In the Memoirs of the Academy of Sciences for 1707 and 1708, we meet
with many accounts of diseases, which, after having resisted and baffled
all the most efficacious remedies in common use, had, at length, given
way to the soft impressions of harmony. M. de Mairan, in the Memoirs of
the same Academy, 1737, reasons upon the medicinal powers of music in
the following manner:--"It is from the mechanical and involuntary
connexion between the organ of hearing, and the consonances excited in
the outward air, joined to the rapid communication of the vibrations of
this organ to the whole nervous system, that we owe the cure of
spasmodic disorders, and of fevers attended with a delirium and
convulsions, of which our Memoirs furnish many examples."

The late learned Dr. Branchini, professor of physic at Udine, collected
all the passages preserved in ancient authors, relative to the medicinal
application of music, by Asclepiades; and it appears from this work that
it was used as a remedy by the ancient Egyptians, Hebrews, Greeks, and
Romans, not only in acute, but chronical disorders. This writer gives
several cases within his own knowledge, in which music has been
efficacious; but the consideration as well as the honour of these, more
properly belong to _modern_ than to ancient music.

Music, of all arts, gives the most universal pleasure, and pleases
longest and oftenest. Infants are charmed with the melody of sounds, and
old age is animated by enlivening notes. The Arcadian shepherds drew
pleasure from their reeds; the solitude of Achilles was cheered by his
lyre; the English peasant delights in his pipe and tabor; the
mellifluous notes of the flute solace many an idle hour; and the
charming of snakes and other venomous reptiles, by the power of music,
is well attested among the Indians. "Music and the sounds of
instruments," says Vigneul de Marville, "contribute to the health of the
body and mind; they assist the circulation of the blood, they dissipate
vapours, and open the vessels, so that the action of perspiration is
freer." The same author tells a story of a person of distinction, who
assured him, that once being suddenly seized with a violent illness,
instead of a consultation of physicians, he immediately called a band of
musicians, and their violins acted so well upon his inside, that his
bowels became perfectly in tune, and in a few hours were harmoniously
becalmed.

Farinelli, the famous singer, was sent for to