The medicinal effects attributed to music are so numerous, and some
of them so well authenticated, that to reject them totally would be
to deny credibility to many respectable historians, philosophers, and
physicians. Martinus Capella assures us, that fevers were removed by
song, and that Asclepiades cured deafness by the sound of the trumpet.
Plutarch says, that Thetales, the Cretan, delivered the Lacedemonians
from the pestilence, by the sweetness of his lyre. Many of the Ancients
speak of music as a receipt for every kind of malady. M. Buretti, an
eminent physician, who made the music of the ancients his particular
study, thinks it not only possible, but even probable, that music,
by repeated strokes and vibrations given to the nerves, fibres, and
animal spirits, may sometimes alleviate the sufferings of epileptics
and lunatics, and even overcome the most violent paroxysms of those
disorders.—Buretti is by no means singular in his opinion, for many
modern philosophers and physicians, as well as ancient poets and
historians, have declared that they had no doubt, but that music
has the power, not only of influencing the mind, but of affecting
the nervous system, in such a manner, as will, in certain diseases,
proceed by slow degrees, from giving temporary relief, to effecting a
perfect cure. In the Memoirs of the Academy of Sciences, for 1707, and
the following year, are recorded many accounts of diseases, which,
having obstinately resisted all the remedies prescribed by the most
able of the faculty, at last submitted to the powerful impression
of harmony. M. de Marian, in the Memoirs of the same academy,
speaking of the medicinal powers of music, says, that it is from
the mechanical involuntary connection between the organs of hearing
and the consonances excited in the outward air, joined to the rapid
communication of the vibrations of these organs, to the whole nervous
system, that we owe the cure of spasmodic disorders, and of fevers,
attended with a delirium and convulsions, of which the Memoirs give
many examples. Dr. Bianchina, professor of physic at Udina, who has
searched numerous ancient authors, and collected all the passages
relative to the medicinal application of music by Asclepiades, says,
that it was considered by the Egyptians, Grecians, and Romans, as a
remedy both in acute and chronical disorders; and he adds, that he
himself had seen it applied, in several cases, with great effect.