F. Seeger

“ The tone-waves, as they rush out of the open mouth, communicate their vibrations to the air, which conducts the sound onward until it reaches our ears, provided we are within the reach of these atmospheric vibrations. The difference between a cultivated voice or note is soon detected in the purity and regularity with which its sounds reach us as compared to the harsh, irregular, discordant waves impelled by one not so cultivated. Johannes Müller places the extreme range of the human voice at four octaves, but it is quite seldom that the range exceeds two and a half octaves. ”

“ A patient may complain of aches and pains, and may imagine them in the larynx, and all the while the organ be in a perfectly sound state; and, on the other hand again, grave forms of throat-disease may exist, and with so little of actual pain as to cause the victim hardly any uneasiness. ”

“ How potent our climate is in causing catarrh is illustrated in the case of Charles Dickens, who contracted it so rapidly and severely as to necessitate his abandoning many engagements and compel his flight from this country. Interesting is the fact, which Darwin records in his "Descent of Man," that the Cebus azarœ, a species of Paraguayan monkey, is liable to catarrh with all of the symptoms found in his more human relatives, and which when often recurrent leads in them to consumption. ”

“ Where we can apply it we are no longer in the dark as to whether a case of disease is that of a chronic catarrh, nasal tumor, simple inflammation, swelling, or ulceration. In our climate, in which diseases of the nasal cavities, and particularly catarrh, are so prevalent that it has been estimated that 10,000,000 of our people have the disease called catarrh to a greater or less degree, every advance by which we are enabled the more successfully to combat these complaints is of general interest and importance. ”

“ In some phenomenal voices, like those of the gifted Parepa-Rosa, Peschka-Leutner, Mara, Farinelli, and other great singers, we meet with astounding range and power. Parepa-Rosa had a voice ranging full three octaves, from sol 2 to sol3; and Flint, the learned and indefatigable physiologist, tells that at the World's Musical Festival at Boston, in 1869, she gave the most astounding exhibitions of the wonders which this little organ, the larynx, is capable of. ”

“ By the degree of tension of the vocal cords which is required for the pitch of a prescribed tone, and which, as we have seen, is greater in the higher and less in the lower notes, the muscles of the larynx really become the determining forces of the ability to sing, and a great deal depends upon securing for them the necessary practice, as for instance for the execution of rapid successions of tones. ”

“ FROM the above names, most persons of average culture would at once infer that they are instruments for exploring the larynx and nose, and yet but few would suspect what simple little instruments they are—merely bits of looking-glass set in a frame and attached to a handle. But, when they give the matter a little further investigation, they are surprised at the greatness of the benefits which have already been reaped by mankind from the discovery of these self-same little instruments. ”

“ The object which Türck and Czermak had in view was to make the laryngoscope available as an adjunct and aid to the art and practice of medicine, or, in other words, as a means of diagnosis in disease of the throat. Garcia, on the other hand, was prompted by a desire to observe the actions of the vocal cords and larynx when producing tones and sounds. His observations were published in the Royal Philosophical Magazine and Journal of Science (vol. x., 1855) , and they constitute the first physiological records of the human voice as based upon observations in the living subject. ”

“ In the first instance the little mirror is placed at the back of the opened mouth of the patient. At the same time a powerful and clear light from an illuminating apparatus is directed into the patient's mouth, and the rays striking upon the mirror are so reflected upward and forward as to illuminate the parts we seek to examine, and these are then, as just remarked, made visible in the mirror. ”