My Own Observations with the Laryngoscope
In giving an account of my own observations with the laryngoscope, I premise that laryngoscopy has of late attracted much attention among the learned, and that Czermak, Turk, Merkel, Lewin, Bataille, &c., have published a series of valuable observations, all of which, however, with the exception of Bataille’s, were made in the interest of science, for pathological purposes especially. My aim, in the employment of the laryngoscope, has been directed exclusively to the discovery of the natural limits of the different registers of the human voice; and although I have thus been able to observe many other interesting processes, it would not at all accord with the design of this book to communicate observations which have no direct relation to the culture of the voice in singing, and which come better from men of science than from a teacher of vocal music.
In using the laryngoscope while the breath is quietly drawn, I saw, as Garcia did, the whole larynx wide open, so that one could easily introduce a finger into it, and the rings of the trachea were plainly visible.
When those who had become accustomed to the introduction of the instrument sang, at my request, a, as pronounced in the English word man, in a deep tone, the epiglottis rose, the tongue formed a cavity from within forwards, and thus rendered it easy to see into the larynx. So soon as the a, as in father, was sung, the cover quickly fell, the tongue rose, and prevented all observation of the organ of singing. The other vowels are still less favorable to observation, because they do not admit of any such wide opening of the mouth. Strong tones also are unfavorable to observation, as Garcia also remarked; and this is very natural, because strong and sonorous tones require greater exertions of the singing organ, and, above all things, the right position of those parts of the larynx and mouth which serve as a resonance apparatus in the formation of sound. In order to be able to see perfectly the whole glottis, all this resonance apparatus must be drawn back as far as possible, and the rim of the larynx must be tolerably flat. Thus only faint and weak sounds are favorable to observation.