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Stammering, Its Cause and Cure by Benjamin Nathaniel Bogue
page 61 of 195 (31%)
best evidences that could be produced to show that stammering is
the result of a lack of mental control. The stammerer who can sing
without difficulty has no organic or inherent defect in the vocal
organs, that is sure. If the stammerer can sing, and if this
proves that he has no organic defect, then it follows logically
that the cause of his trouble is mental and not physical.

TALK WHEN ALONE: The fact that a stammerer can talk without
hesitation when alone and that he can talk to animals may be
explained by a very simple illustration--any stammerer can try
this experiment on one of his friends who does not stammer. He can
prove that the reflex, or what might be termed subconscious
movements of the bodily organs are more nearly normal than the
same movements consciously controlled. Take, for instance, the
regular beating of the pulse. Let anyone who does not stammer (it
makes no difference in trying this experiment whether the person
stammers or not, save that we are trying to prove that the
condition may be brought about in one who is not a stammerer) feel
his own pulse for sixty seconds. Let him be thoroughly conscious
of this effort to learn the rapidity of its beating. If a
disinterested observer could record the pulse as normally beating
and the pulse under the conscious influence of the mind, it would
be found that the pulse under the conscious effort is beating
either more rapidly or more slowly or that it is not beating as
regularly as in the case of unconscious or reflex action.

This same condition may be noticed in another unconscious or
reflex action--breathing. The moment you become conscious of an
attempt to breathe regularly, breathing becomes difficult,
restricted, irregular, whereas this same action, when unconscious,
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