The author reviews earlier papers on stuttering by Flugel, Abraham, Searl, Coriat and Fenichel. The material is gathered from a 15-month analysis of a 21-year-old man and is presented as a test of Fenichel's postulates on stuttering, namely: the erotization of speech; the pregenital, mostly anal and underlying oral character; its exhibitionistic and sadistic nature, etc. The speech disturbance of the patient dated from his fourth year and immediately followed the report of a toy torpedo. His speech function was entangled in the morbid play of his instincts according to the equation 'sharp noises = sexuality = death'. Words became libidinized as flatus and explosions. This case fits essentially into Fenichel's scheme that stuttering is a pregenital conversion neurosis pre-supposing an erotization of the speech function.