 

 is felt in adding a vowel to a consonant. 



To these general conditions of voice and speech under which 

 stammer occurs, may be added other conditions, such as sex and age. A 

 majority of stammerers arc males ; and few of either sex stammer from 

 their infancy ; children commonly speak freely until about five years 

 of age. An occasional difficulty is first observed, which becomes more 

 frequent up to the tenth year, when it is commonly at its maximum ; 

 although the spasm frequently increases in severity up to manhood. In 

 the decline of life sometimes the stammer spontaneously diminishes, 

 and it has been known to entirely disappear. The voices of childhood 

 and old age differ in several respects from that of the intermediate 

 period of life. The speech melody of infancy is set in a high pitch, 

 which often runs into the falsetto, and is much intersected with wide 

 intervals both concrete and discrete. The loudness is chiefly of the 

 rracenda form on long whining quantities. The voice of old age often 

 falls into the tremulous scale, the rate of utterance is slow, steady, 

 and uniform. The loudness is not often of the diminuendo form, and is 

 on extended quantities. The accent is given to syllables by quantity 

 rather than by stress, deliberate pauses are made, and the whole style 

 is marked by the self-possession of experienced age conversing with a 

 consciousness of superiority, if in nought else, in a longer reach of 

 memory. Sudden changes of temperature, especially from a high to a 

 low temperature, likewise tend to increase a stammer. 



The Varietiei of Stammer are many. They all arise from 1. Diffi- 

 culty to produce voice ; 2. Difficulty to produce voice in quantities 

 adjusted to the syllable's demands; 3. Difficulty to produce the 

 elementary sounds ; 4. Difficulty in joining such sounds together ; and 

 in each of these classes there are varieties. 



Variety I arises from ill-regulated respiration, in which the effort to 

 vocalise is accompanied with a feeling of insufficiency of breath. The 

 stammer proceeds from an attempt to- speak on an involuntary inspi- 

 ration. A holding breath cannot be maintained on an involuntary 

 inspiration, and therefore voluntary respiration for speech must always 

 begin with an inspiration of breath. The physiology of this stammer 

 indicates a discipline for its removal. The organs of respiration must 

 be drilled to rightly change the involuntary act of respiration to the 

 voluntary, which, with a course of rhythmus, will effect a permanent 

 cure. 



2. The difficulty in producing voice which is occasioned by an involun- 

 tary closure of the glottis. In this variety of stammer, instead of the 

 larynx receiving the adjustment for vocalisation in ready obedience to 

 the will, the glottis suddenly closes, either by an involuntary associate 

 movement, or by a tetanic spasm, probably in most cases by the latter. 

 Dr. Arnott pointed out the nature and means to cure it. His remedy 

 consists in keeping open the glottis, by issuing a drone sound, such 

 as the r of the word berry, before beginning to speak, and in join- 

 ing this prefixed drone to the words. See his ' Elements of Physics,' 

 vol. i. 



3. The difficulty in producing voice which is occasioned by an invo- 

 luntary twitching of the glottis similar to chorea. This spasm is 

 sometimes so excited as to preclude vocalisation, \vln-n nuly short 

 iterations of breath are audible. The glottis must be disciplined on 

 sounds of the crescendo form of loudness in a low pitch, and proceed 

 gradually from the song-voice to that of speech. Respiration :av\ 

 speech-voice training will follow, accompanied with general rhythmic 

 discipline to the whole speech-apparatus for reading and speaking both 

 verse and prose. 



4. In this variety the difficulty is not to produce voice, but to control 

 its quantities. Vocalisation freely takes place, but the event of two or 

 three short or accented syllables following near together thrown the 

 glottal muscles into choreal spasm. The principles of discipline for 

 the spasm will be similar to the preceding variety of stammer ; while 

 a distinct discipline must be projected tj acquire a higher degree of 

 associating power. 



5. The difficulty of uttering a vowel of uniform sound is a voice 

 stammer, it being an absence of voluntary control over the vocalisation 

 of the breath. The difficulty of uttering a diphthongal vowel may be 

 either a voice or a speech stammer, and is often a combination of both. 

 When the difficulty is to produce voice to begin the vowel, the stam- 

 mer is vocal ; and when the difficulty is to change the adjustment 

 from that for the initial, to that for the final sound of the diphthong, 

 it is a speech stammer. When the difficulty is to produce voice to 

 begin the consonant, the stammer is vocal ; and when the difficulty is 

 to change the adjustment from thut for the initial to that for the final 

 sound of the consonant, it is a speech stammer. Stammer on the 

 single elementary sounds of speech can be permanently remedied only 

 by a systematic training of the disobedient organ which occasions it. 

 The organ must be disciplined to perform the necessary movements 

 under all conditions of voice, which, accompanied with a general 

 training of the whole apparatus of speech, conducted on rhythmical 

 principles, will effectually remove the stammer. 



6. Stammer occurs in all three modes of articulation, namely : 



A consonant followed by a vowel, as bee; a vowel fojlowed by a con- 

 sonant, as ebb; a consonant followed by another consonant, as bl of the 

 word bled. 



The difficulty in articulating the elementary sounds of speech to 

 form syllables, can be permanently remedied only by a systematic 

 training of the disobedient organs to perform their required move- 

 ments for the several adjustments of the mouth which are necessary 

 to articulation. The training must be general and special. The 

 general is a rhythmic training of the whole speech-apparatus ; and the 

 special is a training of the disobedient organ to perform its various 

 movements in articulation. 



Our analytic description of stammering reveals three functional 

 causes of inability to control the muscular movements which are re- 

 quired for utterance, namely : 



I. Spasm, both of the tetanus and chorea forms. All muscles are 

 liable to spasm. Spasm of the larynx, the tongue, the lips, and the 

 masseter muscle, are each sources of stammering. 



II. Defect in the associating power, which combines the voluntary 

 movements of different organs in one simultaneous act, or in an allied 

 succession of acts. Defective association of vocalisation with respira- 

 tion will occasion stammer ; for perfect association of the voluntary 

 movements of the larynx with those of the chest are required in utter- 

 ance. The movements of the larynx and chest are effected by means 

 of the laryngeal, the recurrent, and the expiratory nerves. 



III. Involuntary associate movements ; as after mimicking a stam- 

 merer it has been found that those muscular movements, which in the 

 mimicry were voluntarily associated with 'the proper movements of 

 utterance, have suddenly become linked to them so firmly in allied 

 motion, that the mimicker is unable to dissociate them, and an actual 

 stammer results. 



The adoption of appropriate remedies for stammering then will 

 depend on the following conditions, namely : 1. On the part of the 

 speech-apparatus which is affected; 2. On the cause producing the 

 stammer ; and 8. On the vocal and other conditions under, which the 

 utterance is least affected. The appropriate remedies for each are 

 treated of in several works on the subject, among which we may men- 

 tion Thelwall's ' Letter to Clive on Stammering ; ' Cull's ' Observations 

 on Impediments of Speech ; ' Cull's ' Stammering Considered ;' and 

 J. Hunt's ' Treatise on the Cure of Stammering.' 



STAMPING, STAMPING PRESS. The important manufacturing 

 process of stamping will be found sufficiently described in several 

 foregoing articles in this work; such as BRASS; BUTTON; CHASINO ; 

 COPPKB ; MINT ; NEEDLE, &c. In most varieties of the operation, the 

 substance to be treated is in the form of a thin sheet. The pattern is 



