MUSIC AS A THERAPEUTIC
Burton, in his "Anatomy of Melancholy," says:
Besides the excellent power music hath to
expel many other diseases, it is a sovereign
remedy against despair and melancholy, and
will drive away the devil himself. In proof
of the truth of the foregoing, many well-authenticated
instances may be cited. Among
them may be mentioned the case of King
Philip of Spain, who, when suffering from
hopeless melancholia, was restored to health
by the singing of Farinelli in an adjoining
chamber, after every other remedy had
proved futile.—Boston Musical Herald.
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Music has a vast future before it. We are only now beginning to find out some of its uses. It has been the toy of the rich; it has often been a source of mere degradation to both rich and poor; it has been treated as mere jingle and noise—supplying a rhythm for the dance, a kind of Terpsichorean tomtom—or serving to start a Bacchanalian chorus, the chief feature of which has certainly not been the music. And yet those who have their eyes and ears open may read in these primitive uses, while they run, the hints of music's future destiny as a vast civilizer, recreator, health-giver, work-inspirer, and purifier of man's life. The horse knows what he owes to his bells. The factory girls have been instinctively forced into singing, finding in it a solace and assistance in work. And for music, the health-giver, what an untrodden field is there! Have we never known an invalid to forget pain and weariness under the stimulus of music? Have you never seen a pale cheek flush up, a dull eye sparkle, an alertness and vigor take possession of the whole frame, and animation succeed to apathy? What does all this mean? It means a truth that we have not fully grasped, a truth pregnant with vast results to body and mind. It means that music attacks the nervous system directly, reaches and rouses where physic and change of air can neither reach nor rouse.—H. R. Haweis, "My Musical Memories."
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MUSIC AS A TRANSFORMING POWER No one denies the influence of music for good. A teacher told me of a boy, an incorrigible little fellow, who was almost entirely cured of his bad traits by a violet song.
Down in a green and mossy bed A modest violet grew; Its stalk was bent; it hung its head, As if to hide from view. And tho it was a lovely flower, Its colors bright and fair, It might have graced a rosy bower, Instead of hiding there.
He sang the violet song at home, on the street, on the playground, and in school. He loved and believed it; and its tender thought had helped him to become a noble young man.—Elizabeth Casterton, "Journal of the National Educational Association," 1905.
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MUSIC AS AN ANESTHETIC A physician of Geneva, in Switzerland, has successfully employed music to soothe and tranquillize the dreams of persons who have taken ether or chloroform in order to undergo surgical operations. The music is begun as soon as the anesthetic begins to take effect, and is continued until the patient awakes. It is said that not only does this treatment prevent the hysterical effects sometimes witnessed, but that the patient, on recovering, feels no nausea or illness. Another physician uses blue light to produce anesthesia. The light from a sixteen-candle-power electric lamp, furnished with a blue bulb, is concentrated upon the patient's eyes, but the head and the lamp are enveloped in a blue veil, to shut out extraneous light. Insensibility is produced in two or three minutes.—Harper's Weekly.
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MUSIC, CHARM OF
A bewitching way to win a mate is to
charm her by music. This is the fashion of
our little house-wren, who arrives first in the
nesting region, selects a site for the home,
and then draws a mate out of the vast unknown
by his charm of voice. No one could
do it better, for he is a delightful, tireless
singer.—Olive Thorne Miller, "The Bird
Our Brother."
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MUSIC ELEVATING
R. H. Haweis says:
I have known the oratorio of the Messiah
draw the lowest dregs of Whitechapel into
a church to hear it, and during the per-
