558 
NATURE 
[April 12, 1883 
Swiss lakes, whereby prehistoric research was quickly 
extended and developed. Though many links are still 
missing, we muy fairly consider the knowledge of the 
existence of primeval man as the beginning of the long- 
looked for connection between him and the anthropoids 
on the one hand, and between them both and their 
common progenitors on the other. In a word the time 
had come for the publication of the “ Descent of Man”; 
that is why an opinion on the nature of man, which 
differs from all former ones fully as much as the system 
of Copernicus, of which it is the complement, differs from 
that of Ptolemy, found such ready and general acceptance. 
How different was the fate of Copernicus! ‘‘ Coper- 
nicus,” says Poggendorff, “is, and will ever remain, a 
brilliant star in the firmament of science ; but he rose at 
a time when the horizon was almost entirely obscured by 
the mists of ignorance. . . . The Ptolemaic system was 
too ancient and too much venerated to be easily dis- 
placed.’ Copernicus’s teaching met with but scant appre- 
ciation for the first fifty years after its publication; even 
Tycho Brahe opposed it ; it can therefore scarcely cause 
surprise that Luther rejected it, that Giordano Bruno 
died at the stake for his advocacy of it, while the less 
steadfast Galileo was forced to renounce it. 
Notwithstanding the pessimism of our speculative 
philosophers, who deny all progress because they con- 
tribute nothing towards it, Darwin’s lot was happier than 
that of the great reformer of astronomy. While Coper- 
nicus could only feast his eyes on the first printed copy 
of his work as he lay on his deathbed because he had 
not dared to publish it sooner, although he had completed 
it some years before, Darwin survived the appearance of 
his nearly a quarter of a century. He witnessed the fierce 
struggles its appearance at first gave rise to; its ever in- 
creasing acceptance and its final triumph, to which he, 
cheerful and active to the last, greatly contributed by a 
long series of admirable works. 
While the Holy Inquisition persecuted the followers of 
Copernicus with fire and sword, Charles Darwin lies 
Suried in Westminster Abbey among his peers, Newton 
and Faraday. 
SITNGING, SPEAKING, AND STAMMERING? 
III.—STAMMERING 
FTER the emotional and intellectual sides of human 
utterance, what may be termed its pathological 
aspect was considered. Imperfections of speech, though 
serious hindrances to intercourse, are unfortunately not 
uncommon. It is not easy to realise how common they 
are. The statistics collected by Colombat point to the 
conclusion that about two persons in every thousand 
stammer, an estimate which is exactly borne out by 
official returns obtained in Prussia. This would make two 
and a half millions of stammerers in the world. But it is 
hardly fair to argue from the higher to the lower races of 
mankind, for stammering, like hysteria, is undoubtedly a 
disease of advanced civilisation. It was unknown among 
the North American Indians in Catlin’s time ; Livingstone 
says he never met with a case among the Negroes, and 
Cameron is stated to have confirmed the observation. 
It is uncommon in Spain and Italy, but reaches its 
maximum in higbly-educated Prussia and in this country. 
“No nation in the civilised world,’’? says Mr. Deacon, 
who has been already quoted, “speaks its language so 
abominably as the English.” 
Stammering appears to be commoner among males 
than females. 
Laboured distinctions have been made between the two 
words, to stammer and to stutter, by which the infirmity 
is denoted. These seem to be wholly unnecessary, since 
they are practically synonymous. Both words contain an 
1 Abstract by the Author of three Lectures at the Royal Institution, by 
W. H. Stone M.B.,F.R.C,P. Concluded from p. 533. 
imitation of the defect itself. They probably reach us 
through the German language, but the ultimate root is the 
Greek 3rei8o, and the fundamental meaning movement 
abruptly checked. There is indeed a whole series of allied 
old English words such as lag, dag, jog, shog, stag, and 
cognates are stab, stagger, stamp. In some parts of the 
country a horse is said to stammer when he trips in 
walking. Bacon, in his ‘Natural and Experimental 
History,” says: ‘‘Many stutters are very cholerick, 
choler inducing dryness of the tongue.” It was long ago 
noticed by Sir Charles Bell in his Bridgwater Treatise, 
that speech, like writing, walking, and other functions of 
life, is a coordinate muscular act involving many nerves 
as well as muscles, but which, having been learned early, 
has become so automatic that the directing of special 
attention to it rather hinders than assists in its easy per- 
formance. Indeed the act not only i volves the mechanism 
of speech proper, but also that of thought and ideation, 
as well as that of hearing, by means of which the sounds 
emitted are discriminated. It thus may never be deve- 
loped, as in idiocy, of which the failure to acquire it is 
often the first sign: or in congenital deafness, which is 
the precursor of dumbness. It may also disappear entirely 
or partially in conditions of cerebral lesion known to 
medical men under the titles of aphasia, aphemia, and 
amnesia, often accompanying hemiplegia of the right side 
of the body. Real stammering may be produced by 
mental strain or shock, and persist through life. Such 
cases are rare, but the lecturer has been allowed to refer 
in general terms to one which can easily be verified—that 
of a clergyman who, after being overtaxed physically and 
mentally during one of the earlier cholera epidemics, 
began to stammer, and though now an old man, has never 
since been able to officiate in the service of the Church. 
Mr. Plumptre, in his lectures on Elocution, quotes even 
a more remarkable case from Dr. Mariano Semmola, 
where the loss of articulation was accompanied by con- 
vulsive movements, and instantly restored by bleeding. 
The failure of coordination requisite to accomplish so 
complex a function may occur anywhere in the apparatus 
involved. Hence there are many forms of the affection, 
which may be roughly classified into four: (1) at the 
glottis, (2) at the isthmus of the fauces, (3) between the 
tongue and palate, (4) at the lips and posterior nares. 
The late Charles Kingsley, in his article quaintly named 
“The Irrationale of Speech,’ published in /vaser"'s 
Magazine for July, 1859, calls these four variations 
abuses of breath, jaw, tongue, and lips. But these by 
no means exhaust the catalogue of physical infirmities 
affecting speech, though being the most completely func- 
tional they fall strictly within the definition of stammering. 
Idiocy, deafness, and paralysis have been named, and to 
them may be added spasm, as in some cases of St. Vitus’s 
dance. There are also several malformations and ac- 
quired disorders, such as (1) large or unsymmetrical 
tongue or tonsils, (2) cleft palate, (3) obstructed nasal 
passages, (4) high roofed mouth, (5) prominent and 
everted incisor teeth, which interfere with distinct articu- 
lation; besides the kindred bad habits called lisping, 
burring, and thickness of speech. Even then the list is 
not completed ; for we have to add (1) a sort of hyperzes- 
thesia or nervousness which occurs in some persons when 
they are out of health, and which disappears under better 
hygienic conditions ; (2) tricks and bad habits, of which 
a flagrant example occurred some years ago, when a 
mania for transposition of words seized the younger and 
more thoughtless of the generation. A mutton chop, for 
instance, became a chutton mop, and one heard of the 
Chishop of Bicester, who had a sit of fickness through 
eating acon and beggs. In many cases the habit became 
uncontrollable, and is handed down to fame by the lady 
aunt of ‘‘ Happy Thoughts,’’ in Pxzch, who corrected 
errors of speech by reference to “ Dixon's Johnsonary,”’ 
(3) Mimicry, which produces a sort of contagiousness in 
