1700's
Bobrick calls Giovanni Battista Morgagni's physiologic mechanism "the second most influential advance in identifying speech process." Morgagni advanced the notion of a mechanical model of speech, presenting the idea of the body as related parts working together. Producing speech not only involved the tongue, but the coordination between a host of different body parts. Morgagni's theory was not adopted wholeheartedly throughout the scientific community, yet began to take root slowly.
In 1724, the first American treatise on stuttering appeared, "The Angel of Bethesda," written by Boston minister Cotton Mather. Although convinced his own stuttering resulted from sin, he also made the correlation that the malady "may be a Weaknesse upon that pair of Nerves, which give Motion and Vigour to the Organs of Speech."
Cotton himself adopted Elijah Corlet's method of deliberate speech to help him manage his stutter. Corlet proposed that stutterers speak in a kind of drawl or sing-song in an effort to slow down speech.
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