Knotted Tongues: Stuttering in History and the Quest for a Cure (Kodansha Globe) [Paperback]

Benson Bobrick (Author)

Book Description

Series: Kodansha Globe | Publication Date: April 1996

Two and a half million Americans - fifty-five million people worldwide - stutter. Though their baffling malady has been subjected to endless analysis for over 2,500 years, most endure it without hope of a cure. The very anticipation of stuttering can dominate a victim's social and emotional life. If the majority suffer in anonymity, famous figures down through the ages - Moses, Charles I, Lewis Carroll, Henry James, W. Somerset Maugham, Winston Churchill, and Marilyn Monroe among them - have also known the isolation and trauma of living with knotted tongues. Indeed, Charles Dickens once aptly described stuttering as "a barrier by which the sufferer feels that the world without is separated from the world within." In this fascinating and original social history, which combines literary scholarship with historical research, Benson Bobrick explores one of the great conundrums of medical history, its impact on the lives of the afflicted, and the astonishing therapeutic practices it has spawned. Demosthenes was obliged to labor up steep inclines with lead plates strapped to his chest and to declaim over the roar of the ocean with pebbles in his mouth; one 16th-century Italian physician prescribed nosedrops combining beetroot and coriander to help "dehumidify" the brain; and a Native American tribe had stutterers spit through a hole in a board "to get the devil out of their throats." At one time or another, stuttering has been popularly traced to childhood trauma; sibling rivalry; suppressed anger; infantile sexual fixations; deformations of the tongue, lips, or jaw; chemical imbalance; strict upbringing; vicious habit; guilt; approach-avoidance conflicts; and so on, and has been treated byhypnosis, drugs, conditioning, electric shock, and of course, psychoanalysis. Mounting clinical evidence today, however, indicates that stuttering is a neurological problem, possibly involving anomalies of sound transmission through the skull. Genetic research suggests a familial

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

A former stutterer, Bobrick (Labyrinths of Iron) here offers his perspective on the condition as well as an interesting history of how physicians have treated it. Stuttering, or stammering (the terms are interchangeable clinically), occurs four times more frequently in males and ranges from mild hesitation in speech to severe disability. Hot irons were applied to stutterers' lips in the Middle Ages, and in the mid-19th century, risky tongue operations were performed in failed attempts to effect a cure. Bobrick discusses famous stutterers?Charles Darwin, Henry James, Winston Churchill, Jimmy Stewart?and describes the adverse impact of their condition on their lives. In this century, psychological trauma has often been cited as the cause of stuttering, but recent evidence points to a genetic disorder involving a disturbed auditory function. Therapeutic practices differ, but the author credits a voice feedback system with bringing his condition under control.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Bobrick (East of the Sun: The Epic Conquest and Tragic History of Siberia, LJ 9/15/92) brings to this book more than the talents of an accomplished historian. Like one percent of the world's population, Bobrick stuttered from childhood and thus writes with special insight into the unique stresses and often heroic coping mechanisms that stutterers must live with. He narrates the history of stuttering, from Moses and Demosthenes through some of the most identifiable voices in modern entertainment (Jimmy Stewart, James Earl Jones, and Marilyn Monroe), as well as an astounding number of distinguished writers, including Henry James, Somerset Maugham, and John Updike. He also details the search for a cure, including the excesses of 19th-century surgery and 20th-century psychoanalysis. More recently, stuttering has been identified as a genetically transmitted central nervous system anomaly, and, like Bobrick himself, many stutterers are benefiting from newly developed therapies, though a cure remains elusive. This compassionate treatment of a surprisingly common but little understood disability would be a valuable addition to both public and academic collections.
Kathy Arsenault, Univ. of South Florida Lib., St. Petersburg
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 240 pages
• Publisher: Kodansha Amer Inc (April 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1568361211
• ISBN-13: 978-1568361215
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.6 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,854,843 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fantastic, July 21, 2001

By 

[e-mail] (London) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Knotted Tongues: Stuttering in History and the Quest for a Cure (Kodansha Globe) (Paperback)

Bobrick, a stutterer himself, writes a fascinating historical overview of both the famous stutterers in history (Greek orator Demosthenes, Winston Churchill, Nai Bevan) and reviews the "cures" on offer through the ages. I am similarly afflicted and found the book fascinating. My good friend Jon bought it for me after a low point in my life when I did jury service. My oath took the best part of 25 minutes and my fellow jurors elected me foreman. The verdict was real edge-of-your-seat stuff.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating, March 25, 2002

By A Customer

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Knotted Tongues: Stuttering in History and the Quest for a Cure (Kodansha Globe) (Paperback)

It seems to be an axiom in my field of speech pathology that most speech/language therapists are able to deal with the mechanics of speech and language well enough but can't communicate effectively. Most speakers and writers in the field are unbearable communicators who wouldn't recognize an interesting sentence (rather than a nerve deadening dose of academic jargon) if it leapt up and bit them on their private parts (I would like to use a more colorful term but this is a family site).
Thankfully, Bobrick knows how to write quite well. This is a fascinating (and highly readable) survey of stuttering in history. It should be on the shelf of everyone who works with stutterers.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars an interesting history of stuttering and its treatment, December 10, 2003

By 

Joe Sherry (Minnesota) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Knotted Tongues: Stuttering in History and the Quest for a Cure (Hardcover)

This book is a fairly interesting history of stuttering. Benson Bobrick takes a look at historical figures who have stuttered, a list which includes Charles Darwin, Winston Churchill, Marilyn Monroe, Moses, and the Greek speaker Demosthenes. Knotted Tongues is a look at how stuttering was perceived throughout history and how stuttering has been treated.

The part of this book that I found the most fascinating was the time it spent examining how stuttering was treated over time. What I didn't expect was how cringe-inducing this would be. There were some methods that involved the chewing of various substances, as well as other that involved speaking with a mouth full of pebbles. The cringe-worthy methods involved scalding the tongue, and burning around the throat and head (the reasons had to do with what these doctors thought about the causes of stuttering). As painful as these sound, the most brutal method of treatment was a surgery that cuts part of the tongue away. Mind you, this was done before anesthetics. There is a fairly graphic description of this surgery in the book.

Knotted Tongues is not a book about how to best treat stuttering, nor does it go into detail about the variety of modern (and much more humane) treatments available today. This is a history of stuttering. It is easily readable, and does not go into the level of technical detail that you would find in Starkweather's "Stuttering". While someone who stutters may have more interest in this book, I think that anyone would find this interesting, if only to see the various methods of treatment and how stutterers have been viewed throughout history. Good book.