the way which Garcia had opened for him. He constructed an
apparatus which enabled him, by making use of artificial light, to work
without interruption and without waiting for the sun to shine. He then
made his first attempts on himself in order to become acquainted with
the conditions which have to be fulfilled by the observer as well as by
the person to be operated upon. In this way he soon became a master of
the new process, which he immediately brought under the notice of the
profession by giving lectures and demonstrations in the chief towns of
Europe.

More than twenty years have passed since then, and the laryngoscope has,
during that time, been made excellent use of, not only for the
alleviation of suffering, and the cure of disease, but also for its
original purpose--_i.e._, the exploration of the mechanism of the human
voice.

My own connection with the matter has arisen through my desire to sift
contradictory statements made by various observers. Having read many
English, German, and French books on the subject, I was in position to
pick up a hint here, and to get some good advice there, and the
consequence was that I was able to pursue a course which made me
familiar with the use of the laryngoscope in a very short time. As my
experience may be useful to others, I will briefly relate how I
proceeded.

I made my first attempts upon a skull, to which I attached a
plaster-of-Paris model of the voicebox, the whole being fastened to an
iron stand. The instrument I used was a concave reflector on a spectacle
frame. The reflector had a hole in the centre, and was capable of being
moved in various directions. The next thing was the little mirror
described on page 73, and lastly, a gas lamp on the principle of the
well-known "Queen's" reading lamps, which can be raised or lowered at
pleasure. I placed the skull to the left of the lamp, and looking with
my right eye through the hole in the centre of the reflector, practised
throwing the light swiftly and with certainty into the upper part of the
throat. I then introduced the little spy mirror, and tried to see and to
recognize the various parts of the voicebox, which, let it be
remembered, present a somewhat different appearance in the looking-glass
from what they do if seen without it. Then I got a friend to mark my
artificial voicebox, unknown to me, in various ways, and endeavoured
quickly to discover what he had done. In this way I soon acquired a
considerable