If you

parts, and the moderation of the singer. sing at all, you are certain that a gush of blood will be driven to the throat; and if the blood-vessels are strong enough to bear it, "all's well;" but if not---if they are stretched and swelled beyond their healthy diameter, then slight inflammation, hoarseness, or something still worse, may follow.

The inflammation may sometimes be so violent as to cause sharp pain and swelling of the throat, with high fever, great anxiety, shrill and suffocative breathing, and difficulty of swallowing. There may be little cough, though the hawking and efforts to expectorate are distressing. The face is swelled, the eyes start out, as in cases of strangling, and the patient calls for air as if in the agonies of death, which usually occurs in a day or two, unless the disease be subdued. Dr. Brassavoli mentions a case of this kind which proved fatal in the short space of ten hours; and Dr. Schenck, another case which caused almost instant suffocation. No time ought to be lost in such a case; and leeches, to the number of two dozen or more, should be instantly put to the throat, and a brisk purgative of Epsom salts taken. The inflammation, again, may go on more slowly, till it end in an ulcer; and when the skin is once broken, and a sore formed there, it becomes almost impossible to heal it; and it usually wears out and proves fatal to the unhappy patient, in the very same way as

consumption. Physicians, indeed, call it Laryngeal Phthisis; which means, consumption of the throat. The only remedy which is likely to effect a cure is calomel; of course, judiciously given. M. Patissier of Paris has given us the following two fatal cases :

A professional singer, at the Theatres des Boulevards, at Paris, became affected with hoarseness, dryness, and pain of the throat, a fatiguing cough, and loss of appetite and sleep. He gradually lost his voice, and became meagre and wasted, till at length, worn out with the irritation and the consumptive fever, he died. On opening the body, his throat was found to be extensively ulcerated, particularly about the organs of the voice, and the gristle of those parts was absolutely rotten, or, as the surgeons call it, carious. Morgagni also relates the case of a young man who had a fine voice, and, from over-exertion in singing, he produced ulceration in his throat. He was suffocated in trying to swallow the soft yolk of an egg. On opening the body, his throat was found in one mass of ulceration.

Margarita Salicola-Scevina, a celebrated singer of Modena, told Dr. Ramazzini, that whenever she exerted herself much, she was attacked with hoarseness, and spit up an incredible quantity of phlegm; and was often also affected with giddiness and swimmings in the head.

The effects of singing on the head and brain need not surprise us, if we attend to what is open to every body's observation. Mercurialis, in his work on Gymnastics, well observes, that in singing a high counter, or in a falsetto voice, there is often produced swellings of the head, beating of the temples, starting of the eyes, and ringing of the ears; arising, says Dr. Ramazzini, from the greater quantity of air necessary to produce and sustain an acute tone, stopping the return of the blood from the head; and in all cases flushing the face, and causing the pulse at the temples to beat strongly.

Such are some of the more immediate effects of immoderate exertions in singing; but there are others no less troublesome and dangerous, though care may render them less fatal. All exertions in singing, and particularly bass singing, have a violent effect on the belly and bowels. From frequently taking in a long and deep breath, and stretching all the parts of the belly till some of them give way, a rupture or hernia is the consequence, as was observed long ago by the celebrated Fallopius. Dr. Ramazzini also found this annoying complaint very common among the nuns, who were chiefly employed in chanting and singing; and the same accident often occurs to the monks, who sing in the cathedrals. Ramazzini often found rupture produced in a way precisely

similar in children, who, by exerting their voice in crying, overstretched and burst the muscles of the belly. In such unfortunate cases, which are, we lament to say, but too common, we know of no remedy but a truss.

We request you to remark, that we do not mean that such diseases attack every body who sings; but we say, that they are readily produced by immoderate and incautious exertions of the voice; and, as we have more than once similarly remarked, it will be small consolation to you, if you should be attacked with inflammation or ulceration of the throat, or with rupture, that Braham, Sinclair, or Madame Catalani continue to sing and to preserve their health. It has been well remarked, that great vocal ability often demonstrates great constitutional strength, and particularly the power of resisting colds and catarrhs. Amateur singers are always "taking colds ;" professed singers very rarely indeed, though they are so much exposed to night air, and in the thin clothing, too, of their stage dresses. Mrs. Salmon, for example, in last December, sang at Manchester on Wednesday; at Leeds on Thursday; at Sheffield on Friday; and at Hull (70 miles distant) on Saturday. This however, great as the exertion must have been, is not equal to her famous week, in which she appeared on the Monday in London, on the

Tuesday at Oxford, on the Wednesday in London, on the Thursday at Oxford, on the Friday in London, and on the Saturday at Bath. What strength of constitution and power of voice it must require for such efforts!

COLDS AND HOARSENESS.

The most frequent disorder to which the voice is liable, is a huskiness or hoarseness consequent upon exposure to cold or damp. It is of the greatest importance, therefore, to all who have to exert the voice in speaking or singing, to know the best means of avoiding the consequences of such exposures.

Cold will do no harm, if you are not improperly exposed to it. For instance, it will injure the feet, but it will not injure the hands; it will injure the stomach, but it will do no harm to the face. The danger, then, is when you are heated to perspiration in the theatre, the concert-room, &c., that your feet be exposed to some cold stream of air, or become cold from damp; and that thirst may induce you to eat ices, or take a draught of any thing cold. This rashness has often caused instant death, and oftener laid the foundation of a lingering and fatal illness. The reason of such consequences is to be found in the current of the blood. Cold applied suddenly to the stomach, in