Stuttering, Lispingand Correctionof Speechof the Deaf. Second Edition. By E. W. Scripture, M.D., Ph.D., Professor of Experimental Phonetics, University of Vienna. Pp.  290,  120 illustrations and four plates. New York:  The Macmillan Company, 1923.

The first edition of this book was published in 1912 in an attempt to meet the needs of physicians, teachers and others who are constantly confronted with the problem of the lisping or stuttering child. It was here emphasized that stuttering as such is not a defect of the nervous mechanism of speech and that its characteristics are not primarily those of articulation. Ten years of further experience with speech defects has confirmed the author's views.

The present edition represents a thorough revision of the former work, and Part IV has been added to introduce a much needed reform into the instruction of the deaf. Here is described a method of overcoming the characteristic monotony of the voice of the deaf, and also a chapter is given to the description of an apparatus, the Strobilion, for teaching control of the pitch of the voice by means of sight. A comparison of stutterers with other persons having mental peculiarities has shown that the trouble is connected with the emotions. Stuttering is therefore a psychoneurosis, a state of mind arising from excessive timidity and showing itself in a speech disorder that tends to secure a condition of segregation, thus enabling the person to escape occasions where he will be made to suffer. In this connecton the author states that inasmuch as stuttering arises only in some cases of timidity and not in others, this fact must indicate the presence of some other element in the disease, the deeper cause varying from case to case. “In several cases there has been a determined effort to get rid of the trouble and perfect good faith on the part of the patient, yet I have had the feeling that at the bottom of his soul the patient did not really wish to be cured. This reminds one of some forms of hysteria, psychasthenia and neurasthenia where the disease is really produced by the patient in order to obtain some end, although he is absolutely unconscious of this self production.”

As it is a mental disorder, its treatment must be menta