Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 91.djvu/681

 �The inventor fails to tell how this man could inhale enough air to raise a snore if the strap were tight enough to hold the ball in place

��UNFORTUNATE — because innocent — is the person who snores. But let him take heart! Science is on the job. The activities of the geniuses who would silence the snore have been wide- spread ; their devices for restoring peace on earth and sleep to men take many forms. The amount of thought that has been given to the subject is amazing, and we may infer that many a midnight watt has been consumed in the search for a snore-silencer.

As the poet might put it, the triumphs by these workers scored were not attained by sudden flight, but they, while their companions snored, were toiling onward through the night — obviously not the oft-mentioned stilly night, else the incentive to work would have been missing.

The specimens of anti- snore devices shown here are separated into two classes.

The first principle em- ployed, as the scientific foes of the snore would apply it, may be described as suffo- cation in varying degrees. Exhibit A in the center of this page is the simplest type. It is a modification of the idea that if a man can't breathe, he can't snore. Specifically desig- nated, it is a plug for the mouth. It consists of two

��Filtering the Snores Out of Sleep

How our inventors are wrestling with the problem of silencing the nasal nightingale

By E. B. Breuer

soft rubber flanges connected by a

thin rubber strip, which is to be held

between the teeth. One of the flanges

is to be placed behind the lips. The

other remains outside. The flanges

are bigger than the mouth, and the

device when in place thus constitutes

an effective stopper. As mouths differ

greatly in size, we assume that this is

essentially a tailor-made device. The

inventor leaves us in the dark on that

point. We must agree with him, however,

that to the man who consents -to wear one

of the appliances, nasal music will become

a lost art.

The inventor of the similar device in the center of page 667 is more lenient. His ap- paratus also is a stopper for the mouth, but it has a one-way valve. The valve, opening outward only, permits the expul- sion of air from the lungs. Should the wearer, at 7 tempt to inhale through the mouth, he will find himself surrounded by an utter lack of facilities for such an operation.

In such a case the valve the sleeper is obliged to

���Valve

Any snorer who defied this anti- snoring plug clamped in his mouth would do so over his own dead body, so to speak; that is, he would be suffocated in the attempt

���This apparatus has a tether which prevents it from get- ting lost in case of a blow-out

��closes instantly,

inhale through the nose and another shat- tering of the silence is averted, or, as the inventor scientifically puts it, there is an absence of "the harsh nasal sounds commonly called 'snoring.' "

It remained for a Wis- consin investigator, whose device is illustrated at the bottom of this page, thor- oughly to tame or domesti- cate the anti-snoring shield. His apparatus is supplied with flanges — to fit under the upper and lower lips. They are to keep the device from wandering from side to side. But the striking feature is a ring which pro- trudes from between the

��665

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