Template:Did you know nominations/Laurence Patrick Lee

Laurence Patrick Lee

(

)

... that New Zealand mathematician Laurence Patrick Lee worked his way to England to find a cure for his stammer and was speaking normally after just 18 minutes of instruction?

Source: "N.Z. Man Cured Of Stammering By British 'Expert' ", Greymouth Evening Star, 11 Dec 1950, [N.Z.P.A. SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT], "When Mr L. P. Lee [...] read in a Jersey newspaper that Mr William C. Kerr, M.A., of St Helier, had discovered a cure for stammering he decided to get a year's leave of absence from the Lands and Survey Department and to work his way to England. ¶ Lee had been stammering all his life and he felt that Mr Kerr could help him. He worked as engineer’s steward in the Trojan Star, arrived in England on November 13 and 18 minutes after seeing Mr Kerr on November 18 he was speaking normally. ¶ Recorded Proof ¶ Mr Kerr took a recording of Lee stammering the date and time before instructing him. He took a second recording 18 minutes later with Lee now stating the date and time without stammering.

Reviewed:
Comment: Alternate hooks could talk about his map projections (and could include map pictures, if a picture is needed), but this story seemed like a better human interest hook.

Created by Jacobolus (talk). Number of QPQs required: 0. Nominator has less than 5 past nominations.

–jacobolus (t) 00:23, 12 August 2024 (UTC).

Length, history and reference verified. Earwig looks OK even though I couldn't use Google because it said we had sent too many queries to it.
However ... the end of one graf was uncited, and so I have tagged it. It should be easy to fix. Daniel Case (talk) 19:26, 5 September 2024 (UTC)

I added some examples of other high impact books/papers which have cited and discussed Lee's paper (the claim in the article was that it was influential). –jacobolus (t) 19:51, 5 September 2024 (UTC)

Daniel Case, have the issues been addressed? theleekycauldron (talk • she/her) 07:45, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

Sorry for the delay. All but one of those sources are paywalled from where I am, but since the one that isn't describes the cited paper as "well-known", we'll take your word for it. Daniel Case (talk) 17:58, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

I could go either way on this, but anyone else a little uncomfortable with sourcing a medical story claim to a 1950 newspaper? It's not a MEDRS claim, but it's not an uncontroversial one, either. theleekycauldron (talk • she/her) 08:45, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

The article says that he continued to work with the specialist for weeks, which seems to contradict the hook? Looking around online for sources about quickly curing a stammer, I found "There is no instant cure for stuttering., contrary to popular belief, there isn't a permanent fix to overcoming a stammer, and therapies and courses are not a cure or a 'quick fix' for stammering. Open to alternative hooks or being proven wrong, Rjjⁱⁱⁱ (talk) 15:33, 11 September 2024 (UTC) Forgot to ping jacobolus, Rjjⁱⁱⁱ (talk) 16:02, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

Maybe you can think of a better phrasing for a hook (or we could come up with an alternate hook not having to do with the stammer). The claim from the news article is that Kerr recorded Lee saying the date and time when he first arrived, stammering, and then 18 minutes later took another recording of him saying the date and time, not stammering – i.e. just saying one simple sentence, not an ability to fluently speak without stammering. (The news article author presumably listened to this recording.) Then he stayed for another few weeks with Kerr to work on it, and by the time he left he considered himself cured with only a slight occasional stammer remaining. I don't think the claimed "cure" here was ever perfect, but Kerr really did have a stammering clinic in Jersey for decades, apparently with significant success, with people coming from all over the world to work with him. After 1955 Kerr's clinic was hosted in this funny boat-shaped building in Jersey called "Barge Aground", which can nowadays be rented by tourists. There are a couple of pictures of Kerr here, and some other patients. –jacobolus (t) 18:48, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

Here's the full news article:

N.Z. Man Cured Of Stammering By British “Expert”
[N.Z.P.A. SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT]
LONDON, December 10 (Rec. 9 a.m.).—When Mr L. P. Lee, of 195 The Terrace, Wellington, read in a Jersey newspaper that Mr William C. Kerr, M.A., of St Helier, had discovered a cure for stammering he decided to get a year’s leave of absence from the Lands and Survey Department and to work his way to England.

Lee had been stammering all his life and he felt that Mr Kerr could help him. He worked as engineer’s steward in the Trojan Star, arrived in England on November 13 and 18 minutes after seeing Mr Kerr on November 18 he was speaking normally.

Recorded Proof
Mr Kerr took a recording of Lee stammering the date and time before instructing him. He took a second recording 18 minutes later with Lee now stating the date and time without stammering.

Lee stayed with Mr Kerr for a fortnight and when he returned to London his brother Mr M. G. Lee, who is teaching at a college and who had been most sceptical was “astounded” at the change.

Mr L. P. Lee told the Press Association: “I am thoroughly happy about the cure. I know that whenever I want to I can speak normally and I could even make a public speech now.” Only a slight occasional stammer is noticeable -in his speech and he counted rapidly up to 20.

Discovery Made
Mr Kerr said: “When I was a student at Glasgow University 16 years ago I had. to write a thesis on philosophy. In doing so I came across a psychological discovery. From this I discovered the cause and then the cure of stammering.”

“Its taken me a long time and I’ve had to contend with a good deal of scepticism and' opposition. But I’ve had 90 per cent success with 50 cases. I’m not a doctor but I believe I have a mission and I am making this my life’s work. I charge a fee which I shall reduce as I get more patients,” stated Mr Kerr.

–jacobolus (t) 18:55, 11 September 2024 (UTC)

@Rjjiii: Have your concerns been addressed? If not, what else does @Jacobolus: need to do?--Laun chba ller 19:12, 20 September 2024 (UTC)

@Jacobolus and Launchballer: No, because "Kerr really did have a stammering clinic in Jersey for decades, apparently with significant success, with people coming from all over the world to work with him" is true, but when I dig through sources, many of them make his treatment sound ineffective:

"It was after his mother died when he was 15 that his dad found a "miracle cure" at an unusual school in Jersey. 'I was basically "cured" by being beaten up. I went to a school run by a man called Bill Kerr. He maintained stammering was a fear of words and if he could make your brain understand that stammering was scarier than speaking, he could cure you. We had to stand bolt upright, speaking slowly and if we stammered he hit us. Slapped round the face punched in the stomach, smacked in the back of the head. I ordered soup one night and I stammered and he dunked my head in the bowl. But after three days I was speaking for the first time in my life.'"[1]
"During our many exchanges, we discovered that (in the 1960's) we had both attended a two weeks course in Jersey (a small island located between the UK and France), run by the late Dr Bill Kerr (from Scotland). With his typical frankness, Marty often referred to Kerr as a charlatan."[2]
"I spent three intense weeks on the British Isle of Jersey at a 'school for stutterers' run by a scoundrel. Dr. William C. Kerr, Ph.D., as he insisted on calling himself, had steel-blue eyes and a ferocious temperament. He promised to cure his class of stutterers "in a fortnight," and indeed, he worked with me and seven other stutterers for twenty days, eight to twelve hours a day. As long as he held us in his intimidating gaze, we dared not stutter. Unfortunately, he was not for rent and did not travel. When I returned to the United States, I was still stuttering."[3]
Or the 'doctor of something or other who lived on the Isle of Jersey in the English Channel,' who sent Marty's father a written promise that he'd effect a cure 'in a fortnight.' So off to Jersey flew Marty, to confront a sergeant- major type whose idea was 'to toughen us up as if we were recruits in the British Army. . . . To stumble even the slightest bit was to provoke his fury. Not only would he yell at us (and, from six inches away, splatter us with spit), but he'd grab us by the shirt or the scruff of the collar and shake us out of our stammering softness,' Jezer writes. The doctor seemed to think that spontaneous speech was women's talk. Men . . . wouldn't squander their power with idle chatter. We were to be silent unless we had something important, manly, to say.'
Lord, lord. And it all amounted, of course, to nothing. The Jersey doc could bully patients into brief stutter-free performances. Marty's parents wanted badly to believe he was cured. His father died in that belief. Marty's not cured, and lives with the fact that he never will be.[4][5]
"the late William Kerr, a roving unlicensed speech therapist from the Isle of Jersey [...]
On the first day [of the Kerr course] we were gathering at the motel and going through the ritual of introductions. One man put his hand out to me and said, 'My name is ... uh ... actually . .. my name is Jim." Afterwards one of the other men in the group who had a highly noticeable stutter shook his head and said, in an aside to me, "What a fool! I'd rather stammer my head off than avoid like that. It looks ridiculous. People must think he's crazy' [...] The simplest way to conceal stuttering is to avoid speaking."[6][7]

It feels weird to attribute a near-miracle cure to a man that so many folks seemed to say just intimidated people into shutting up for a bit. Also, theleekycauldron why do you say it's not WP:MEDRS? Rjjⁱⁱⁱ (talk) 05:04, 21 September 2024 (UTC)

Because asserting that a treatment worked once doesn't require asserting that it works in general; it's entirely possible that this story is true, whether by luck of the draw or complete coincidence, but Kerr is in general a charlatan. It's a narrow interpretation of MEDRS, and I probably wouldn't include the claim myself, but I don't think a meta-analysis is necessary to support the details of one person's life experience. theleekycauldron (talk • she/her) 05:09, 21 September 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for your research. Kerr's record does sound a lot more mixed than the couple other sources I found in my quick internet skim. I don't think it's a "miracle" if an aggressive (perhaps to the point of abusive) method was sometimes a complete failure and even source of trauma but also sometimes found some success and even appreciation from the patients. Whether or not it could be considered a "cure" by some rigid criteria (marketing + newspaper hype typically tends to moderate exaggeration), at least some people clearly felt that their stuttering was significantly ameliorated and their life was thereby improved. But I can understand your skepticism about promoting a controversial and probably now illegal medical treatment from the Wikipedia front page.

I could try to come up with an alternative hook, but making a not-bland one about Lee's map projection work might require adding a bit more detail about that topic to the article / hunting for more sources: I know some things I personally appreciate about Lee's work, but I'm not sure if there's a good secondary source voicing those comments. –jacobolus (t) 05:32, 21 September 2024 (UTC)

By the way, Rjjiii, would you consider making a Wikipedia article about Kerr himself? It seems like a worthy subject and you've already done significant research here. –jacobolus (t) 05:37, 21 September 2024 (UTC)

Here's another source, Petrunik 1974: The "Kerr method" refers to a method of speaking taught by W. C. Kerr in a two-week course, as a "cure" for stuttering. The method essentially involves a standardized temporal ordering (time-on/time-off sequence) of speech. Each word is syllabilized and there are split second pauses between each syllable; for example, I-am-a-u-ni-ver-si-ty stu-dent. The individual is told to stand in a ram-rod straight fashion with his head up high. Unfortunately, such a manner of speech, though technically fluent, does not meet the expectations for normal speech in North America. Its effects have been described as mechanical, stilted, and artificial. I can well imagine that some patients might consider adopting a method like this to be inadequate while others might think it beneficial (compared to an alternative of being unable or barely able to speak in many contexts due to a heavy stutter or associated anxiety) despite some obvious drawbacks. –jacobolus (t) 05:50, 21 September 2024 (UTC)