The time may come when a German street-band will be recognized as a powerful tonic; a cornet solo will take the place of a blister; a symphony or a sonata may be recommended instead of morphine; the moxa will give way to Wagner, and opium to Brahms. A prolonged shake by a singer will drive out chills and fever, according to the theory of Hahnemann. Cots at symphony concerts may yet command the highest premiums.[189:2] Music is one of those intangible but effective aids of Medicine, which exert their healthful influence through the nervous system. It is in fact a mental tonic. A writer in the London "Lancet" remarks that "a pleasing and lively melody can awake in a faded brain the strong emotion of hope, and energizing by its means the languid nerve control of the whole circulation, strengthen the heart-beat and refresh the vascularity of every organ. Even aches are soothed for a time by a transference of attention, and why then should not pain be lulled by music?" Robert Burton, author of "The Anatomy of Melancholy," in commenting on the curative effects of music, remarked that it is a sovereign remedy against mental depression, capable even of driving away the Devil himself. "When griping grief the heart doth wound, And doleful dumps the mind oppress, Then music with her silver sound, With speedy help doth lend redress." _Romeo and Juliet_, Act IV, Scene 5. The nurse's song, Burton wrote, makes a child quiet, and many times, the sound of a trumpet on a sudden, bells ringing, a carman's whistle, a boy singing some ballad on the street, alters, revives and recreates a restless patient who cannot sleep in the night. Many men are made melancholy by hearing music, but the melancholy is of a pleasing kind. In a curious German treatise, "Der Musikalische Arzt,"[190:1] we find the following quotation from an article entitled "Reflections on Ancient and Modern Music."[190:2] "If it be demanded how musick becomes a remedy, and inciteth the patient to dance, 'tis answer'd that sound having a great influence upon the actions of the air, the air mov'd causeth a like motion in the next air, and so on till the like be produced in the Spirits of the body, to which the air is impelled." According to the French physician, Jean Etienne Dominique Esquirol (1772-1840), music acts upon the physique by determining nervous vibrations, and by exciting the circulation. It acts upon the _morale_ by fixing the attention upon sweet impressions, and by calling up agreeable recollections. François Fournier de Pescay, a contemporary of the above-named, commented on the fact that many famous writers of antiquity regarded music as a panacea, whereas in the light of modern medical science, it cannot be considered as an effective remedy in such affections as rheumatism, for example.[191:1]