166 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



The natural and almost necessary inferiority of politicians as a 

 class is compatible with the unsurpassed intellectual and moral great- 

 ness of statesmanship of the highest class. Men are not wanting in 

 the history of any country, least of all in that of ours, and they have 

 representatives among us now, who have found or made work for 

 themselves to do which taxes the very highest gifts, and in the doing 

 of which the very humblest and most commonplace allies and instru- 

 ments acquire a sort of transfiguration. Their appearance and exer- 

 tions mark the high-water point in the national life, an epoch of brief 

 but fruitful work, an epoch of civil heroism. But the languor comes 

 after the exertion ; and in such a period of languor we seem now to 

 be plunged. Even the men who counted for much when they fol- 

 lowed a great leader become mere ciphers when the figure which 

 stood at their head is removed. 



Apart from these singular cases of moral and intellectual ascen- 

 dency, the gifts which make a parliamentary leader are just those 

 which make a man popular in society. The cheerful animal spirits 

 and vigorous gayety of temperament which characterized Lord Pal- 

 merston, or the amusing qualities of a public entertainer which 

 marked Charles Townshend (not to seek for living illustrations), are 

 what it most relishes the qualities which make a first-rate host in a 

 country-house, or an amusing diner-out in town. 



THE LARYNGOSCOPE AND EHLTOSCOPE. 



HOW THE AIR-PASSAGES ARE EXPLORED. 

 By F. SEEGEE, M. D. 



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 instru- 

 ments they are merely bits of looking-glass set in a frame and at- 

 tached 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. They will learn that only a few 

 years ago physicians were absolutely in the dark when applied to by 

 those afflicted with disease of the throat ; and that where then all was 

 darkness, there now is clear light, thanks to the zeal and scientific de- 

 votion of Prof. Tiirck, of the University of Vienna, who in 1857 was 

 the first to successfully use the laryngoscope as a means of deter- 

 mining the nature of a disease in the throat of a patient then in the 



