explicable anxiety. There was a certain woman of fifty who was
fond of the music of the clarionet and flute, but was not able to
listen to the sound of a bell or tambourine. Frank knew a man who ran
out of church at the beginning of the sounds of an organ, not being
able to tolerate them. Pope could not imagine music producing any
pleasure. The harmonica has been noticed to produce fainting in
females. Fischer says that music provokes sexual frenzy in elephants.
Gutfeldt speaks of a peculiar idiosyncrasy of sleep produced by hearing
music. Delisle mentions a young person who during a whole year passed
pieces of ascarides and tenia, during which time he could not endure
music.
Autenreith mentions the vibrations of a loud noise tickling the fauces
to such an extent as to provoke vomiting. There are some emotional
people who are particularly susceptible to certain expressions. The
widow of Jean Calas always fell in a faint when she heard the words of
the death-decree sounded on the street. There was a Hanoverian officer
in the Indian war against Typoo-Saib, a good and brave soldier, who
would feel sick if he heard the word "tiger" pronounced. It was said
that he had experienced the ravages of this beast.
The therapeutic value of music has long been known. For ages warriors
have been led to battle to the sounds of martial strains. David charmed
away Saul's evil spirit with his harp. Horace in his 32d Ode Book 1,
concludes his address to the lyre:--
"O laborum
Dulce lenimen mihicumque calve,
Rite vocanti;"
Or, as Kiessling of Berlin interprets:--
"O laborum,
Dulce lenimen medieumque, salve,
Rite vocanti."
--"O, of our troubles the sweet, the healing sedative, etc."
Homer, Plutarch, Theophrastus, and Galen say that music cures
rheumatism, the pests, and stings of reptiles, etc. Diemerbroeck,
Bonet, Baglivi, Kercher, and Desault mention the efficacy of melody in
phthisis, gout, hydrophobia, the bites of venomous reptiles, etc. There
is a case in the Lancet of a patient in convulsions who was cured in
the paroxysm by hearing the tones of music. Before the French Academy
of Sciences in 1708, and again in 1718, there was an instance of a
dancing-master stricken with violent fever and in a condition of
delirium, who recovered his senses and health on hearing melodious
music. There is little doubt of the therapeutic value of music, but
particularly do we find its value in instances of neur
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