VOCAL MUSIC AS A PREVENTIVE OF PHTHISIS.

Hawke's Bay Herald, Volume XXIV, Issue 8331, 6 April 1889, Page 4

VOCAL MUSIC AS A PREVENTIVE OF PHTHISIS.

A suggestive paper by Dr. C. E. Busey, or Lynchburg, was lately read before the Medical Society of Virginia. He stated as ' a well-known fact that those nations which were given to the cultivation of vocal muaio wero strong, vigorous races, with broad, expansive chests. If an hour waa daily devoted in our publie'schools to the development of vocal music, there would not be the sad spectacle of the droomng, withered.hollow-chested, roundshouldered children. There was too great a tendency to sacrifice physical health ripen the altar of learning. Vocal music was a gymnastic exercise of the lungs by the . development of the lung tissue itself. The lungs in improved breeds of cattle, which naturally took little exercise and were domiciled muchof the time, were considerably reduced in size when compared with those of animals running at liberty ; and so it was with the human race, which lead inactive lives from civilisation. Phthisis generally began at the apices of the lungs, because these parts were more inactive, and because the bronchial tubes were 68 arS 1 . th .J/^ er ßaring inactivity a person would ordinarily breathe about 480 cubic inches of air in a minute. If he walked at the rate of six miles an hour he would breathe 3260 cubic inches. In singing this increased more than in walking, as to sing well required all the capacity of the lungs. The instructor of vocal music, in addition to his musical education, should understand the anatomy and physiology of the respiratory organs.— New York Medical Journal,