Medicine: Bone in Throat

Behind the Adam's apple, in man's windpipe, lies the larynx, a triangular box containing the vocal cords. Normally the larynx is open, but when it is contracted, air rushing up from the lungs during speech cannot find room enough to vibrate the vocal cords. Then, instead of a healthy, he-man holler, there emerges only a high, husky whisper. Before doctors discovered how to prevent this condition by the use of throat-tubes and toxoids* such stenosis (contraction) of the larynx was a frequent aftereffect of diphtheria and scarlet fever. Today, the largest number of...

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