VOCAL IMITATION, AND VENTRILOQUISM. 2<u 



pronunciation. This is a case the more worthy of attention, because the man 

 had been so cruelly mutilated at the roof of the mouth, that he could not 

 swallow the smallest quantity of food, without thrusting it into the esophagus 

 with his forefinger.* 



In the third volume of the Ephemerides Germanicse, is another case of a 

 similar kind, and most credibly authenticated. It relates to a boy that had 

 lost his tongue at eight years of age by the small-pox, but was still able to 

 speak. The boy was minutely examined in a full court before the members 

 of the University of Saumur, in France, who had suspected some deception ; 

 the report, however, was found correct ; and the University, in consequence, 

 gave their official attestation to it, in order that posterity might have no room 

 to doubt its validity. 



To these let me add one more instance that occurred in our own country, 

 in what may be almost called our own day, and which is very minutely de- 

 tailed and authenticated in the Transactions of the Philosophical Society 

 that were published between the years 1742 and 1747. f The case, as drawn 

 up by Dr. Parsons, relates to a young woman of the name of Margaret Cut- 

 ting, of Wickham Market, near Ipswich, in Suffolk, who, when only four 

 years old, lost the whole of her tongue, together with the uvula, from what is 

 said to have been a cancerous affection ; but who still retained the power of 

 speech, deglutition, and taste, without any imperfection whatever; articulating, 

 indeed, as fluently, and with as much correctness as other persons ; and, like 

 the individual whose history is given by Tullius, articulating those peculiar 

 syllables which ordinarily require the express aid of the tip of the tongue for 

 exact enunciation. She also sang to admiration, and still articulated her 

 words while singing, and could form no conception of the use of a tongue in 

 other people. Neither were her teeth, in any respect, able to supply the place 

 of the deficient organs ; for they were but few in number, and rose scarcely 

 higher than the surface of the gums, in consequence of the injury to their 

 sockets from the disease that had destroyed the tongue. The case thus in- 

 troduced before the Royal Society, was attested by the minister of the parish, 

 a medical practitioner of repute, and another respectable person. From its 

 singularity, however, the Society evinced a commendable tardiness of belief. 

 *^hey requested another report upon the subject, and from another set of wit- 

 nesses, whom they themselves named for the purpose ; and for whose gui- 

 dance they drew up a line of categorical examination. This second report 

 so*n reached the Society, and minutely coincided with the first ; and to set 

 tli** question completely at rest, the young woman was shortly afterward 

 brought to London, and satisfied the Royal Society in her own person. J 



h appears obvious, then, that the tongue, though a natural and common 

 organ in the functions of voice, taste, and deglutition, is not absolutely neces- 

 sary to these functions ; that on various occasions it has been, and therefore, 

 may be, totally lost, while the functions themselves continue perfect. 



In singing, every one knows that the larnyx is the only organ employed, 

 except when the tones are not merely uttered but articulated : it is the only 

 organ employed, as I have already observed, in the mock articulations of par- 

 rots and other imitative birds: it is the only organ of all natural tones, or natural 

 language ; and hence Lord Monboddo ingeniously conjectures, that it is the 

 chief organ of articulate language in its rudest and most barbarous state, 

 " As all natural cries," he observes, " even though modulated by music, are 

 from the throat and larynx, or part of the throat, "with little or no operation of 

 the organs of the mouth ; it is natural to suppose that the first languages were, 

 for the greater part, spoken from the throat ; and that what consonants were 

 used to vary the cries, were mostly guttural; and that the organs of the 

 mouth would at first be but very little employed. " 



I have thus endeavoured to account for the chief difficulty, and the most 



* Tulpii Observ. Medicae, Amsterd. t In their abridged form, vol. viii. 586, and Ix. 375 



J Study of Med. i. 499, edit. 1, where other examples are noticed. 

 $ Orijf. and Progr. of Lang. vol. i. 6 , iii. eh. 4 



