Book contents
- Nineteenth-Century Opera and the Scientific Imagination
- Nineteenth-Century Opera and the Scientific Imagination
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Music Examples
- Contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- Part I Voices
- 1 Pneumotypes
- 2 Vocal Culture in the Age of Laryngoscopy
- 3 Operatic Fantasies in Early Nineteenth-Century Psychiatry
- 4 Opera and Hypnosis: Victor Maurel’s Experiments in Suggestion with Verdi’s Otello
- Part II Ears
- Part III Technologies
- Part IV Bodies
- Bibliography
- Index
2 - Vocal Culture in the Age of Laryngoscopy
from Part I - Voices
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 August 2019
- Nineteenth-Century Opera and the Scientific Imagination
- Nineteenth-Century Opera and the Scientific Imagination
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Music Examples
- Contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- Part I Voices
- 1 Pneumotypes
- 2 Vocal Culture in the Age of Laryngoscopy
- 3 Operatic Fantasies in Early Nineteenth-Century Psychiatry
- 4 Opera and Hypnosis: Victor Maurel’s Experiments in Suggestion with Verdi’s Otello
- Part II Ears
- Part III Technologies
- Part IV Bodies
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
For several months beginning in 1884, readers of Life, Science, Health, the Atlantic Monthly and similar magazines would have encountered half-page advertisements for a newly patented medical device called the ‘ammoniaphone’ (Figure 2.1). Invented and promoted by a Scottish doctor named Carter Moffat and endorsed by the soprano Adelina Patti, British Prime Minister William Gladstone and the Princess of Wales, the ammoniaphone promised a miraculous transformation in the voices of its users. It was recommended for ‘vocalists, clergymen, public speakers, parliamentary men, readers, reciters, lecturers, leaders of psalmody, schoolmasters, amateurs, church choirs, barristers, and all persons who have to use their voices professionally, or who desire to greatly improve their speaking or singing tones’. Some estimates indicated that Moffat sold upwards of 30,000 units, yet the ammoniaphone was a flash in the pan as far as such things go, fading from public view after 1886.
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- Nineteenth-Century Opera and the Scientific Imagination , pp. 44 - 62Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2019
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