460 OTOLOGY AND LARYNGOLOGY 



constantly nowadays for further help in our therapeutical powers 

 from that source. 



Skeptics, it is true, may say with some show of reason that we 

 had lately had and were still having a little too much of a good 

 thing in the shape of new remedies, but I the more gladly leave 

 that undecided, as chemistry comes to our aid not only with re- 

 gard to therapeutics but also to diagnosis. It is mostly by means 

 of the different chemical reactions of cerebro-spinal fluid, and of the 

 ordinary serous secretion met with in vasomotor affections of the 

 nose that we can differentiate between these two affections. 



Finally, although this may perhaps be called " music of the fu- 

 ture," I myself look forward to the day when further progress in 

 physiological chemistry will enable us to recognize subtle differ- 

 ences in the composition of nerves and muscles. Should that hope 

 be realized, physiological chemistry will perhaps enable us to solve 

 that great problem, which for the last twenty-five years has occu- 

 pied the minds of so many of us namely, the cause of the greater 

 proclivity of the abductor fibers of the recurrent laryngeal nerve, 

 and the muscles which they supply, to succumb sooner than the 

 adductors, or even exclusively in cases of organic disease of the 

 roots and trunks of the motor laryngeal nerves. 



III. Mathematics, including Statistics 



Occasionally the resources of mathematics have to be laid under 

 contribution by our specialties. Thus, for instance, it was neces- 

 sary when I studied some years ago the position of the vocal cords 

 in quiet respiration in man, to correct, when using graduated laryn- 

 geal mirrors, the considerable difference between the actual and the 

 apparent length of the distance measured. This difference could 

 be accurately expressed by a mathematical formula. 



Similarly, in a recent paper on the aerodynamics of the respira- 

 tory passages, Dr. Gevers of Leuven measures mathematically 

 the permeability of the nasal chambers. On the whole, however, 

 it must be confessed that the connection between pure mathematics 

 and laryngology, otology, and rhinology is only a distant one. 



But matters become very different if we look upon the science 

 of statistics as a method of applied mathematics, and consider its 

 employment in our literary work under the present heading. 



More and more frequently of late years has the statistical method 

 not merely been laid under contribution, but been allowed to have 

 a decisive vote in questions of the greatest importance for laryn- 

 gology, otology, and rhinology. It may therefore not be out of 

 place to express on this occasion a devout hope that those who 

 employ this method for the decision of controversial points in our 



