“Music exalts each joy, allays each grief,
Expels Diseases, softens ev’ry pain,
Subdues the rage of poison and the plague,
And hence the wise of ancient days ador’d
One pow’r of Physic, Melody and Song.”
“The Art of Preserving Health”
by John Armstrong (1709-1779)
In many fields of endeavor a scholar occasionally appears who not only makes a personal contribution to the knowledge and advancement of his subject but summarizes previously gained information so well that his work becomes at once a milestone and a beacon. In the field of music, such a man was Charles Burney, who began to publish a General History of Music in 1776. This book was so thorough and scientifically critical that his conception is as modern as tomorrow. After listing all the instances of music as a therapeutic agent, he concludes:
“Yet men delight in the marvellous; and many bigoted admirers of antiquity, forgetting that most of the extraordinary effects attributed to the music of the ancients had their origins in poetical inventions, and mythological allegories, have given way to credulity so far as to believe, or pretend to believe, these fabulous accounts, in order to play them off against modern music, which according to them, must remain in a state far inferior to the ancient, till it can operate all the effects that have been attributed to the music of Orpheus, Amphion and such wonder-working bards.”[15]
It is well to begin a study of music in medicine with Burney’s restrained enthusiasm lest we fall into the error of building impossible temples of healing on the thin ice of untested claims. We shall begin with prehistoric times.
The use of music against disease is as old as music itself. In fact, early history of music is intimately associated with healing. The wishful thinking of primitive peoples called upon magic for assistance, and magic is almost universally associated with words, chanted words, in rhythmic incantation. Chateaubriand believed that the chant was the offspring of prayers. Among primitive peoples, the medicine-man combined the offices of priest, physician and magician, and although all three functions were closely related, their functions were dissociated on occasion. For instance, there were special songs for the invocation of natural phenomena, for group activities, and for accompaniment of healing rituals. “The belief in the efficacy of musical magic is one of the most important facts in the history of civilization.”[19]
Although no records exist, it is fair to assume that the truly primitive peoples of today have not changed markedly from their ancient customs, and that they resemble to some extent the status of prehistoric men. The universality of certain folkways among widely scattered tribes of primitive peoples today lends validity to this theory.
For such studies we need look no further than our own continent. Even though certain magical practices have been banned by law, the American Indians number amongst their tribesmen, those who remember and to some extent still use music in healing. Several investigators have become interested in this study, but chief among them is Frances Densmore who has analyzed and recorded the songs of many Indian tribes. Among the Teton Sioux she found[21] that the sick appealed to the tribal medicine man who gave the case some thought and claimed to find the cure in dreams. “All treatment of the sick was in accordance with dreams.” The patient was then placed in a dark tent and the medicine man sang his dream song, as well as songs addressed to the sacred stones. The use of herbs of the agency of magic might accompany the song. An example of one of the songs used to cure wounds has the following text:
“Behold all these things
something elk-like
you behold
you will live”
Words like these have a certain sophistication which we may assume constitutes a more recent development.
For many centuries primitive peoples have had different concepts of the exact nature of disease, but for many of them it connotes some connection between a demoniacal spirit and counter-spirits. There were a great many methods employed to drive out the evil spirits. The idea that music was efficacious in these cases persisted for centuries. Martin Luther said, “The devil is a saturnine spirit and music is hateful to him and drives him away from it.”