epilepsy and the sciatic gout. Athenaeus quotes the same
passage from Theophrastus, with this additional circumstance, that, as
to the second of these disorders, to render the cure more certain, the
flute should play in the Phrygian mode. But Aulus Gellius, who mentions
this remedy, seems to administer it in a very different manner, by
prescribing to the flute-player a soft and gentle strain, _si modulis
lenibus_ says he, _tibicen incinet_: for the Phrygian mode was
remarkably vehement and furious.

This is what Coelius Aurelianus calls _loca dolentia decantare_,
enchanting the disordered places. He even tells us how the enchantment
is brought about upon these occasions, in saying that the pain is
relieved by causing a vibration of the fibres of the afflicted part.
Galen speaks seriously of playing the flute on the suffering part, upon
the principle, we suppose, of a medicated vapour bath.

The sound of the flute was likewise a specific for the bite of a viper,
according to Theophrastus and Democritus, whose authority Aulus Gellius
gives for his belief of the fact. But there is nothing more
extraordinary among the virtues attributed to music by the ancients,
than what Aristotle relates in its supposed power of softening the
rigour of punishment. The Tyrhenians, says he, never scourge their
slaves, but by the sound of flutes, looking upon it as an instance of
humanity to give some counterpoise to pain, and thinking by such a
diversion to lessen the sum total of the punishment. To this account may
be added a passage from Jul. Pallus, by which we learn, that in the
_triremes_, or vessels with three banks of oars, there was always a
_tibicen_, or flute-player, not only to mark the time, or cadence for
each stroke of the oar, but to sooth and cheer the rowers by the
sweetness of the melody. And from this custom Quintilian took occasion
to say, that music is the gift of nature, to enable us the more
patiently to support toil and labour.[118]

These are the principal passages which antiquity furnishes, relative to
the medicinal effects of music; in considering which, reliance is placed
on the judgment of M. Burette, whose opinions will come with the more
weight, as he had not only long made the music of the ancients his
particular study, but was a physician by profession. This writer, in a
dissertation on the subject, has examined and discussed many of the
stories above related, concerning the effects of music in the cure of