Page:A cyclopedia of American medical biography vol. 1.djvu/75

 LARYNGOLOGY lxv

appears beyond papers upon diphtheria, croup, foreign bodies and laryngeal growths. Subsequent to that date, however, the variety of subjects increases, also the volume of literature issued, showing a rapid advance in the number of papers published and the subjects discussed. The explanation of this is apparent. In 1858 the laryngoscope of Garcia, made available by Czermak and Turck, was introduced into Europe and its value at once appreciated by several Americans, notably by Dr. Horace Green. Dr. Ernest Krackowizer procured a laryngo- scope from Vienna in 1858, and shortly after its arrival used it in New York. Not being satisfied with the head-mirror of Semeleder, he had it modified and was probably the first physician in America to demon- strate the vocal cords. Dr. Horace Green predicted of the instrument that " if it could be brought into general use, the profession would be able to cure diseases which are now too frequently overlooked." The United States has had a share, if a small one, in the development of the laryngo- scope. In January, 1858, Dr. Ephraim Cutter, of Massachusetts, in conjunction with Mr. G. B. Clark, of Cambridge, Massachusetts, devised a laryngoscope having two tubes, one for observation, the other for illumi- nation. At the pharyngeal end was a prism to divert the rays of light into the pharynx.

While the value of the new method was at once recognized it was some time before the use of the laryngoscope became general. Mean- while, under the brilliant leadership of Horace Green, the study of throat diseases was conducted in no uncertain way.

As mentioned by Elsberg, this specialty as a distinct part of regular medical practice seems to have originated in America, Horace Green being the first at all events in recent times who devoted himself to throat and respiratory diseases. The career of this great man marks him as one of the pioneers of his time, a contemporary and friend of Trousseau and easily his peer.

In 1873 Dr. Clinton Wagner, of New York, appreciating the advantage to be derived from a society for the consideration of laryngological work called a meeting of a number of those who had studied laryngology in Vienna and elsewhere and who held positions in throat clinics in New York City and organized what was at that time known as the Laryngo- logical Society of New York, this being the first society devoted exclus- ively to laryngology and rhinology established either in this country or Europe. Five years later, in the City of Buffalo, New York, in June, 1873, at a call issued by Dr. Frank Davis, of Chicago, the American Laryngological Association was organized. About twenty years ago the New York Laryngological Society was merged into the section of laryn- gology and rhinology of the New York Academy of Medicine. Its history has been one of uninterrupted and ever-increasing usefulness.