Music in Its Relation to the Mind

Abstract

Time inmportant part played by time nervous systeimi in all diseases to whicim lmunmaim flesh is imeir is so well recognized and appreciated as to make natural amid equally immiportammt time attempt on the part of imian, amid especuallv time medical nian, to reach amid operate upomi that mmervous sy teni for time relief amid * This paper was read before a popular audience at the Conservatory of Music, -and subsequently read at the annual meeting of the Association of Medical Super-Intendents of American Institutions for the Insane, held at Niagara Falls, 1890. It Is published here by request. 1892.] BY 0. ALDER BLUMER, M. D. BY 0. ALDER BLUMER, M. D.

‘As syllable from sound’: the sonic dimensions of confinement at the State Hospital for the Insane at Worcester, Massachusetts

“…The ‘better’ wards were furnished with pianofortes, which were used to accompany dances in the winter balls, and cages of singing birds to simulate the calming scenes of nature (WSH, Annual Report , 1848: 53). Music was believed to act upon the patient’s nervous system through the affective states it inspired: ‘according to its quality music has an animating or lulling effect upon the invalid listener; gives courage to the patient, [and] fills the convalescent with joyous hope of a speedy restoration’ (Blumer, 1892: 353).…”

“…Woodward believed that ‘sacred music is one of the safest and most salutary exercises for the insane’, and claimed that ‘those who are often greatly excited, restless and noisy in the halls’ were quiet in the chapel (WSH, Annual Report , 1841: 86). Descriptions of the effects of music on asylum patients verged on the miraculous, with psychiatrists even comparing them to David’s use of the harp to drive out evil spirits from Saul, in the Old Testament (Blumer, 1892: 359) – an allusion that speaks to bygone connections between mental illness and demoniacal possession. Yet these psychiatrists were sure to secure the use of music within the biomedical model, by articulating its action in terms of the linkages between sensory experience, mind and body; also by contextualizing it within the genealogy of ancient medical treatises, including those of Herodotus and Pausanias, who recognized the ability of music to ‘civilize men’ (Esquirol, 1845: 80).…”

“…However, for the most part, music was seen as a way of calming, subduing and entertaining the insane, and not as a direct means of curing them (Blumer, 1892). In the words of the French psychiatrist Jean-Étienne Esquirol (1845: 80), music may ‘bring peace and composure, but [it] does not cure’.…”

“…Passive restraint was not only targeted at controlling patients, but was also to make them more amenable to, or less aware of, that control and therefore less likely to contest it. G. Alder Blumer of the Utica State Hospital suggested the use of music to regulate labour in the asylum, pointing out that ‘in the South, negroes perform appointed tasks with greater patience by reason of the inspiriting effect of their rollicking melodies’ (Blumer, 1892: 353). Blumer does not acknowledge that such practices developed partly as a means to weather the hardship of labour under slavery, but the implicit connection is there: like slaves, asylum patients were confined against their will and laboured without payment.…”