Rensselaer Republican, Volume 27, Number 10, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 November 1894 — Can We Speak Without a Tongue? [ARTICLE]

Can We Speak Without a Tongue?

Family Magaziue. Can we speak without a tbngue? Prof. Huxley says yes. Persons suffering from cancer frequently lose their tongues and discover that they can not only talk as well as formerly, but also that their sense of taste is not impaired. The letters d and t are the only ones which, as a rule, those deprived of their tongues find any difficulty in pronouncing properly, and such letters are frequently turned into f’s, p's, v’s, th’s. Many instances are on record of the speaking powers of tongueless persons. In 484, A. D., sixty Christian confessors had their tongues cut out by order of Hunneric, but in a short time some of them went out preaching again. Pope Leo 111 is said to have suffered similar mutilation and to have regained his speech. Sir John Malcolm tells of one Zal Kahn, who had his tongue cut out, and who recovered his speech enough to tell the physician how it happened. Margaret Cutting was examined before the Royal Society of England in 1742. She had not a vestige of tongue remaining, and yet “discoursed as fluently and as well as others.” The tongue actually appears unnecessary to the development of speech. Pierre Ladoux, of Qnebec, owns a performing bear of more than ordinary sagacity. The animal, tired of being chained, pulled out the staple with its teeth and escaped to the street. Seeing a policeman approaching, the bear at once stood on its hind legs and turned his back, pretending to be a man in a long ulster coat. '•*" A German journalist who visited Bismarck recently says that the exChancellor has aged very much in the last few months. He eats with difficulty, can hardly hold himself erect, and speaks paly in a tone so low that it is hard to understand him.