Lord Anson says, in speaking of the ravages which the scurvy made under his command, that “whatever discouraged the seamen, or damped their hopes, never failed to add new vigour to the distemper; for it usually killed those who were in the last stages of it, and confined those to their hammocks who before were capable of some kind of duty.” In certain diseases of the nervous system, particularly when associated with morbid conditions of the mind leading to suicide, the influence of music may be had recourse to with great advantage to the patient. The ancients, who paid more attention to the moral treatment of disease than the moderns have done, had a just appreciation of the beneficial effect of music on the nervous system. The learned Dr. Bianchini has collected all the passages found in ancient authors relative to the medical application of music; and from these it appears that it was used as a remedy by the Egyptians, Hebrews, Greeks, and Romans, not only in chronic, but in acute cases of disease. M. Burette, in his able and scientific work on music, allows it to be possible, and even probable, that music, by the impressions it makes upon the nerves, may be of use in the cure of certain maladies; yet he by no means supposes the music of the ancients possessed this power in a greater degree than that of the moderns. Homer attributes the cessation of the plague among the Greeks, at the siege of Troy, to music:— “With hymns divine the joyous banquet ends, The pæans lengthened till the sun descends: The Greeks, restored, the grateful rites prolong; Apollo listens and approves the song.” POPE. In the Memoirs of the French Academy of Sciences, for 1707 and 1708, there are many accounts of cases of disease which, after having long resisted and baffled the most efficacious remedies, had yielded under the influence of the soft impressions of harmony; and M. de Mairan, in the same records, published in 1735, has entered very fully into the consideration of the _modus operandi_ of music on the body in health and disease.