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Stockhausen's mention of this fact has already been noted. This fact tends to cast some doubt on the value of laryngoscopic observation as a means of determining the laryngeal action. Under the conditions necessary for examination with the laryngoscope it is impossible for the singer to produce any but soft tones in the head quality of voice.
When this potent little instrument was put within the reach of every investigator, it was believed that the mystery surrounding the registers was about to be dispelled. One important consequence of the invention of the laryngoscope was the turning of attention away from the sensations of vibration in the chest and head.
The views of the author, published at a former period, and based on the special examination of a large number of persons with the laryngoscope, etc., and on auto-laryngoscopy, may be briefly stated as follows: A nomenclature for the registers involving no theory would be best, such, for example, as lower, middle, and upper registers.
There are possibly a half score of cases recorded, but this anomaly is very rare, and Major is possibly the only one who has to a certainty demonstrated the fact by a laryngoscopic examination. By the laryngoscope he was enabled to observe a paroxysm in a woman, in which the tongue retracted and impinged on the epiglottis, but quickly recovered its position.
Writing in 1886, Sir Morell Mackenzie says: "Direct observation with the laryngoscope is, of course, the best method at our disposal, but that even its testimony is far from unexceptionable is obvious from the marvelous differences as to matters of fact that exist among observers. It is hardly too much to say that no two of them quite agree as to what is seen."
It was astonishing to see what a little experience of miscellaneous practice had done for him. He did not ask me anymore questions about my hereditary predispositions on the paternal and maternal sides. He did not examine me with the stethoscope or the laryngoscope.
Nearly all the facts of importance in phonation, several of which have already been referred to, or will be mentioned in the "Summary and Review" below, could only have been discovered by the use of the laryngoscope.
But the element of uncertainty in what he has seen makes his knowledge little more than speculative. But suppose he is sure of what he has seen. Of what importance is it? He has seen a vocal organ in the act of producing tone under trying conditions, for one under the conditions necessary to the use of the laryngoscope is not at all likely to reach his own standard of tone production.
All examinations of the vocal bands may leave the observer disappointed; he may fail to realize, most likely, how such wonderful results can be accomplished by structures so simple as those he sees before him. But when the laryngoscope is brought into use, then comes a revelation. This instrument will be described in the next chapter.
The best of us learn to use the ophthalmoscope to look into the eye, to use the laryngoscope for the larynx, and can at need examine the urine and the blood, but the men must be rare who are as competent to use each and all of these means as persons who devote themselves to single branches of our work.
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