DEAD DOGS THAT BARK

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXII, Issue 7022, 10 January 1910, Page 6

DEAD DOGS THAT BARK

I. *BOH OUR SPEOIAIi CORRESPONDENT. LONDON, .November Z(i. Dead dogs, it seems, can be. made to bark. This is the latest scientific discovery reported from Paris. Dr Marage, a French savant who" has'mad© a special study of voice physiology, and who has succeeded, among other things, in photographing the human voice, has now demonstrated before the Academy of Science that dead dogs can be made to bark and howl as if they were alive. Dr Marage had demonstrated by various experiments a scientific truth generally admitted, that the voice eounds are produced exclusively by the larynx, and that the cavity of the mouth is only an accessory, which reinforces the sound. Whilst studying this point, he hit on the curious fact that the dead animals,' by means of electric action on the larynx, can be made to emit the same sounds as when they were alive. ' He applied a feeble electric current to certain muscles of the throat of a. dead dog, which immediately caused it to bark. The sound was produced evidently by a series of simple contractions of . the larynx, causing a vibration. He multiplied- his'experiments, and found that big, dead hounds, for instance, could be made to emit a deep-voiced bark as if they were alive, and smaller dogs could be made to produce a long pitiful howl, such as is usually, heard when * they are. said to be barking or howling at the moon. The various kinds of howls-and bark can be produced at will by .changing the electric current. These experiments served to demonstrate that what is called by singers the isudden loss of one's voice is not due to the vocal chords of the larynx itself, but to the paralysis and inertia of the niuscles which cause the vibrations. The proper treatment for restoring the voice might therefore bo found in restoring the muscular activity of the larynx. A slight shook from an electric battery might, perhaps, restore the silver voice of a distressed prima donna suddenly afilicted with aphony. If the voice can be restored to the dead, why not also to the living?.