Avi Ohry
Tel Aviv, Israel

Bogart–Bacall syndrome (BBS)^1,2 is a voice disorder caused by abuse or overuse of the vocal cords; people who speak or sing outside their normal vocal range can develop it. Symptoms are chiefly an unusually deep or rough voice, or dysphonia, and vocal fatigue. The syndrome is named after the famous actor Humphrey Bogart of Casablanca fame. His wife, Lauren Bacal, also had a remarkably deep voice. Bogart’s father, Belmont DeForest Bogart, was a notable cardiac surgeon; his life (1867–1934) is described in brief as follows:

The Bogarts seemed the model of the solid, successful Victorian family—upper-middle-class New York City people whose comings and goings in the village of Canandaigua were regularly recorded in the local paper: Dr. and Mrs. Belmont D. Bogart had arrived with their little son and were waiting to occupy their summer “cottage”; Dr. B. D. Bogart and children had moved in for the summer and would shortly be joined by Mrs. Bogart; Mrs. B. DeForest Bogart had improvised a studio from an old cabin on the property and was giving much time to her art. …

According to newspaper accounts, Dr. Bogart, just months out of medical school, was waiting alongside a city street when a horse-drawn ambulance, top-heavy and balanced precariously on large, spindly wheels, came by. Possibly the horse turned skittish, but without warning the ambulance tipped over and fell on the young doctor, leaving him with massive cuts and bruises, and a fractured leg. The bone, badly set, refused to heal and had to be rebroken and reset. Eventually he learned to walk again, but from then on his health would always be unstable. The use of drugs, prescribed at the outset to alleviate the excruciating pain, became a daily ritual; he would be addicted for the rest of his life.³

Evidence suggests his wife Maud may have also been addicted to morphine, and both drank heavily.³

[The young Dr. Bogart had] made his way easily through Andover and Yale, then the Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York City; later he was on the staffs of Bellevue, St. Luke’s, and Sloan hospitals. Following his graduation from Columbia in 1896 and eased by the right entrees, he launched a prosperous practice that never intruded on the pleasures of a gentleman. He had, on the surface anyway, an ideal life. And perhaps if it hadn’t been for the ambulance accident, his son’s life would have been very different. ³

References

1. “Bogart–Bacall syndrome.” Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bogart%E2%80%93Bacall_syndrome
2. Koufman JA, Blalock PD. “Vocal fatigue and dysphonia in the professional voice user: Bogart-Bacall syndrome.” Laryngoscope. 1988;98(5):493-8.
3. Sperber AM and Lax E. “Chapter 1: The House at Seneca Point.” Bogart. William Morrow and Company, Inc., 1997. New York Times Books Archive. https//archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/first/s/sperber-bogart.html