Stammering : its treatment / by B. Beasley.

  • Beasley, Benjamin.
Date:
1888
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Stammering : its treatment / by B. Beasley. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    EXTRACT FROM THE “ILLUSTRATED LONDON NEWS,” November 20 th, 1886. It does not often occur that what has been a man’s misfortune during the greater part of his life should eventually result in benefits not only to himself but also to his fellow creatures. The life of Mr. Beasley, the' eminent authority on defects in speech, more particularly relating to stammering, is an exception to this rule. “ Physician, cure thyself,** would be a fitting title to a little book written by him on “ Stammering : Its Treatment,” wherein the author alludes to the fact of having cured himself of that malady after suffering for more than thirty years. This work may be read with great interest by all who seek knowledge of the subject, and will no doubt find its way and be a valuable addition to every library, where it will prove immeasurably useful as a book of reference. As a child, Mr, Beasley was remarkable for his fluency of speech, but an attack of low fever left an impediment which, although only slight at first, gradually developed until, as a youth, he had become a confirmed stammerer of the most inveterate type, his scholastic training having been a painful and laborious task alike to his instructors and himself. In spite of every effort on the part of his parents, who spared no expense in procuring the best advice and treatment which could be obtained, his case was pronounced hopeless and incurable, and in this pitiable condi- tion he commenced life in the counting-house of his father, an ironmaster of South Staffordshire; but the brilliant commercial prospects thus held out to him were never realised, but faded one by one before his inability to make himself intelligible. The spirit of determination and perseverance so heavily discounted in his industrial career enabled him to compete successfully with the first amateur sportsmen and athletes in trials of skill which required no talking, and in all manly sports he was considered one of the best men of his day. He will be well remembered by old Volunteers as one of the earliest promoters of the movement, as one of the champion rifle shots in Lord Bury’s first English eight who competed successfully against Captain Ross’s Scotch team for the Elcho Challenge Shield at Wimbledon in the year 1862, and the victor in many other competitions and athletic sports too numerous to be recorded here. It will not be supposed that a man of so much ability and force of character would leave anything untried to rid himself of so great a curse as his impediment had long been to him. Accident revealed to him what possibly he might never have noticed but that he had been for many years seeking a cure ; but accident it certainly was which pointed out to him the first grand principle that must be inculcated before a stammerer can find relief; but it was only by dint of many years of labour, study, and research that he discovered and perfected the system of treatment for the cure of stammering which has gained him the distinction of being the greatest living authority on the subject. Having com- pleted his own cure, the student became the monitor, at first only as a philanthropist: but so remarkable was the success attained in every individual case that he was led to adopt the cure of stammering as a profession. Mr. Beasley does not claim to be a worker of miracles, or to possess ir.ore power than any other minute observer could obtain ; he only claims to be the sole founder of a system by which he has cured him- self and others of a most distressing affliction. He says :—“ It is in a measure to the devotion to his profession and the fact of having been himself a stammerer for so many years, that his success with others is to be attributed ;” but we suspect that not a little of this success is due to his genial disposition, for, although past fifty, he still joins in the out-door amusements of his pupils, thereby creating that confidence between in- structor and instructed which is so essential in the treatment of this disorder. In addition to his physical qualifications, he possesses other accomplishments not less useful in their nature, and, as a reader, is far from being a mean exponent of Shakespeare or Dickens. Few men could be found, supposing they bad his knowledge, so well qualified for the work he is doing. And thus the early misfortunes of the subject of this sketch have proved a boon to the community at large, and led to the establishment of two institu- tions for the reception of pupils for treatment and instruction : one at Green Bank College, Hall Green, near Birmingham, and one at Baron’s Court House, West Kensing- ton, London, where young and old of both^xes who. had thought their impediments were absolutely incurable, have had the^jyd^erto&pe^^ct speech restored to them; and many whose lives might otherwise hauf' 2nd Without ambition, have been enabled to enter the Church, the Ayfijto^rc Navy, antitneefteal professions. It would be difficult to find a nyneSwriking example the efficacy of Mr. Beasley’s system, than the founder himself, As will be well remembered ,by those who have had the privilege of hearing him lecfure, or have read Uie flattering criticisms contained from time to time in the columns if our toalebiiipripieV .*
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