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When coughing, swallowing, vomiting, holding the breath tightly, etc., these folds of mucous membrane close over the true bands, often completely, and thus shut up for the moment the whole of that space between the bands known as the glottis, or glottic chink, to which reference was made in a previous chapter as the space through which the air finally gains access to the lungs.
We can thus, as I infer from Professor Owen's interesting description of these parts, understand the strange fact that every particle of food and drink which we swallow has to pass over the orifice of the trachea, with some risk of falling into the lungs, notwithstanding the beautiful contrivance by which the glottis is closed.
There was evidently paralysis of the optic nerve and of the oculomotor muscles; and the muscles of the glottis were also in some manner deprived of motion. That an amputation can be perfectly performed by a lightning-stroke is exemplified in the case of Sycyanko of Cracow, Poland. The patient was a boy of twelve, whose right knee was ankylosed.
It would be of no value, and, in fact, would only serve to confuse the layman, to know the duties or functions of the various organs or parts entering into the production of speech. Suffice it to say that in the "manufacture" of words, there are concerned the glottis, the larynx, thorax, diaphragm, lungs, soft palate, tongue, teeth and lips.
Pinch the nostrils, and try to pronounce slowly the words "Lincoln," "something," or any other words which require the sound of m, ln, or ng. Experiment 190. To illustrate the passage of air through the glottis. Take two strips of India rubber, and stretch them over the open end of a boy's "bean-blower," or any kind of a tube.
Very evidently this dog, whose glottis was organized in a manner to enable him to emit regular sounds, attached no more sense to his words than do the paroquets, parrots, jackdaws, and magpies to theirs. A phrase with animals is nothing more than a kind of song or spoken cry, borrowed from a strange language of which they do not know the meaning.
With a normal attack the spiritus lenis in contradistinction to the spiritus asper the glottis is in position for phonation at the moment breath passes through it. No unvocalized breath precedes it and no explosion follows it. The vowel-attack is clear, precise and distinct.
For they also exist in order to shape and reshape the entire larynx within itself according to the note to be produced, and the opening or closing of the glottis with the degree of tension of the vocal cords resulting therefrom is but one detail in the coördination of adjustments and readjustments which prepare the vocal tract to produce the tone the singer hears in his mind.
The symptom of laryngismus stridulus the so-called breath-holding alone need concern us, and that for a special reason. The spasm of the glottis is produced under the influence of any strong emotion in anger, for example, or in fear, in excitement or in crying for any reason.
I am speaking to you at this moment, but if you were to alter, in the minutest degree, the proportion of the nervous forces now active in the two nerves which supply the muscles of my glottis, I should become suddenly dumb.
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