On excision of the enlarged tonsil, and its consequences in cases of deafness with remarks on diseases of the throat / [William Harvey].

  • Harvey, William, 1806-1876.
Date:
1850
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On excision of the enlarged tonsil, and its consequences in cases of deafness with remarks on diseases of the throat / [William Harvey]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    ARTICULATE SOUNDS. It is in the human race that we find the most varied and perfect adaptation of vocal sounds to the communication of ideas, both of material and intellectual subjects. The sounds which in all ages have been selected by the different races of men to represent the ideas of things are, for the most part, purely conventional, and arbitrary, having in general no resemblance to the things themselves; since it is impossible by mere sound to imitate anything but sound, and there- fore equally impossible to represent by the voice any other idea than that of sound itself, unless by common consent it shall have been determined that certain sounds shall serve to convey the notions of certain things. Hence, we need not be surprised that mankind, scattered over the face of the earth in different communities holding little or no inter- course with each other, would employ different sounds to express the same tiling; at least where the thing intended to be designated had become known to a particular community after its intercourse with other nations had ceased. The number of significant sounds or words must have increased with that of ideas and things re- quired to be expressed in each society, according to its state of civilization; but, as sounds are tran- sitory, and, so to speak, die at their birth, and as the modifications of them are constantly liable to change owing to their independent and arbitrary nature, it was found necessary to invent some