On a new method of recording the motions of the soft palate / By Harrison Allen.

  • Allen, Harrison, 1841-1897.
Date:
1884
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On a new method of recording the motions of the soft palate / By Harrison Allen. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University Libraries/Information Services, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University.

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    of i, 0, and u, or in any of the short vowel sounds. Substituting for the support of the fingers a flexible copper wire, one end of which was attached to the head-band, which is in common use for the support of the laryngeal mirror, and the wire itself- bent round the rod so as to maintain the apposition of the rod against the anterior border of the nostril, I found that the motions of the palate caused a perceptible deviation of the free end of the rod. If, while the wire was thus supporting the rod, a rhlnoscopic ex- amination was made, the pharyngeal end of the rod was found projecting from the posterior nares into the naso-pharynx, at a point about midway between the roof and the upper surface of the relaxed soft palate. The rod being carefully adjusted so as to secure the best eifects when the palate was raised, and the subject seated in front of the Ludwig kymo- graphion (see Frontispiece), which had been pre- viously prepared with carbon covered paper, it was ascertained that when the free end of the lever touched the cylinder, at a time when the latter was in motion from right to left and the soft palate was raised, that a distinct tracing appeared upon the cylinder and that the differences between the long and short sounds of the vowels were found to corre- late with the curves made by the rod upon the kymo- graphion. Fig. 1 represents this rod as completed, a is that part of the rod, four inches in length, which is inserted within the nose. The end to the left being furnished with a bulb, and that to the right with a screw thread for attachment to &, which is a delicate piece of vul-