353 
EEYIEWS. 
»o* 
THE LAEYNGOSCOPE.^ 
^ I^^HEEE are not many of our non-professional readers wlio know what a 
Laryngoscope is. It is an instrument to enable the medical man to 
examine the state of the larynx, and the larynx is nothing more nor less than 
that curious apparatus of cartilages placed at the back of the throat, and 
whose office is the production of different vocal sounds. The larynx it is 
which produces that marked prominence of the outer and front portion of 
the neck of man designated the pomum Adami, or Adam’s apple. More 
strictly sjDeaking, we should say that the thyroid cartilage causes the promi- 
nence to which we have alluded. Now this thyroid cartilage has attached to 
it the cords of the voice, those peculiar membranous bands which, by the 
action of the air upon' them, develop the vocal sounds characteristic of the 
animal in which they present themselves. The shorter those cords are, the 
sharper and higher will be the voice, and conversely. Hence, as the cords 
increase in length, the thyroid cartilage, or Adam’s apple, gets pushed forwards, 
and the voice becomes more bass ; and for this reason we find that those 
persons who possess that powerful voice known as “ basso profundo,” have 
the most prominent pomum Adami. 
The organs of voice are subject, like all other portions of our perishable 
frame, to several disorders, and till the invention and application of that 
interesting yet simple instrument, the laryngoscope, the treatment of these 
diseases was in great measure a matter of conjecture and empiricism. It 
would indeed be difficult to adopt a rational method of treating disease, if 
we were acquainted with neither its seat nor its character. Yet till recently 
physicians were unable to form accurate diagnoses of laryngeal maladies. The 
same thing might have been said of the eye some few years since ; but the 
discovery of the ophthalmoscope has put the surgeon upon a tolerably satis- 
factory footing. Indeed, the application of natural philosophy to medicine 
seems to be quite the rule of the day, and akeady we have optical appa- 
ratus for the examination of the eye, the stomach, and the vocal organs. Dr. 
Morell Mackenzie has written the larger and more important of thn volumes 
under notice. He is a gentleman well known to professional men for his 
devotion to the special subject upon which he has taken up his pen ; and it 
would be sup(V*fluous therefore to say aught concerning his ability to dis- 
“The Use of the Laryngoscope in Diseases of the Throat,” &c. By 
Mouell Mackenzie, MU. Lond., M.E.C.S. London : Hardwicke. 1865. 
“The Laryngoscope: Directions for its Use,” &c. By G. Johnson, M.D., 
E.E.C.P., Prof, of Medicine in King’s College. London : Hardwicke. 1884. 
