Page:A cyclopedia of American medical biography vol. 1.djvu/77

 already mentioned are Harrison Allen, John N. Mackenzie, C. E. Sajous, T. R. French, D. Bryson Delavan, Beverley Robinson, Frederick I. Knight and Jonathan Wright.

In 1879 Dr. Louis Elsberg published a "History of Laryngology in America" and a "Bibliography of American Laryngological Literature." This appeared in the first volume of the "Transactions of the American Laryngological Association." A general bibliography of the subject was taken up by Dr. George M. Lefferts, beginning May, 1875, and continued in the "New York Medical Journal" until 1880, when a special journal known as the "Archives of Laryngology" was founded by four of the leading laryngologists of the country: Louis Elsberg, J. Solis-Cohen, Frederick Irving Knight and George Morewood Lefferts. The bibliog- raphy was continued in that magazine for four years. At the close of the career of the "Archives of Laryngology" the reports were con- tinued in the "Index Medicus," so that a fairly complete bibliography of the subject is furnished from the earliest period of medicine in this country up to the present. Combining the reports mentioned above with the bibliography given in the work of Sir Morell Mac- kenzie and in Ziemssen's Encyclopedia, we have a good record from earliest times.

An idea of the present literary productiveness of the United States may be gained from the statistical record of 1909 (" Centralblatt fur Laryngologie," January, 1911), which credits us with published articles relating to the upper air passages to the number of 659, Germany with 482, France, 325, Austro-Hungary 308, Great Britain and Colonies 241, these with the remaining countries aggregating a total number of 2610. Of this number the contribution of the United States equals more Hum 25 per cent.

To enumerate all the contributions to the science of laryngology from this country would be impossible. Even to-day the work of Horace Green has never been surpassed. He it was who first demonstrated thai a foreign body could be introduced into the larynx without producing suffocation, thus making intra-laryngeal medication and operation, with all which that implies possible. The contentions of Dr. Green were not received by all of his contemporaries, and his demonstrations of the fact that the vocal cords, could he touched I > \ a suitable insl nmieiit were ridi- culed. In these later days O'Dwyer demonstrated thai a tube could be retained continuously in the Larynx without removal for months and even years. In addition to the physiological fact above mentioned Dr. Green introduced the system of intra-laryngeal medication, making vari- ous applications to the larynx by means of a sponge probang or a laryn- geal brush. Like Trousseau, his favorite application in laryngitis was a solution of nitrate of silver. His method was taken up by the Viet se