There's a tradition in Medicine of looking at the history of conditions. Of course, this is interesting in its own right, but it can also tell us something about the condition we're examining and about the changing views of society.

So, sensible questions to consider would be:
  • Has what we consider to be stuttering changed over time?
  • How have treatments evolved?
  • How has stuttering become differentiated from cluttering?
  • How has society's views of pws changed?
Winston Churchill

If we think about how to answer these questions we might learn something interesting. One point we need to consider immediately is tied up with the first question and concerns how we know whether someone stutters or not. Even when we have recordings there can still be a dispute. Listen to these speeches of Winston Churchill. Does he seem to have a stutter to you? Without a recording we are reliant on written descriptions. And then consider the case of Porky Pig, the well-known stuttering cartoon character. At first he was voiced by Joe Dougherty, who had a real stutter. Because Joe couldn't control his voice sufficiently he was replaced by Mel Blanc, who pretended to stutter. So, the first Porky Pig had a real stutter, but the second did not. We're clearly going to have problems here!