Case No. 986.523—­This was the case of a Polish boy who found it almost impossible to begin a word or a sentence.  In describing his case to me, he finally managed to say, “Before I utter a word it takes me a long time and after I utter the word, I become red in the face and so excited that I don’t know where I am, or what I am doing!” I found this boy to be extremely high-strung and of a nervous temperament, easily excited.  He was of an emotional type, was more-than-ordinarily sensitive about his trouble and brooded over it constantly, having long fits of deep melancholia that were a constant source of worry to his parents.  He was furthermore at a critical age, from the standpoint of his speech development, just approaching 16.  Although naturally of an agreeable disposition, his trouble had made him irritable and often sullen.  He wore an air of dejection almost constantly.  It was evident to me immediately upon examination that his trouble had had a grave effect upon his mind and that it would in time (and not so long a time, either) have a deep and permanent effect that no amount of effort could eradicate.

It would be naturally expected that his symptoms would indicate Thought-Stammering, but this is not true.  Instead I found his to be a bad case of Spasmodic Stammering, in which the convulsive action took place immediately upon an effort to speak and which resulted, therefore, in the inability to express a sound—­the “sticking” tendency so common to stammering and particularly to this type.

While the worry over his stammering had left him in a mental state that made him impotent so far as normal mental accomplishments were concerned, still the removal of his stammering by the eradication of the cause would, I felt, entirely relieve the condition of mental flurry and stop the nervousness.

The case was so urgent that the boy’s parents decided to place him for treatment immediately.  The results were so gratifying as to be almost unbelievable.  By the end of the first day’s work, the boy’s whole mental attitude was changed.  His outlook on life was different.  He felt the thrill of conquering his difficulty and before many days, he was working like a Trojan to make his cure complete and permanent.  At my suggestion, he remained with me for seven weeks, at the end of which time he went back East, entirely changed in every particular.  He was smiling now, where before he seemed to have forgotten how to smile.  He was full of life, enthusiasm and ambition—­no one who had seen him the day he first came here, could realize that this was the same boy that entered a few weeks before with the desire-to-live almost extinct.  There are hundreds of cases riot far different from this—­I have cited the case of this Polish boy to show what a complete transformation is made in the mental state by a few weeks’ work along the right lines.