VII. With respect to the curing some particular diseases, it may be proper to allow to music, an equal degree of credit, to that given to many other remedies, so much puffed, and blazoned in books, which although in reality they seldom do any good, still preserve their reputation; not so much on account of the few times they have proved serviceable, as from the sick person’s having owed his recovery to the assistance of Nature; when at the same time, people vainly and mistakingly have attributed it to the application of the chosen remedy. In this manner, and with these explanations and restrictions, we should understand music as a specific, for this or that disease; for if we consider it, as having influence to cheer the mind, there is no doubt, that it may contribute somewhat to the relief of such sick people, as are very fond of it; in the same manner, as any other thing would do, which gave them special pleasure or delight. I don’t however, find any reason to prefer the antient music to the modern, as best suited to produce either the one or the other of these effects; for we have seen cases, in which we have experienced this last, to have been very beneficial to sick people; and probably the antients never knew one, in which the curative excellence of music shone forth with more lustre, than it did in an instance, which happened in the present century, and which is related in the history of the Royal Academy of Sciences at Paris, in the year 1707, which I shall here transcribe, in nearly the words of its illustrious author.