Word: esophagus
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...Eskimo carefully extracted his harpoon from the animal's esophagus...
...surgeons perform an operation called a laryngectomy on many of these patients. Because the surgery disrupts the windpipe, the surgeon must create a small hole in the throat for breathing. But talking is another matter. Some people can learn to gulp air through the mouth, force it down the esophagus, or gullet, instead of the windpipe, and literally burp it back up into a cavity called the pharynx, where a rough facsimile of the natural voice is produced. But like all too many throat cancer patients, Parello was never able to master such esophageal speech. "I just couldn...
...approach, inspired by a famous case in medical annals. Forty years earlier, a Chicago iceman, suicidally depressed by the loss of his voice after a laryngectomy, had plunged an ice pick into his throat. Instead of dying, he regained the ability to speak; he had accidentally pierced the esophagus wall in a way that gave him a voice again...
...duplicate that miracle, Staffieri made a small slit in the esophagus of a laryngectomy patient. Then he flapped part of the esophageal wall over the top of the trachea, forming a valve linking windpipe and pharynx. To speak, the patient simply placed a finger over the external breathing hole in the neck. Exhaled from the lungs, air was forced through the internal esophageal slit, allowing the pharynx to vibrate and create sounds. But the valve could open only when air from the lungs forced it open. When food or liquid came down the esophagus, the valve remained closed...
...variety, although you can order it salted as well. Another of Shanghai's sweet soups is the sesame rice ball. This is a very sweet broth containing one-inch dough balls filled with sesame seeds. They have the consistency of bubble gum and could choke even the most flexible esophagus. Keep away! If you don't like sweet things, be careful. Shanghai really sugars their stuff...