Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 3.djvu/647

Rh work on the "Diseases of the Tongue." The subject was a girl, born tongueless, in a village of Alemtejo, a small province of Portugal. The defect was first made known by her inability to suck, a difficulty that the mother obviated by pressing her breasts, and thus forcing the milk to flow into the infant's mouth while it held the nipple tightly between its lips. This girl was fifteen years old when first seen by Jussieu, who, after two careful and thorough examinations, thus describes the condition of her mouth: "I remarked only a small elevation, in the form of a mamelon, which rose in the middle of the mouth to the height of about three or four lines. This elevation would have almost escaped my observation if I had not assured myself of its existence by touch, for it was scarcely visible. In pressing it with my finger, I felt a sort of movement, of contraction and dilatation, which showed that, although the organ of the tongue was absent, yet the muscles which form it, and which are designed to move it, were present; for there was no hollow under the chin, and I could only attribute the alternating movements which I have described to these muscles. . . . Some persons, perhaps, who doubt the possibility of any one speaking without a tongue, may imagine that in the case of this girl it was not really absent; but that by some natural accident it was adherent to the lower or lateral portions of the mouth. But an inspection will at once remove this impression; for not only is its cavity larger than usual, but at the back the uvula is distinctly visible, and is seen to be more than double the usual length, and also a little thicker than ordinary. It stretches almost to the epiglottis, and forms at the back of the throat two equal rounded openings instead of one; while in other subjects the aperture, though single and larger than the two together in this case, can only be seen by pressing down the base of the tongue."

The function of speech was performed by this girl so distinctly and clearly that no one would have known, without being told, that the tongue was absent. She could clearly pronounce all the letters of the alphabet, as well as separate syllables, and complete sentences. It was observed, however, that some of the consonants, such as c, f, g, l, n, r, s, t, x, and z, were pronounced with more difficulty than the other letters, and that, when she had to utter them slowly and separately, the effort required to sound them was shown by bending her head forward, so as to bring her chin nearer to the throat or larynx, thus raising the latter and placing it almost on a level with the teeth.

The Medical Record quotes from the Canada Medical and Surgical Journal, for March of this year, a case of removal of the tongue and lower jaw of a man aged seventy-one years, in order to get rid of a cancerous mass that extensively involved those parts. Four months after the operation he was brought before theMedico-Chirurgical Society of Montreal; no great amount of deformity was observable, and "speech