15 research outputs found
Vocal Culture in the Age of Laryngoscopy
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 âammoniaphoneâ (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 âvocalists, 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 tonesâ. 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
Opera and Hypnosis: Victor Maurelâs Experiments with Verdiâs Otello
One day in his private home on the avenue Bugeaud, in Parisâs sixteenth arrondissement, the famous baritone Victor Maurel hosted a meeting which combined music with hypnotism of a young woman
Unsound Seeds
With this image of a curtain hiding and at the same time heightening some terrible secret, Max Kalbeck began his review of the first Viennese performance of Richard Straussâs Salome. Theodor W. Adorno picked up the image of the curtain in the context of Straussâs fabled skill at composing non-musical events, when he identified the opening flourish of Straussâs Salome as the swooshing sound of the rising curtain. If this is so, the succĂšs de scandale of the opera was achieved, in more than one sense, as soon as the curtain rose at Dresdenâs Semperoper on 10 December 1905.
Critics of the premiere noted that the opera set âboundless wildness and degeneration to musicâ; it brought âhigh decadenceâ onto the operatic stage; a âcomposition of hysteriaâ, reflecting the âdisease of our timeâ, Salome is âhardly music any moreâ.The outrage did not end there
Science, Technology and Love in Late Eighteenth-Century Opera
It is a tale told by countless operas: young love, thwarted by an old manâs financially motivated marriage plans, triumphs in the end thanks to a deception that tricks the old man into blessing the young loversâ union. Always a doddering fool, the old man is often also an enthusiast for knowledge. Such is the case, for instance, in Carlo Goldoniâs comic opera libretto Il mondo della luna (1750), in which Buonafedeâs interest in the moon opens him to an elaborate hoax that has him believe he and his daughters have left Earth for the lunar world; and also in the Singspiel Die LuftbĂ€lle, oder der Liebhaber Ă la Montgolfier (1788), wherein the apothecary Wurm trades Sophie, the ward he intended to marry himself, for a technological innovation that will make him a pioneering aeronaut
Operatic Fantasies in Early Nineteenth-Century Psychiatry
In his celebrated essay on insanity in the Dictionnaire des sciences mĂ©dicales (1816), French psychiatrist Ătienne Esquirol marvelled at the earlier custom of allowing asylum inmates to attend theatrical productions at Charenton
Subjective right ventricle assessment by echo qualified intensive care specialists: assessing agreement with objective measures
International audienceBackgroundRight ventricle (RV) size and function assessment by echocardiography (echo) is a standard tool in the ICU. Frequently subjective assessment is performed, and guidelines suggest its utility in adequately trained clinicians. We aimed to compare subjective (visual) assessment of RV size and function by ICU physicians, with advanced qualifications in echocardiography, vs objective measurements.MethodsICU specialists with a qualification in advanced echocardiography reviewed 2D echo clips from critically ill patients on mechanical ventilation with PaO2:FiO(2) <300. Subjective assessments of RV size and function were made independently using a three-class categorical scale. Agreement (B-score) and bias (p value) were analysed using objective echo measurements. RV size assessment included RV end-diastolic area (EDA) and diameters. RV function assessment included fractional area change, S, TAPSE and RV free wall strain. Binary and ordinal analysis was performed.ResultsFifty-two clinicians reviewed 2D images from 80 patients. Fair agreement was seen with objective measures vs binary assessment of RV size (RV EDA 0.26 [p<0.001], RV dimensions 0.29 [p=0.06]) and function (RV free wall strain 0.27 [p<0.001], TAPSE 0.27 [p<0.001], S 0.29 [p<0.001], FAC 0.31 [p=0.16]). However, ordinal data analysis showed poor agreement with RV dimensions (0.11 [p=0.06]) and RV free wall strain (0.14 [p=0.16]). If one-step disagreement was allowed, agreement was good (RV dimensions 0.6 [p=0.06], RV free wall strain 0.6 [p=0.16]). Significant overestimation of severity of abnormalities was seen with subjective assessment vs RV EDA, TAPSE, S and fractional area change.ConclusionSubjective (visual) assessment of RV size and function, by ICU specialists trained in advanced echo, can be fairly reliable for the initial exclusion of significant RV pathology. It seems prudent to avoid subjective RV assessment in isolation
Circuit Listening
Giacomo Puccini was enthusiastic about electricity. To begin with, there were the modern luxuries it made available: electric lighting, the telegraph, the telephone, the radio, the refrigerator â he made use of them all. When he sailed westward across the Atlantic in 1907, on board the SS Kaiserin Auguste Victoria, he made a point of counting the electric light bulbs in his cabin â âI have seventyâ â and noting all the other extravagances powered by electricity. There were electric devices on board that he intended to enjoy (heated water, cigar lighters, a Marconi telegraph to supply passengers with news from around the world); and ones he didnât, like the mechanical wooden exercise horses, âonto which American women climb each day to jostle the uterusâ