tes the pharynx, reddens the vocal cords, and may cause
heart troubles harmful to singing.

Pungent scents should be proscribed for singers. The odors of some
flowers are for certain artists the cause of persistent hoarseness.
Mme. Carvalho could not endure the scent of violets, which instantly
caused her to lose her voice. Scents often determine a rapid congestion
of the mucous membrane of the nose to such an extent that in certain
persons they cause veritable attacks of asthma. Dr. Poyet also puts
singers on their guard against scented toilet powder. "I knew," he says,
"a great singer who was obliged to renounce the use of the toilet powder
called 'a la Marechale.'"

In ending the interview, he calls attention to the fact that the larynx,
while very delicate, is an extremely resistant organ, since it can face
fatigues that no other human organ could support; but because it shows
signs of fatigue only by hoarseness, is no reason to call on it for
too prolonged efforts. "To work two hours a day, either in study or
in singing, seems to me a maximum that should not be overstepped by a
person careful of his vocal health."

Another distinguished foreign specialist is Dr. N. J. Poock van Baggen,
of The Hague, Holland, who has contributed to the _Medical Record_ a
series of articles on throat diseases caused by misuse of the voice,
and their cure.[A]

[Footnote A: These articles have been reprinted in four slim but
interesting pamphlets published by William Wood & Co., New York.]

Clergyman's sore throat, as Dr. Van Baggen says, is a disease known
to every throat specialist. "It is produced by misuse of the voice,
and the same disease, often in more aggravated form, is produced in
the singer and by the same cause. The patient, after singing, will
experience a dry and hot feeling in the pharynx and larynx, irritation,
and a frequent cough. Examination of the patient discloses catarrh of
the pharynx and of the larynx; congested and swollen mucous membrane;
pillars of the fauces swollen and unduly developed; all these symptoms
accompanied by paresis of the vocal cords, which are red or yellow and
do not approximate well. To this paresis of the cords is united a
paresis of certain muscles of the larynx; to which is added, in serious
cases, a swelling of the aryepiglottic ligament."

That this disorder is not organic, but functional--not caused by
enlarged tonsils, adenoids, nasal polypus or malformation of the tongue,
but