MUSIC IN THE AIR.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20508, 8 March 1930, Page 3 (Supplement)

MUSIC IN THE AIR.

•CASE • IN MENTAL HOSPITAL.

■PEOPLE WHO HEAR "NOISES."

SUGGESTED" WIRELESS - WAVES;

Is. it .possible, that there. are people' who, owing to some special conformation of the brain, are natural wireless receivers ? Is it. possible. ; too,.that, there are people confined -in mental hospitals merely because they have this power and continually " hear ■ - These questions were suggested in London recently by Major Leonard Avery, a physician, who, impressed by the case of a patient he • saw la a mental hospital, says he believes that here is & problem for scientific inquiry. Major Avery, is a retired doctor with a distinguished record in medicine. He studied at Oxford and St. George's Hospital, 1 where afterwards he . was house surgeon and house physician. " The. idea has-occurred to me,".he said, ''but I have not now the time or the facilities to investigate' it myself. I should, however, like-to see a thorough investigation made by doctors who are experts in the study ci mental diseases and phenomena. " This ii what made me think that human:wireless receivers may exist. "Sometime ago I visited a patient; in a mental hospital. I had a long talk with him, and at ,the end of it I said to the specialist in charge, ' I am • sur6 there teust be some mistake about that man. He seems perfectly sane to me.' The doctor replied, '-He is* except-in one way. Ask him whether he hears music-in the air.'. . ■.■.« '

"I asked the man, and ha ■ told", me that he frequently heard music. Sometimes it was opera, sometimes instrumental solos, sometimes songs. The songs were -in different languages, which the man did not understand. He could hum the music as he listened .to it, and people who heard "the tune could often recognise it, though the man himself did not know it. .

"Many menfal patients, as you know, are; sane except on one subject. On that subject they are obsessed and usually bet come dangerous when -it is mentioned. This man was not at all mad about'the music he heard. He talked to -ms about it quite rationally and pleasantly. It did not occur to/me at the time, , but it has done since, that probably some peculiar construction of the man's head may have made him a natural receiver of wireless, waves. and /hat possibly there are sirni- ■■/ hr cases. It may'be that .something in the thickness/of the cranium, or the space between the cranium and the brain, or train convulsions, is responsible for the condition. I do not know. I only suggest in the hope that others with better facilities for mental research will go into the question." ."The idea that a, man may be recep- <• tive of wireiess waves should not be at Once rejected as ridiculous," writes the Express medical correspondent. ' The possibilities of our sense organs are ver y likely wider than wo realise, ana w ider than are displayed in ordinary life. 'Doctors are familiar, for example, With the extraordinarily exaggerated susceptibility of all the special senses''in some persons who have been frequently V, hypnotised. These people can, _ for exiample, distinguish a difference in taste between a dozen exactly similar glasses of water filled to exactly the same degree, or discern a difference in one card that " a s.been touched out of a score of similar C4 !L ? b'ing face down on a table. When v/a appreciate the extraordinary difference in the sense of hearing be- ; Ween a musician who detects a note that is the slightest degree out of pitch, and f man who cannot recognise;any tune but Save the King,'we need not ridicule th ? idea that, although the. usual sense - or gans are unaffected by wireless wayesr ■ there may be individuals who, ■■■ " r °ugh some peculiarity of a special v. Es ? £ 2> or of the brain centres whicn re- . impressions, can recogniSe impres•V, rj? ns " produced •pn - them- through' - the ' *