The nurse's song, Burton wrote, makes a child quiet, and many times, the sound of a trumpet on a sudden, bells ringing, a carman's whistle, a boy singing some ballad on the street, alters, revives and recreates a restless patient who cannot sleep in the night. Many men are made melancholy by hearing music, but the melancholy is of a pleasing kind.
In a curious German treatise, "Der Musikalische Arzt,"[190:1] we find the following quotation from an article entitled "Reflections on Ancient and Modern Music."[190:2]
"If it be demanded how musick becomes a remedy, and inciteth the patient to dance, 'tis answer'd that sound having a great influence upon the actions of the air, the air mov'd causeth a like motion in the next air, and so on till the like be produced in the Spirits of the body, to which the air is impelled."
According to the French physician, Jean Etienne Dominique Esquirol (1772-1840), music acts upon the physique by determining nervous vibrations, and by exciting the circulation. It acts upon the morale by fixing the attention upon sweet impressions, and by calling up agreeable recollections.
François Fournier de Pescay, a contemporary of the above-named, commented on the fact that many famous writers of antiquity regarded music as a panacea, whereas in the light of modern medical science, it cannot be considered as an effective remedy in such affections as rheumatism, for example.[191:1]
An adagio may set a gouty father to sleep, and a capriccio may operate successfully on the nerves of a valetudinary mother. A slight indisposition may be removed by a single air, while a more obstinate case may require an overture or a concerto. The tastes of the patient should be consulted.
Country squires, when kept indoors by stress of bad weather, will experience much relief in a hunting-song, while young gentlemen of the town will perhaps prefer an old English derry-down. Hospital inmates will usually be content with hurdy-gurdies, and the poorer classes may be supplied with ballads at their own homes. Some patients will recover with all the rapidity of a jig, while others will mend in minuet-time. And surely the public welfare will be eminently promoted, when our physicians' prescriptions are printed from music-type, and when we have nothing more nauseous to swallow than the words of a modern opera.[192:1]
According to the Dutch physician Lemnius (1505-1568), music is a chief antidote against melancholy; it revives the languishing soul, affecting not only the ears, but the vital and animal spirits. It erects the mind, and makes it nimble.
The Reverend Sydney Smith graphically described the effect of enlivening music upon an audience, who had been manifestly bored and were gaping with ennui during the execution of an elaborate fugue, by a skilled orchestra. Suddenly there sprang up a lively little air, expressive of some natural feeling. And instantly every one beamed with satisfaction, and was ready to aver that music affords the most delightful and rational entertainment.
And such is doubtless the opinion of the great majority of people of culture and refinement, especially those of a jovial or mercurial temperament. According to Martin Luther, the Devil is a saturnine person, and music is hateful to him.