Hall of Fame

Wilbur James Gould, M.D.

Voice and Speech Science

Famous for establishing the Voice Foundation and building interdisciplinary networks for voice care.

Wilbur James Gould, M.D. (d. February 7, 1994) was the most influential post-World War II laryngologist in the United States. His unique contribution was bringing together multiple voice disciplines. He had a remarkable ability to approach high-ranking people in every field by making himself small while making others important. His professional skills enabled the ailing voices of politicians, stage and opera stars, and ordinary folks alike to rise to extraordinary heights. He was blessed with incredible people skills, matched by his vision in science and humanity. Frank Sinatra, Luciano Pavarotti, Linda Ronstadt, and Elizabeth Taylor were among the many artists Dr. Gould cared for during a medical and surgical career of almost half a century.

He also took care of Senator John F. Kennedy when he lost his voice during the 1960 presidential campaign, and in 1966 he removed a benign polyp from the larynx of President Lyndon B. Johnson. After that surgery, President Johnson sent Dr. Gould a photograph inscribed, “To the only legitimate cut-throat in the White House.” Dr. Gould also helped Gov. Nelson A. Rockefeller and Senator Robert F. Kennedy with public speeches.

I got a little flavor of how he befriended his patients. On one occasion, he invited me, a physicist, to join him in a patient visit at the home of Averell Harriman — a governor of New York, a businessman, and a diplomat. Gould saw an opportunity to bring voice science, voice care, and politics into a living-room discussion. Later I joined Jim in visits to the Rayburn Building in Washington, D.C., to make members of Congress more voice-conscious.

Dr. Gould graduated from Harvard College in 1941 and from New York University Medical School in 1944. He served as a captain in the Army Medical Corps. From 1948 to 1966 he was an attending otolaryngologist at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City, becoming director of its Department of Otolaryngology in 1966. The hospital pioneered in the treatment of voice problems. Dr. Gould was the inventor of several medical instruments, including the Gould forceps and an optical laryngoscope. He founded the Vocal Dynamics Laboratory at Lenox Hill, an internationally recognized treatment center that specialized in physical problems of the ear, nose, and throat and related psychological problems. Oberlin College awarded him an honorary doctorate of music in 1986.

Dr. Gould established the Voice Foundation in 1969 and directed it for about ten years. The yearly meetings were held at Lincoln Center in New York City. Interdisciplinary care of the human voice was essentially nonexistent at that time; his groundbreaking foresight brought together physicians, scientists, speech-language pathologists, performers, and teachers to share their knowledge and expertise in the care of the professional voice user.

I was fortunate to attend his Voice Care Symposium in New York many years in the mid-to-late 1970s, giving talks, telling jokes, and singing at a concert. Jim was rarely seen on stage. He let others run the show while he greeted people in the hallways and honored them for their presence. Walter Cronkite was master of ceremonies at one foundation dinner, at which patients like Al Pacino cut short the curtain calls of their own shows to perform for the 100 guests at the fundraiser. Others with famous voices who consulted Dr. Gould included Anna Moffo, Beverly Sills, Dan Rather, Mike Wallace, and Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen.

Dr. Gould and I became partners in building a Recording and Research Center at the Denver Center for the Performing Arts. It became an internationally known facility. We studied the voices of many famous guest performers, and equally important, we studied the vocal needs of public school teachers in the Denver area. To our knowledge, it was the first time that the National Institutes of Health funded a performing arts center for basic research. The Recording and Research Center later became an independent unit, and the National Center for Voice and Speech moved its headquarters to the Denver Center for the Performing Arts.

Dr. Gould died on February 7, 1994, at Lenox Hill Hospital from a heart attack. He was 74. I attended his funeral and felt a great responsibility to build on the legacy of such a giant in our field.

Bio by Ingo R. Titze, Ph.D.

SELECTED ARTICLES

Gould, W. J., & Lawrence, V. L. (2012). Surgical Care of Voice Disorders. New York: Springer Science & Business Media.

Gould, W. J., & Korovin, G. S. (1994). Laboratory advances for voice measurements. Journal of Voice, 8(1), 8–17.

Gould, W. J. (1975). Quantitative assessment of voice function in microlaryngology. Folia Phoniatrica et Logopaedica, 27(3), 190–200.

Neel, H. B., Harner, S. G., Benninger, M. S., Crumley, R. L., Ford, C. N., Gould, W. J., … Sataloff, R. T. (1994). Evaluation and treatment of the unilateral paralyzed vocal fold. Otolaryngology — Head and Neck Surgery, 111(4), 497–508.

Gould, W. J., & Okamura, H. (1973). Static lung volumes in singers. Annals of Otology, Rhinology & Laryngology, 82(1), 89–95.

Scherer, R. C., Gould, W. J., Titze, I. R., Meyers, A. D., & Sataloff, R. T. (1988). Preliminary evaluation of selected acoustic and glottographic measures for clinical phonatory function analysis. Journal of Voice, 2(3), 230–244.

Gould, W. J., & Kojima, H. (1979). A technique for stroboscopic examination of the vocal folds using fiberoptics. Archives of Otolaryngology, 105(5), 285.

Kojima, H., Gould, W. J., & Isshiki, N. (1980). Computer analysis of hoarseness. Acta Oto-Laryngologica, 89(3–6), 547–554.