Primitive Psycho-Therapy and Quackery Part 17

CHAPTER XVII

THE HEALING INFLUENCE OF MUSIC (CONTINUED)

Dr. Herbert Lilly, in a monograph on musical therapeutics, expresses the opinion that musical sounds received by the auditory nerve, produce reflex action upon the sympathetic system, stimulating or depressing the vaso-motor nerves, and thus influencing the bodily nutrition. He maintains, without fear of contradiction, that certain mental conditions are benefited by suitable musical harmonies. Muscle-fatigue is overcome by stimulating melodies, as is strikingly exemplified in the effect of inspiring martial strains upon wearied troops on the march. And it appears to be an established fact that the complex process of digestion is facilitated by cheerful music, of the kind termed "liver music" by the French, which is provided by them at banquets.[185:1]

But in regard to this subject, there have been not a few scoffers and dissenters, even among people of distinction. Douglas Jerrold, the playwright, was one of these, for he declared that he disliked dining amidst the strains of a military band, because he could taste the bra.s.s in his soup. Charles Lamb, in his chapter on "Ears," remarked, that while a carpenter's hammer, on a warm summer day, caused him to "fret into more than midsummer madness," these unconnected sounds were nothing when compared with the measured malice of music. For while the ear may be pa.s.sive to the strokes of a hammer, and even endure them with some degree of equanimity, to music it cannot be pa.s.sive. The noted author relates having sat through an Italian opera, till, from sheer pain, he rushed out into the noisiest places of the crowded streets, to solace himself with sounds which he was not obliged to follow, and thus get rid of the distracting torment of endless, fruitless, barren attention!

According to his frank avowal, music was to him a source of pain, rather than of pleasure.

The Reverend Richard Eastcott, in his "Sketches of the Origin, Progress and Effects of Music," told of a "gentleman of very considerable understanding," who was heard to declare that the rattling of a fire-pan and tongs was as grateful to his feelings as the best concert he ever heard. However, such rare exceptions, if not germane to our subject, may be said to prove the general rule that music is of real value in therapeutics, and that most people are susceptible to its beneficent influences.

Music has accomplished a great many things and has been put to many uses, but it is seldom employed in making good boys out of bad.

An almost accidental experiment at the Middles.e.x County truant school at North Chelmsford has shown it to be a truth, that wickedness takes flight at martial strains; for a full-fledged bra.s.s band, in which the delinquent youths are the musicians, has fairly revolutionized the discipline of the school, and many a lad who did not have half a chance has been started "right" on the road to success.

The question is often asked: How can music effect a character-metamorphosis in the boy who has every mental and moral indication of turning out badly?

Music is an educative factor of prime importance, and promotes the evolution of good hereditary traits. Whatever the psychologic explanation of its effects may be, it appears to develop the qualities of kindness and manliness.[187:1]

Not every one, however, is influenced by the foregoing considerations. A recent writer, in an essay on the "Plague of Music," remarks that under the name of music we are afflicted with every variety of noise; for example, the sounds produced by hurdy-gurdies, bag-pipes and minstrels; the harpman, the lady who has seen better days, and who sings before our house in the evening. "Not to mention the millions of pianos and the millions of fiddles that never cease being thumped and scratched all the world over, night and day. The contemplation of such collective discord is truly appalling."[188:1]

The famous English philosopher, Roger Bacon (1214-1292), known as "The Admirable Doctor," wrote that a cheerful mind brings power and vigor, makes a man rejoice, stirs up Nature, and helps her in her actions and motions; of which sort are joy, mirth, and whatever provokes laughter, as also instrumental music and songs, facetious conversation, and observation of the celestial bodies.

It has been proved, by physiological experiments upon men and the lower animals, that musical sounds produce a marked effect upon the circulation. The pulse-rate is usually quickened, and the force of the heart-beats increased in varying degrees, dependent upon the pitch, intensity and _timbre_ of the sounds, and the idiosyncrasy of the individual.[188:2]

It may be safely affirmed, therefore, that music should have a place among psychic remedial agents.

A recent writer has remarked that the "Ma.r.s.ellaise" was like wine to the French revolutionists, and lifted many a head, and straightened many a weary back on some of those terrible forced marches of Napoleon's.

Music may be cla.s.sed in the same category with certain drugs, as a therapeutic agent. And like drugs, each composition has its own special effect. Thus a brisk Strauss waltz might act as a stimulant, but it would not answer as a narcotic. A nocturne would be sure to soothe.[189:1]

The time may come when a German street-band will be recognized as a powerful tonic; a cornet solo will take the place of a blister; a symphony or a sonata may be recommended instead of morphine; the moxa will give way to Wagner, and opium to Brahms. A prolonged shake by a singer will drive out chills and fever, according to the theory of Hahnemann. Cots at symphony concerts may yet command the highest premiums.[189:2]

Music is one of those intangible but effective aids of Medicine, which exert their healthful influence through the nervous system. It is in fact a mental tonic. A writer in the London "Lancet" remarks that "a pleasing and lively melody can awake in a faded brain the strong emotion of hope, and energizing by its means the languid nerve control of the whole circulation, strengthen the heart-beat and refresh the vascularity of every organ. Even aches are soothed for a time by a transference of attention, and why then should not pain be lulled by music?"

Robert Burton, author of "The Anatomy of Melancholy," in commenting on the curative effects of music, remarked that it is a sovereign remedy against mental depression, capable even of driving away the Devil himself.

"When griping grief the heart doth wound, And doleful dumps the mind oppress, Then music with her silver sound, With speedy help doth lend redress."

_Romeo and Juliet_, Act IV, Scene 5.

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 ent.i.tled "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.

Francois 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 cla.s.ses 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 languis.h.i.+ng 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.

Many and sundry are the means, says Robert Burton, which philosophers and physicians have prescribed to exhilarate a sorrowful heart, to divert those fixed and intent cares and meditations, which in this malady so much offend; but in my judgment, none so present, none so powerful, none so apposite as mirth, music and merry company.[193:1]

During recent years the influence of music in disease has been the subject of renewed attention. In London Canon Harford, an enthusiastic believer in the efficacy of this method of treatment, organized bands of musicians, under the auspices of the Order of Saint Cecilia, who visited certain hospitals, where permission had been given, and there exercised their art with results highly encouraging and beneficial.

And in Boston Dr. John Dixwell has for many years been active in providing music for hospital patients. His admirable enterprise has been successful, and has received the endors.e.m.e.nt of the medical fraternity.

A wise discrimination is essential in the selection of music especially adapted to benefit any particular cla.s.s of cases.

The National Society of Musical Therapeutics was founded in the city of New York, by Miss Eva Augusta Vescelius, in the year 1903, with the object of encouraging the study of music in relation to life and health; and also for the promotion of its use as a curative agent in hospitals, asylums, and prisons. The therapeutic use of music is believed to have pa.s.sed the experimental stage. It is now admitted, says Miss Vescelius, that music can be so employed as to exercise a distinct psychological influence upon the mind, nerve-centres and circulatory system; and may serve as an efficient remedy for many ills to which the flesh is said to be heir. The selection of music in hospitals and asylums needs thoughtful consideration, for there we meet with all kinds of discord.

An emotional song, for example, which would give pleasure to one, might sadden another, and a patient suffering from nostalgia would not be benefited by a melody suggesting a home-picture.

Will the trained nurse of the future have to include voice culture in her training before she is declared competent to minister to the wants of the sick?

This question is raised by Dr. George M. Stratton, professor of experimental psychology in Johns Hopkins University. In an address on "The Nature and Training of the Emotions," delivered before more than a hundred nurses of the hospitals of Baltimore, he made the broad statement that music would be a vital factor in treating the sick in the future.

Dr. Stratton did not insist that every nurse of the future must be a Patti, a Melba, or a Nordica; but he held that in the future a young woman who devotes her life to nursing the sick should be able to sing to the patient under her care.[194:1]

The mental effect of music is generally recognized as beneficial, in that it lifts the entire being into a higher state. That this effect is communicated to the body, is admitted, but the extent of physical benefit has not been sufficiently investigated either by musicians or by scientists. In the application of music for the treatment of disease, it should be remembered that the seat of many disorders is primarily in the mind, and that therefore the mental condition must be radically changed before a cure is possible. "In listening to music, the mind absorbs those tones which have become silenced in itself, and in the body as a necessary consequence; just as the stomach a.s.similates those food-elements which are required to repair the waste of the system. Thus our music-food is selected and distributed where it is most needed, and this natural selection of musical vibrations acts specifically upon those parts of the body which are out of harmony. A concert programme is a _menu_ for the mult.i.tude. We hear all the music printed on it, but digest very little of it. Some kinds of music thus heard, must inevitably be wasted on the listener, or cause a musical dyspepsia."[195:1]

The English clergyman and writer, Hugh Reginald Haweis, extols music as a healthy outlet for emotion, and as especially adapted for young ladies. Joy flows naturally into ringing harmonies, says he, while music has the subtle power to soften melancholy, by presenting it with its fine emotional counterpart.

A good play on the piano has not unfrequently taken the place of a good cry upstairs, and a cloud of ill-temper has often been dispersed by a timely practice. One of Schubert's friends used to say that, although very cross before sitting down to his piano, a long scramble-duet through a symphony or through one of his own delicious and erratic pianoforte duets, always restored him to good humor.[196:1]

For many years the subject of musico-therapy has been discussed editorially in the columns of the "London Lancet." We give some statements emanating from this authority.

Music influences both brain and heart through the spinal cord, probably on account of its vibratory or wave motion, which stimulates the nerve-centres. . . .

It acts as a refres.h.i.+ng mental stimulant and restorative. Therefore it braces depressed nervous tone and indirectly through the nervous system reaches the tissues. It is of most use in depressed mental conditions. . . . The value of music as a therapeutic agent cannot yet be precisely stated, but it is no quack's nostrum. It is an intangible, but effective aid of medicine.

It seems strange that the healing influence of music has not been more thoroughly studied from a psychological standpoint, and utilized, when one is mindful of the great store of evidence, gathered for centuries, of the marked power of this agent upon the lower animals, and of its worth as a mental, and therefore as a physical tonic and stimulant, for human beings. A chief reason for this neglect has been ascribed to the materialistic views which have prevailed in therapeutics.

It was formerly believed quite generally, in Italy and elsewhere, that music was the only efficient cure for the effects of the bite of the tarantula, a species of large spider, so called from the city of Taranto. These effects consisted of a feigned or imaginary disease known as tarantism, which was prevalent in Apulia and other portions of southern Italy during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Tarantism was an epidemic nervous affection characterized by involuntary dancing, gesticulations, contortions and cries. In spite, however, of all that has been written on this subject by physicians and historians, it appears to be a fact that the bite of the tarantula is not more venomous than that of other large spiders. Indeed, Dr. H. Chomet, who diligently investigated the matter, never succeeded in finding a case of tarantism, nor was he able even to obtain a glimpse of one of these insects.

It is certain, however, that tarantism was very prevalent in earlier times. J. F. C. Hecker, M.D., in his "Epidemics of the Middle Ages,"

stated that the music of the flute, cithern or other instrument alone afforded relief to patients affected with this disease. So common was it, that the cities and villages of Apulia resounded with the beneficent strains of fifes, clarinets and drums. And the superst.i.tion was general that by means of music and dancing, the poison of the tarantula was distributed over the whole body, and was then eliminated through the pores of the skin.

The bite of the star-lizard, _Stellio vulgaris_, of Southern Europe, was also popularly believed to be poisonous.