The Voice and its Treatment

Abstract

s in this Journal. Editorial Communications are to be addressed to " Editors of JOURNAL OF LARYNGOLOGY, care of F. A. Davis, 40, Berners Street, London, JV." THE VOICE AND ITS TREATMENT. By ARTHUR Q-. HOBBS, M.D., Professor of Ophthalmology, Otology and Bhino-Laryngology in the Southern Medical College, Atlanta, Ga., Ex-President of the American Bhinological Association, etc., etc. IN order that the caption of this paper may not be misleading, I will say in the beginning that it is not the intention to discuss the beautiful and fascinating subject of voice production by the vocal cords proper, together with the individual mechanism of the laryngeal muscles ; neither shall the etiology and pathology of the various forms of voice defects be entered into. But from a very prosaic and common-place point of view, I mean to speak especially of the various pathological conditions of the pharynx, nasopharynx and nares which affect the voice of singers and elocutionists, or indeed of any others who may apply for treatment for the sole or principal purpose of having a voice defect corrected. Enlarged and Degenerated Tonsils, either in the form of acute, subacute, or the consequent chronic hypertrophy or hyperplasia, or it may be only in an apparently slight cryptic degeneration which increases the actual size of the organ, are among the most frequent causes of vocal defects. In any case the singer's voice particularly is affected, either in its resonance, its register, or its resistance. Again, it may be only in the inability of the singer to reach and hold sufficiently long the usual higher notes. Many of the milder forms of tonsillar affections may not be noticed by others, nor even by the singer, until a prolonged attempt at