Music therapy in the age of enlightenment

As music therapists continue to discover more about the therapeutic powers of music, it is interesting now and then to look to the past in order to seek the roots of our contemporary practices. In this regard, the writings of eighteenth-century physicians are pivotal in the development of music therapy, for it was these individuals who first began to depend greatly upon scientific experimentation and observation to formulate their procedures. Representative of this stage in the history of music therapy are the findings of the renowned London physician Richard Brocklesby, the only doctor to write a treatise on music therapy in eighteenth-century England. The subjects treated by Brocklesby in his Reflections on the Power of Music (1749) include his musical remedies for the excesses of various emotions-particularly fear, excessive joy, and excessive sadness. He also discusses his musical remedies for diseases of the mind recognized in the eighteenth century-delirium, frenzy, melancholia, and maniacal cases. He considers music as well an aid to the elderly and to pregnant women. In short, Brocklesby provides a lively account of the curative powers of music as viewed in the mid-eighteenth century by an excellent medical mind.