The Power of Music / In which is shown, by a variety of pleasing and instructive anecdotes, the effects it has on man and animals.

by Anonymous

THE MEDICINAL EFFECTS OF MUSIC.

The medicinal effects attributed to music are so numerous, and some of them so well authenticated, that to reject them totally would be to deny credibility to many respectable historians, philosophers, and physicians. Martinus Capella assures us, that fevers were removed by song, and that Asclepiades cured deafness by the sound of the trumpet. Plutarch says, that Thetales, the Cretan, delivered the Lacedemonians from the pestilence, by the sweetness of his lyre. Many of the Ancients speak of music as a receipt for every kind of malady. M. Buretti, an eminent physician, who made the music of the ancients his particular study, thinks it not only possible, but even probable, that music, by repeated strokes and vibrations given to the nerves, fibres, and animal spirits, may sometimes alleviate the sufferings of epileptics and lunatics, and even overcome the most violent paroxysms of those disorders.—Buretti is by no means singular in his opinion, for many modern philosophers and physicians, as well as ancient poets and historians, have declared that they had no doubt, but that music has the power, not only of influencing the mind, but of affecting the nervous system, in such a manner, as will, in certain diseases, proceed by slow degrees, from giving temporary relief, to effecting a perfect cure. In the Memoirs of the Academy of Sciences, for 1707, and the following year, are recorded many accounts of diseases, which, having obstinately resisted all the remedies prescribed by the most able of the faculty, at last submitted to the powerful impression of harmony. M. de Marian, in the Memoirs of the same academy, speaking of the medicinal powers of music, says, that it is from the mechanical involuntary connection between the organs of hearing and the consonances excited in the outward air, joined to the rapid communication of the vibrations of these organs, to the whole nervous system, that we owe the cure of spasmodic disorders, and of fevers, attended with a delirium and convulsions, of which the Memoirs give many examples. Dr. Bianchina, professor of physic at Udina, who has searched numerous ancient authors, and collected all the passages relative to the medicinal application of music by Asclepiades, says, that it was considered by the Egyptians, Grecians, and Romans, as a remedy both in acute and chronical disorders; and he adds, that he himself had seen it applied, in several cases, with great effect.

ODE TO MUSIC,
BY THE LATE DR. WHARTON.

Queen of ev’ry moving measure,

Sweetest source of purest pleasure,

Music; why thy pow’rs employ,

Only for the sons of joy?

Only for the smiling guests,

At natal or at nuptial feasts;

Rather thy lenient numbers pour

On those whom secret griefs devour;

Bid be still the throbbing hearts

Of those, whom death or absence parts;

And, with some softly whisper’d air,

Oh! smooth the brow of dumb despair.