Apollo listens and approves the song.”
Pope.
In the Memoirs of the French Academy of Sciences, for 1707 and 1708, there are many accounts of cases of disease which, after having long resisted and baffled the most efficacious remedies, had yielded under the influence of the soft impressions of harmony; and M. de Mairan, in the same records, published in 1735, has entered very fully into the consideration of the modus operandi of music on the body in health and disease.
The effect of music on the system is explained in two different ways. The monotony of the sound is supposed to have a soothing influence over the mind, similar to what is known to result from the gurgle of a mimic cataract of some mountain rill, or to a distant waterfall. How often has the music caused by the waves gently dashing upon the beach excited sleep, when all our narcotics have failed in producing a similar effect. This soporific effect of the repetition or monotony of sound is beautifully alluded to by Mackenzie, in his Man of Feeling. When his hero, Mr. Harley, arrives in London, he finds that the noise and varied excitement of the metropolis increase his nervous state of habit, and prevent him from sleeping. Ordinary narcotics produce no effect upon him, and he must have continued to suffer from watchfulness if he had not happily touched his shoe-buckle, which lay upon the table, when the vibration produced a monotonous sound so closely resembling the voice of his good aunt, who nightly read him asleep in the country, that from that time he regularly applied to the same narcotic, and always slept soundly. Music acts, secondly, by causing an association of agreeable ideas. A lady who was confined in an asylum in the vicinity of London, and who had been separated for some months from her home, and from all she held dear, was pronounced partially convalescent. She was, however, still melancholy; and it was suggested by her father that a piece, of which she was passionately fond, and which was associated with the happiest period of her life, should be played within her hearing. This wish was complied with; the effect produced was highly gratifying. For the first few minutes, no notice was taken of the music; in a short period, however, a smile was seen to play upon a countenance where all had been dark and gloomy for months. As the music proceeded, the effect became more sensible and powerful; ideas of a most pleasurable kind appeared to rush upon a mind which had previously been a blank; a chord had been touched which thrilled through her, until she appeared absorbed in the pleasing associations which the favourite air had conjured to her recollection. The past was no longer forgotten, and she for the first time gave evidence of being conscious of the situation in which she was in. A fatal blow had been given to the disease, and in a short period she was considered sufficiently recovered to be allowed to return home to the bosom of her family.
The disease of Saul was alleviated by David’s harp. Aristotle maintains that actual madness in horses may be cured by the melody of lutes. “Experience has proved,” says Gibbon, “that the mechanical operation of sounds, by quickening the circulation of the blood and spirits, will act on the human machine more forcibly than the eloquence of reason and honour.” In illustration of the above observation the following fact may be adduced:—At the battle of Quebec, in April, 1760, while the troops were retreating in great confusion, the general complained to a field-officer of Fraser’s regiment of the bad behaviour of his corps. “Sir,” he answered, in great warmth, “you did very wrong in forbidding the bagpipes to play this morning; nothing encourages Highlanders so much in the day of action,—nay, even now the pipes would be of use.” “Let them blow, then, like the devil,” replied the General, “if it will bring back the men.” The bagpipes were ordered to play a favourite martial air. The Highlanders, the moment they heard the music, returned and formed with alacrity, and fought like infuriated lions.
The influence of music over animals is known to be very great. Burney says that an officer, being shut up in the Bastille, had his lute allowed him; upon which, after a trial or two, the mice came issuing from their holes, and the spiders, suspending themselves from their threads, assembled round him to enjoy the melody.[53]
Falret alludes particularly to the benefit which often accrues from music in peculiar disorders of the nervous system attended with a disposition to suicide. So exalted an idea had M. Appert of its effects on the mind, that he has observed, alluding to criminals, “that the man sensible to the influence of harmony is not irretrievably lost.” A young lady passionately fond of music manifested an inclination to kill herself; she was sent by her family to an hospital, where she was carefully watched. The idea of suicide was not, however, removed until she was allowed the use of her favourite instrument, the harp. The good effect was soon perceptible; her melancholy gradually subsided, and with it the suicidal disposition. She expressed to her friends how grateful she felt that she was allowed to indulge in her favourite amusement, and was conscious of the benefits which she had derived from it.
The progress of epidemic suicide has been stayed by having recourse to measures which have powerfully affected the imagination.
The young women of Marseilles, at one period, were seized with a propensity to commit suicide. In order to prevent the contagion from spreading, a law was passed to the effect that the body of every female who was guilty of self-murder should be publicly exposed after death. The beneficial result of this law became immediately apparent; the epidemic was stopped; the sense of shame prevailed over the recklessness of human life.
In the French army, during the reign of Napoleon Buonaparte, a grenadier killed himself. This suicide was followed by another case, and it was feared that the disposition would assume an epidemic character. Buonaparte saw the necessity of prompt and decisive measures, and with a view of striking terror in the minds of the soldiers, and putting a stop at once to the spread of what appeared to be a contagious malady, he issued the following “order of the day,” dated St. Cloud, 22 Floreal, an X.:—