RECOVERY OF THE VOICE BY MUSIC.
“In the beginning of December, 1801, Elizabeth Sellers, a scholar in the Girls’ Charity School, at Sheffield, aged 13, lost her voice: so that she was unable to express herself on any occasion, otherwise than by a whisper. She, however, enjoyed very good health, and went through several employments of the school, such as knitting, sewing, spinning, on the high and low wheel, &c. without any indulgence. Read audibly she could not; and her infirmity resisted, without intermission, all medical assistance, till, in the evening of the 20th of March, 1803, she, hearing some of her schoolfellows singing a hymn, in which she wished to join, went up to one Sarah Milner, and whisperingly begged that she would shout down her throat. Milner, at first, was shocked at the proposal, and refused to comply with her request. But, at length, through her repeated solicitations, she consented, and shouted down her throat with all her might; upon which Sellers immediately regained her voice, and, to the astonishment of the whole school, wept and sung, as if she had been almost in a state of derangement, and has continued in possession of her voice ever since.”
Gentleman’s Magazine, 1803, p. 524.