“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.