Belch-Talk

Every year, to save their lives from cancer of the larynx, 400 people in the U. S. have their Adam's apples removed. The stump of windpipe which remains is turned over and pulled through a hole in the front of the neck, at the point where a collar button usually rests. Through this hole larynx-less patients (mostly men) do their breathing. But they cannot talk aloud, for their breath gushes up in a storm from their lungs, whistles out through their necks, and first requirement for speech is a vibrating column of air in the throat. They sometimes manage to produce a squeaky whisper, using only their mouths and palates.

A few bold patients taught themselves to speak by swallowing air and belching it out in grunts, but until Temple University's Dr. Nathaniel Martin Levin built belch-talk into a system, most larynxless men could never hope to speak again. During the past three years, brief, brisk Dr. Levin has taught 30 men belch-talk. His method is simple, takes some patients only one or two days to learn, is most successful when started right after the operation. A patient swallows air through his mouth, pushes it right out again with his abdominal muscles, chops it into speech with his teeth, tongue and lips as he expels it. Easiest type of word to learn is one like "church," formed with teeth and lips. Hardest is a guttural sound in the back of the throat, like "gang." Belch-talk is easy to understand but so husky that patients are often asked if they have a cold.

Among successful belchers in good society: a New York lawyer who argues cases in court, a Philadelphia magistrate, several teachers. During the past month, Dr. Levin, with Dr. Chevalier Lawrence Jackson, has shown belching sound films before the American Academy of Ophthalmology and Otolaryngology, the American College of Surgeons. Last week in Manhattan he disclosed to Lawyer Arturo Alessandri, ex-President of Chile, this interesting fact: patients who lose their larynxes do not lose their foreign accent. When they learn to talk in belches, they make the same mistakes.

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