children who are not so afflicted.

So far-reaching are the effects of Imitation or Mimicry that in
certain cases, children have been known to contract stuttering
from associating with a deaf-mute whose expressions were made
chiefly in the form of grunts and inarticulate sounds.

FRIGHT OR SEVERE NERVE SHOCK: Another common cause of stammering
is fright or nervous shock, which may have been brought about in
countless ways. One boy who came to me some time ago stated that
he had swallowed a nail when about six years of age and that this
was the cause of his stammering. The logical conclusion in a case
like this would be that the nail had injured the vocal organs, but
an examination proved that there was no organic defect and that
the stammering was caused, not by injury directly to the vocal
organs but by the nervous shock occasioned by swallowing the nail.

Another case was that of a stammerer 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