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Curiosities Respecting Man: Richerand

The following quotation from Richerand's Physiology will be sufficient to give the reader a further idea of the mechanism of this singular art. "At first," says Richerand, "I had con jectured that a great portion of the air driven out by expiration did not pass out by the mouth and nostrils, but was swallowed and carried into the stomach, reflected in some part of the digestive canal, and gave rise to a real echo; but after having attentively observed this curious phenomenon, in Mr.

Fitz-James, who represents it in its greatest perfection , I was enabled to convince myself that the name ventriloquism is by no means applicable, since the whole of its mechanism consists in a slow gradual expiration, drawn in such a w that the artist either makes use of the influence exerted If exerted ly volition over the muscles or parietis of the thorax, or that he keeps the epiglottis down by the base of the tongue, the apex of which is not carried beyond the dental arches. "He always makes a strong inspiration just before this long expiration, and thus conveys a considerable mass of air into the lungs, the exit of which he afterwards manages with such address. Therefore, repletion of the stomach greatly incom modes the talent of Mr. Fitz-James, by preventing the dia phragm from descending sufficiently to admit of a dilatation of the thorax, in proportion to the quantity of air that the lungs should receive. By accelerating or retarding the exit of the air, he can imitate different voices, and induce his auditors to a belief that the interlocutors of a dialogue, which is kept up by himself alone, are placed at different distances; and this illusion is the more complete in proportion ti the to the perfection of his peculia- talent. No man possesses, to such a degree as Mr. Fitz-James, the art of deceiving persons who are least liable to delusion, he can carry his execution to five or six different tones, pass rapidly from one to another, as he does when representing an animated dispute in the midst of a popular assembly."