Recent Literature.

Voice, Song and Speech. A Practical Guide for Singers and Speakers from the Combined View of Vocal Surgeon and Voice Trainer. By LENNOX BROWNE, F. R. C. P., Ed., and EMIL BEHNKE. With numerous Illustrations by Wood Engraving and Photography. 323 pages. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. 1884.

There are few subjects which offer so many conflicting opinions as the questions relating to voice production. The volume before us, besides containing some original matter in regard to the formation of the registers of the voice, presents the views of one school,in our judgment the correct one, and is the joint work of a vocal surgeon and a vocal trainer, whose experience had convinced them "that wrong production of voice or abuse of its functions was the chief cause of most of the cases of vocal failure and even of throat disease," and "that the scarcity of fine voices generally acknowledged to exist was due less to dearth of material than to faults in its cultivation and exercise." The two chief faults are (1) attempting to use the voice with an insufficient amount of air or with imperfect control over the respiration, and (2) an undue forcing of the registers. How to avoid and correct these faults is explained in the chapters on the Hygienic Aspect of the Vocal Apparatus and on Voice Cultivation. These chapters consider in detail all the points bearing upon the care and preservation of the voice, and express the views generally held at present of the true methods for good voice production.

A voice register is defined as "a series of tones produced by the same mechanism," and the five registers into which the authors divide the human voice as a whole they claim are each produced by a distinct muscular mechanism.

The photographs of the larynx taken in the act of singing represent the glottic chink and the position of the vocal bands as they must always exist in the production of the respectively produced vocal tones. It is this portion of the book which relates to the photog raphy of the larynx and soft palate which is of most interest to medical readers. The difficulties of photographing an object in such constant motion and so hidden from view as the larynx have at last been overcome, and the results contained in this volume are the most satisfactory of any yet obtained. One of the points brought out was the difference between the appearance of the arytenoid cartilages as seen in the photograph and that of the conventional image we are accustomed to see in books. This consisted in double outlines in the photograph, which were first considered to be a blemish, but was afterward determined to be due to the perspective view of the interior surfaces of the arytenoid cartilages.

with a powerful light, as was done by Czermak, and then examining with the laryngoscope, it would seem that the vocal bands are in the "thin" quite transparent, while in the "thick" register they are opaque and bulky, "a difference brought about probably by a contraction of the vertical bundles of the thyro-arytenoideus externus." For the production of tones in the "small" register the highest part of the soprano voice-the mechanism consists in the formation of an oval orifice in the front part of the glottis which contracts the more the higher the voice ascends, the vocal ligaments being, in the hinder part, pressed together so tightly that scarcely any trace of a slit remains. No vibrations are here noticeable, while they are, on the contrary, so very marked in the anterior portion as sometimes to blur the outlines of the orifice to a considerable extent." The authors claim to have seen these appearances repeatedly in women as well as in boys. We regret that a photograph of this condition of things was not produced instead of the wellfinished engraving which accompanies the text. Interesting and suggestive as are the authors' remarks in regard to the different ways the vocal bands arrange themselves to produce the different tones, we doubt if they will be accepted until verified by a large number of observations upon different individuals.

The series of photographs of the soft palate show the positions it assumes in the production of tones differing in pitch and quality. It rises with the ascending scale, and the quality of the voice depends upon the degree of tightness with which it closes against the posterior pharyngeal wall. In singing a high note with a pure quality the uvula contracts, the arch between the pillars of the fauces becomes higher and narrower, and the closure of the palate with the back of the pharynx is complete, while on producing the same note with a nasal quality the soft palate is relaxed, thereby allowing the passage of air through the nares, upon which the peculiar quality depends.

We agree with the authors in believing that their results should effectually silence objections to amputating the uvula or removing the tonsils when they interfere with the free action of the soft palate, which, as these photographs clearly demonstrate, is so important for good voice formation.

The book is written in a popular style, and is intended to be a complete manual for singers and speakers. As such we can recommend it as a safe and valuable guide.

A System of Human Anatomy, including its Medical and Surgical Relations. By HARRISON ALLEN, M. D. Section V. Nervous System. Philadelphia: Henry C. Lea's Son & Co. 1883.

anatomy of the brain is a most difficult matter to present, and we think that the distinguished author has been very successful, always with the reservation implied above, that the reader should be prepared by previous knowledge. It seems to us that the important subject of cerebral localizations in the cortex is rather lightly touched upon. We find nothing whatever of the relations of the convolutions to the skull, a very important chapter, which we hope will have a place in

did the students get that direct practical training which was lacking in the other so-called scientific branches of medicine. At present new laboratories are organized from time to time, and especially for chemistry and physiology have many been recently formed. But even the best of our schools are still distant from the goal which must be attained before they can fully respond to the demands of thorough education, because each of the medical sciences needs its own laboratory, and until they are all provided for the goal will remain beyond reach. Anatomy may be granted the first claim, but the other claimants press quickly after it; physiology, chemistry, histology and embryology, pathology, experimental pharmacology, and hygiene, not one of them can do its best without its own large and expensive laboratory. We trust that it cannot be many years before every good medical school in the country will possess laboratories at least for physiology, pathology, and hygiene. For our own part we believe that hygiene is most unfortunately neglected in this country, and that no other addition to the current curriculums of our medical schools is so urgently needed as that of hygiene.

Our medical schools ought, however, to do something more than turn out so many diplomaed students per annum. Those, to be sure, that are carried on as commercial speculations for the financial benefit of the members of the Faculty, cannot be expected to sacrifice their profits to ideal aims, but the endowed schools ought to contribute to the promotion of medical knowledge, and offer ample facilities and hearty encouragement to investigators. In organizing their laboratories these latter schools should bear this higher duty in mind. The improvement of medical practice depends more largely than is perhaps commonly believed upon purely scientific researches, and it is indispensable to wise forethought to have in mind the duty of offering to those young men, who have the inclination and capacity, the opportunity to become investigators after a course of thorough training. This higher duty may be the more readily fulfilled because experience has amply demonstrated that instruction and investigation may be successfully and economically combined in one laboratory.

A good scientific laboratory, properly equipped for its double functions, is a far greater, more difficult, elaborate, and costly enterprise than is generally conceived. The fittings are necessarily numerous, varied, and expensive, even in those departments which need the very least; considerable space is required for the storage of the apparatus, and plenty of space and light for work, we never heard of a laboratory that had too much room! The character and value of the laboratory will, however, be determined more by its officers than by all else, a fact amply exemplified by the first inspirations and the earlier work of the generation of physicists and biologists now passing off the stage. Perhaps we cannot better express what the officers should be and do than by the following extract from a recent editorial of Science upon labora

tories :

"The highest officer must be the responsible direc

tor, -a man of superior ability, extensive attainments, and prolonged experience; one, in short, who has mastered his department of science, knows its possibilities and deficiencies, and is, therefore, capable of judging what work is most feasible and instructive for students, and what problems are best adapted for investigation. It is sheer waste for a man of such high capacity to sacrifice his whole time to the arrangement of apparatus or the preparation of experiments for his lectures or his students; therefore it is desirable, we prefer to say indispensable, that he should have an assistant, preferably a young devotee of science, who will be fitted by his experience as an assistant to ultimately become himself director of a similar laboratory. The third person is the laboratory keeper (diener), who needs must be a man of some mechanical skill, so that the precious instruments may be safely intrusted to his care. He should be something more than a servant, and less than an assistant. A laboratory without this working force cannot do much for the promotion of science, although even more modest ones may be valuable for simple instruction. A firstclass laboratory, and in Germany are many such, has always a larger number of officers. There are few persons among us who appreciate the magnitude of a scientific laboratory; were it otherwise there would not be so many petty substitutes for them."

A laboratory conformed to the high standard set must spend much money; therein lies the difficulty which prevents the immediate establishment of such, for our medical schools are not at all or insufficiently endowed, and have not the means wherewith to create the laboratories, however eagerly they may desire them. If there be any one who wishes to confer a great benefaction upon medicine and mankind by an endowment we should be very glad to see such a gift made for the support of a first-class laboratory at one of the accredited schools already existing.

Medicine, which is exclusively devoted to human welfare, has received in return but little from the generous in comparison with the liberal amounts bestowed for other purposes. The best form of gift would be without restrictions, but if the donor prefers to designate a special object his wisest choice, in our belief, would be, if the sum is very large, to found a hospital under the control of a first-rate school, or, if the sum is smaller, to endow a laboratory of physiology, hygiene, pathology, or histology, or such branch as he may elect, a biological institute being thus ultimately evolved.

PERIODICAL CHANGE OF COLOR OF THE HAIR.

A CURIOUS and apparently unique case of periodical change in the color of the hair is described by Dr. C. Reinhard in the last number of Virchow's Archiv. The subject exhibiting this interesting phenomenon was a female epileptic idiot, thirteen years of age, who was under careful observation at the Dalldorf-Berlin Asylum for two years. Very shortly after the reception of this girl at the asylum it was noticed

that her hair, which was soft and thick, changed its color from time to time from a light yellow to a deep red, and back again. The process, beginning at the end of the hairs, was accomplished pretty rapidly in two or three days, and each change remained seven or eight days. It was noticed that the changes of color were, in a general way, synchronous with the periodical changes in the psychical condition attendant upon the epileptic attacks, the dark color being assumed during the time of excitement and the lighter color during the succeeding period of stupor. These changes occurred in the same hairs, not being dependent upon the growth of new hair. There was no disease of the hair, nor of the scalp other than a slight dryness during the periods of stupor.

The writer, as the result of a careful consideration of this case from different points of view, supported by a thorough microscopical examination of the hair at various periods, and of the skin after death, advances as the most probable explanation of the phenomena described the occurrence of considerable and rapid changes in the amount of air contained in the hair shaft. The light color resulting from the presence of a larger quantity of air veiling the pigment, the darker color returning with the departure of the air. To these results the greater dryness and roughness of the hair, although slight, at certain times probably contributed in some degree by altering the refraction of the light, the drier the hair the lighter the color.

The presence of an abnormal quantity of air in the hair is the explanation offered for those cases in which a permanent and sudden change from dark to gray or white hair is reported, and notwithstanding Hebra's and Kaposi's dissent the occurrence of such is well established by Charcot, Bichat, Lélois, Raymond, and other trustworthy authorities, the last of these recording a case in which, apparently in consequence of severe neuralgia of the head, a patient's hair turned, in five hours, from black to white, passing through an intermediate stage of red. Landois describes one of these cases in Virchow's Archiv, April, 1866, and Wilson credits these sudden changes as authenticated. In these cases of permanent change some other influence than the mere increase of air must come into play, and it is probable that trophic nerve changes contribute to the result in the cases of sudden and permanent change, as also in the singular case of our author, the changes in the first class of cases being carried to an irreparable point.

changes in the hair manifest themselves by a loss of color; (5) the same phenomenon also probably depends upon an abnormal storing up of air, and, as this case shows, may be transitory.

NEW NATIONAL PHARMACOPIA. THE bill providing for the preparation of a new pharmacopoeia, to which we referred in a late issue, attracts no little attention, and the comments are by no means favorable to the introduction of a new standard. The Medical News, of Philadelphia, returns to the charge, however, in a manner which does it little credit. It opens its last editorial on the subject as follows: "The proposition for a national pharmacopoeia appears to meet with general professional commendation, and the only unfavorable criticism which we have seen is based on trivial grounds or on erroneous views of the power of Congress in the premises." As the only favorable comments are found in the News itself and the Journal of the American Medical Association, we fear that the News does not take great pains to learn the views of others. Whether the News acquaints itself with the views of others or is satisfied with its own is a matter of slight importance, but both the manner and the matter of its plea for the bill are noticeable. The editorial mentioned closes as follows: "The authority granted to that body (Congress) does not extend to fixing a standard of drugs and preparations which shall be imperative on the medical and pharmaceutical professions. It can, however, provide a standard for its own departments, and this is all that Mr. Randall's bill proposes to do. If, as is to be expected, that standard should prove free from the imperfections of the existing Pharmacopoeia, the latter would be naturally superseded; but, in any case, it would be for the professions to determine which of the two should be recognized."

That is exactly the reason for the strongest opposition: Congress cannot fix a standard which is imperative on the profession, and as to the departments, we showed in a recent editorial that the existing Pharmacopoeia had been already adopted by the Treasury Department, and by several States as legal standard. Further action of this sort is easy, but in the choice between the professional and the proposed Congressional Pharmacopoeias confusion must inevitably result.

The American Druggist makes the following contribution to history:

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