Description

A life-size plaster laryngo phantom   that was used with a laryngoscope in the training of ENT physicians  Maker is Denoyer-Geppert of Chicago, C1920. Areas of the throat are numbered for identification verso. Overall in very good condition with an excellent surface showing little wear.  Height: 13.5″ or 34 cms approx.  There is a near identical phantom in  the collection of the University of Buffalo’s Medical School Museum. The curator notes: ”  You might well ask “what is a Laryngo Phantom and what was its purpose?” It was actually used by medical students and practicing physicians in the nineteenth century to learn how to properly use the laryngoscope to examine the throat before working on actual patients.  One model invented by a Dr. Isenschmid of Munich was described on page 26, Volume 2 of the 1885 Medical Times and Gazette, as having   ‘…a mouth of thin metal with a tongue and uvula made of red velvet’. French Otolaryngologist Dr. Baratoux  designed yet another model.  Our Phantom bears more of a resemblance to one designed by Dr. Goguenheim as pictured in the Matthieu instrument catalog of 1885.  Dating from about 1900, it is made out of plaster and the reverse side depicts the structures of the larynx and uvula.” See fourth image for cut from Mathieu catalog. .