The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1897-01-10
Rig MUSICAL HOSPITAL.
rpRA HAS ONE IN MUNICH
III" TWENTY STORIES HIGH

NJ Cures The kne1ppIsts
Crazy with JeaIOusy-Neu-
III. and Sciatica Cured by Per-
,,Ix playing Wagner on the
o-Not Half as Hard to Believe
uvnnotiSm Was at First.
,,,nicb. Jan. l. - The new year
in with a cure boom that before
ended. may startle the world, even
+se Kneippists startled it in 1896. The
cure is the music cure" 1t will be
r,5 after DR.. Paul Rivera, who is the
father of it.
NOT an absolutely new idea, for
ri, clre" has been talked of for five
,rs and plans for a music cure hos
steal were made three years ago by Archi-
-. custaye Baab. But the Emusic cure"
received a new boom lately from the
.+ that the Empress of Austria was
.rrod of her long-standing neuralgia by
,.r,ain strains of sounds oft repeated,
and now such a cure will be carried out
.,nnlotely in the music-cure hospital
which is already under way.
When seen about it the other day in his
laboratory DR.. Rivera was busy rigging
,oa door harp provided with nine Strings
in the kew of e fiat. II was to be fastened
,,Don door which, when opened, would
give forth pleasant ringing sound. The
same harp could also be placed upon the
hack of a rocking chair, in which the af-
aicted patient could sit.
When asked to talk about his "cure' the
doctor hesitated. 81 am not fully ready
to exploit it yet" said he, because 1 am
afraid it is premature and may expose me
10 rdicule.
yet" he continued, taking a book down
from a shelf, II am encouraged by leaf
from the diary of one M. Fourcarde writ
ten in Paris fifty years ago. DR.. Four
carde tells how he is advocating the use
of a few drops of medicine to take the
place of bleeding in cases of low fevers.
The ridicule heaped upon him is depicted
in this touching line: L cannot walk in
the street. without hearing 'Lunaticr
sounded on every side of me, 'Quack! on
every hand
IN those days they did not have cranks,
or he would have been called a crank, as
now fear that I shall be.
Il am hidden, however, be of good cheer,
for the water cures and hypnotic treat
ments have prepared the way for all kinds
OF painless cures.
This is the age of the painless cure.
Anaesthesia began in the early part of the
present century. From that time to this
the painless treatment has gone steadily on.
Laughing gas was a mighty leap forward
Cocaine was still greater jump, invented
for local use in the illness of your Gen.
Ulysses S. Grant, and then came all the
marvellous painless medicines, led by phe-
nacetne. Music is the last exponent of
them all. 1t properly belongs to the vapor
medicines, like chloroform, as it acts on
the senses.
The music cure" continued the doctor
began in the days when David played to
soothe the soul of Saul. The next record
we have of a musical effort relieving great
distress was when the singer Bellari, in
the sixteenth century, put to sleep Prince
Bellargravia, the Italian patron of sculp-
ture, The prince woke after a twelve
hours sleep completely relieved of the rhe-
matte pains that had kept him awake two
weeks-for in those days there were no
sleeping potions.
The singer Raaf in the eighteenth CEN
fury, cured the fever of the Princess Pig
natelli by singing 1.-THE Saxon to her; and
in beginning of the present century Duree,
OF Paris, cured man of paralysis by
making him sing the "Marseillaise" over
and over again.
Without quoting more cases, and medi-
cine is filled with them,' said the DOCTOR
1 Will pass to our present plan for a musi-
cal hospital cure
I'VE shall not as the Kneippists do, ad-
Yerdse cure for every i'll of mind or
body any more than we would declare
that electricity cures everything, or that
IRON is a universal medicine. We will cure
certain troubles and let others alone.
our strong point will be the cure of
pain. As every one knows, the power of
music upon pain is great. The lullaby
principle in the nursery is founded upon
H. and the singing to invalids is based
upon the soothing effect of sounds. Read
ing aloud to the sick-and there are So
ceues banded together for this sick-room
dVerslon-is only a branch of this same
cure. Acting upon this we will have large
wards flied with pain patients.
The philosophy of it all is that a pain
VIII go away if you give it time enough.
IL YOU could put patient to sleep for two
weeks while his pain is raging, he will
awake well. But you can't do it.
The music cure acts by putting him to
rest He hears the sounds and does not
leel the pain while he is listening. This
Is well known fact in every hospital
Fauents that are groaning with agony be-
come quiet for two hours while Sunday
psalm singing is going on.
Our music hospital will have a ward
lor pain patients where they can hear in
terestng music. Words. with many verses
Ielng a narrative, will keep them quiet
ana they will hear long tales of old-time
events and the present songs of the day.
another ward will be for nervousness
Ior TINS there is nothing like Wagner's
music This is descriptive music. You
S'5 milkmaid come out of the house and
80 10 the barn with her pail in her hand
lou near the first tinkle of the drops in
lNe 9ail, with the maid grooming her song
oS lne pail fills; the cattle around are moo
"s 10 her for their turn; and you finally
dairy
This story will first be told in words
'ueh the patient viii listen to hear it in
music This will so interest them that
'uey VIII get well under the music's SPELL
u ohah we abandon drugs No, indeed
put patients die while taking medicine
'-ause they are so blue in mind that
key cannot get up ambition to rally from
,e'r MS The music viii keep up their
interest in life.
some ills are best treated with low
sounds. Others need loud compelling
strains These we VIII arrange for in our
hospital
mis- musical boanitaa to-, n,ta A.