"And what was her name?" asked Doctor Brill.
The stammerer stared at him and burst into a violent tirade.
"Haven't I just told you," he cried, "that I have taken an oath never to speak it? What business is it of yours, anyway? What bearing can it have on my trouble of speech?"
"Only this bearing--that it may be the means of curing you. Come, now, I am sorry you have taken an oath, because you will have to break it and tell me the name."
With this he seized his hat and dashed out of the doctor's office in a frenzy of indignation. Doctor Brill did not see him again for a month. Then he returned, repentant. He would tell the name, he said, on condition that Doctor Brill did not write it down in the detailed record which, as is customary, he was making of the case. To this a prompt assent was given, and the troublesome name was as promptly made known. As Doctor Brill had expected, it began with K. He then said, leaning forward and showing his sheet of notes:
"See, I have kept my promise. I have called her Miss W. And, now, we'll soon have you quite well."
But on his next visit the patient was in despair. He was, he protested, stammering worse than ever. Words that had never given him any trouble before were now almost unpronounceable by him. On investigation, it turned out that they were, one and all, words in which the letter "w" had a place.
"At last," said Doctor Brill, "we know for a certainty what has made you stammer. It was the foolish oath you took, which served to sustain in your mind the memory of the terrible experience you went through on account of your faithless sweetheart. Vowing never to utter her name, yet thinking constantly of her, you have unconsciously made it difficult for you to utter even words in which the most prominent letter of that name--its initial--occurs. And, now, since she has become Miss W. to you, as well as Miss K., you are stammering on words with "w," as well as words with "k." We must free you from the torment of that vow and of the pent-up emotions that go with the forbidden name, and then you will never stammer more."
To this mode of dealing with stammerers could anything be in stronger contrast than the brutal Dieffenbach technique? The latter exemplifies, if in an extreme form, the folly of attempting--as is so often done, even to-day--to treat stammering on a basis of imperfect observation. The former shows the happy results that may be obtained when it is attacked in the light of thorough investigation. No; it is neither by the surgeon's knife nor by the use of mechanical appliances or physiological devices that stammering is to be really conquered, but by intelligent application of the wonderful remedial measures which modern medical psychology has worked out.