MUSIC AND THE INSANE.

Colonist, Volume LII, Issue 12772, 20 April 1910, Page 1

MUSIC AND THE INSANE.

Medical men. are watching with great interest a series of experiments which are being made in the State asylum for the insane in MassiMon, Ohio, with a view of determining the possibilities of music as a cure for insanity. The first experiment was made recently by means of a piano, and its beneficial effects exceeded all expectations (says a New York correspondent). One of the patients, a girl of seventeen, who was considered hope- . lessly insane, has made extraordinary progress towards sanity since the ex!p* iintents on her began. She is now believed to be well on the road to recovery. | Delighted with his success, Dr. Eynmn, the superintendent of the asylum, decided to extend the system, and finding that one of his assistants had a gramaphone. Dr. Eyman said: "Let us try it in the 'demented' room." When the doctors entered the room, in which sixty women were confined — all regarded as hopeless cases —the patients set tip chattering, screaming, and hj'sterical laughter. Without taking any notice of them, Dr. Eyman srnd his colleagues, placing the gramaplione on a tablo, started~up a stirring military march. The effect was magical. Silence fell upon the room almost instantly, and for the first time since their admission to the asylum looks of intelligent interest and natural smiles spread over tho faces of the insane. The doctor is persevering with the gramaphone, and lias already succeeded in changing the atmosphere of the Toom where the wildest patients were kept. The pianos will bo used for tho mi'der cases, while it is proposed to vse violins and brass instruments for the other patients. i