the force and rapidity of the heart were
markedly increased. Subsequent investigations have shown very clearly the
influence of music on the circulatory and respiratory systems in man as
well as in animals. That music has an apparently direct influence on the
circulation of the brain is shown by the observations of Patrizi on a
youth who had received a severe wound of the head which had removed a
large portion of the skull wall. The stimulus of melody produced an
immediate increase in the afflux of blood to the brain.[102]

In Germany the question was investigated at about the same time by
Mentz.[103] Observing the pulse with a sphygmograph and Marey tambour he
found distinct evidence of an effect on the heart; when attention was
given to the music the pulse was quickened, in the absence of attention it
was slowed; Mentz also found that pleasurable sensations tended to slow
the pulse and disagreeable ones to quicken it.

Binet and Courtier made an elaborate series of experiments on the action
of music on the respiration (with the double pneumograph), the heart, and
the capillary circulation (with the plethysmograph of Hallion and Comte)
on a single subject, a man very sensitive to music and himself a cultured
musician. Simple musical sounds with no emotional content accelerated the
respiration without changing its regularity or amplitude. Musical
fragments, mostly sung, usually well known to the subject, and having an
emotional effect on him, produced respiratory irregularity either in
amplitude or rapidity of breathing, in two-thirds of the trials. Exciting
music, such as military marches, accelerated the breathing more than sad
melodies, but the intensity of the excitation had an effect at least as
great as its quality, for intense excitations always produced both
quickened and deeper breathing. The heart was quickened in harmony with
the quickened breathing. Neither breathing nor heart was ever slowed. As
regards the capillary pulsation, an influence was exerted chiefly, if not
exclusively, by gay and exciting melodies, which produced a shrinking.
Throughout the experiments it was found that the most profound
physiological effects were exerted by those pieces which the subject found
to be most emotional in their influence on him.[104]

Guibaud studied the question on a number of subjects, confirming and
extending the conclusions of Binet and Courtier. He found that the
reactions of different individuals varied, but