No one has sung more than I. It is true that in my time music was not taught as scientifically as to-day. We sang with the means with which nature had endowed us, without troubling ourselves whether we breathed with the ribs or the diaphragm.

And it is a singular thing that, in spite of our profound ignorance of the art of breathing, and of many other things, we sang well and for a long time with our poor natural voices. Since then scientists have set themselves to fatigue voices, and we hear speak only of ruined singers and lost voices.

Louis Antoine Ponchard (1787-1866)