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 laryngeal deformities is caused by accidents, not by disease.

Last week, Laryngologist Edward Anderson Looper of the University of Maryland School of Medicine announced that an operation he devised in 1937 had succeeded in restoring their voices to five of his patients. Purpose of the operation is to keep the airway open by using the horseshoe-shaped hyoid bone at the root of the tongue as a wedge in the larynx. His technique consists of cutting loose the upper left end of the bone, swinging it down into the desired position in the larynx, and planting it in the thyroid cartilage, firmest section of laryngeal framework. The soft tissues adhering to the hyoid bone are not scraped off, since they provide a good blood supply. As a living graft, with one end assured of normal circulation, the hyoid bone is far superior to any foreign graft clipped from the rib or ear. Only disadvantage, said ruddy, vigorous Dr. Looper. is a slight discomfort in swallowing, but this tends to disappear.

*Toxins which have been made nonpoisonous;md are used for immunization.