Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 12.djvu/179

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THE LARYNGOSCOPE AND RHINOSCOPE.
167

wards of the General Hospital of Vienna, of which latter Türck was the physician-in-chief. Justice and the truth of history, however, require that we should not omit mentioning the experiments and efforts of Senn, of Geneva (1827); Babington, of London (1829); Belloc, of Paris (1837); Baumes, of Lyons (1838); Liston, of London (1840); of Warden (1844); and, finally, of Manuel Garcia, a singing-teacher, of London. With the exception of the last, all of the experimenters had been disappointed in their efforts to devise an instrument sufficiently suitable and generally practical. Their experiments all lacked that essential practical element which made the subsequent labors of Türck and Czermak the solid basis for the grand superstructure which has grown up since their time. While Prof. Türck at Vienna, and Prof. Czermak, of the University of Krakau, the latter having become interested by Prof. Türck in the experiments, were thus developing the practical application of the laryngeal mirror (Kehlkopffragenspiegel, as Türck named it), Garcia, the now justly famous Spanish tenor and singing maestro, and father of the gifted songstress, Malibran, was at the very same time experimenting in London, but with totally different purposes. 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. It is interesting at this date to turn to his remarks and to note the thoroughness therein displayed. The curious may refer to Madame Seder's "The Voice in Singing," or to the writer's translation of Sieber's "Art of Singing." It is but proper to add that although Türck and Garcia were thus experimenting at one and the same time, neither, however, knew of the other nor of his efforts. Garcia accomplished his aim by standing with his back to the sun and catching its rays upon a looking-glass held in his left hand, which he then reflected into his opened mouth. Next he carried a dentist's mirror to the back of his mouth; and the sun's light which, in the first instance, was reflected from the mirror in the hand, being in turn reflected upon the dentist's mirror, served to illuminate the larynx below, and thus caused its picture to become visible in the dentist's mirror. Türck also used the sun's rays, but in a more direct manner, viz., without previous reflection. Prof. Czermak, as already remarked, soon became interested in Türck's experiments, and, borrowing some of Türck's mirrors, repeated the experiments. His labors resulted in a yet further and most brilliant development of the subject, by his introduction of a powerful artificial light, thus making us independent