Note d — BOOK IV.
Reading edition
Among the Instruments of Speech, the Tongue is a necessary one; and so necessary, that it is generally thought no Speech can be without it. But in the third Tome of the Ephem. Germ. is published, Jac. Rolandi Aglossostomographia, sive Descriptio Oris sine Linguâ, quod perfecte loquitur, & reliquas suas functiones naturalitèr exercet. The Person described is one Pet. Durand, a French Boy of eight or nine Years old, who at five or six lost his Tongue by a Gangrene, occasioned the Small-Pox. Notwithstanding which, he could (as the Title saith) speak perfectly, as also taste, spit, swallow, and chew his Food; but this latter he could do only on that Side he put it into, not being able to turn it to the other Side his Mouth.
In the same Tract, Chap. 6. is this Observation of ventriloquous Persons, Memini me à quodam sat celebri Anatomico audivisse, dum de duplicaturâ Mediastini ageret, si Membrana ista duplex naturalitèr unita in duas partes dividatur, loquelam quasi ex pectore procedere, ut circumstantes credant Dæmoniacum hunc, aut Sternomythum.