The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1919-01-24
MUSICO-THERAPY AIDS WOUNDED
Marvellous Cures Effected by
 This Method on Soldiers Suf- fering From Mental and Ner- vous Disabilities;. U. s. to Experiment With New Cure.
How Music Cures Wars Ills.

How Music Cures Wars Ills.
 The latest modern science thrust into prominence by the war is nusico-therapy, which uttlizes the 1 curative powers of rhythm and har- mony.
 Miss Margaret Anderton who has i teen studying the healing forces of nmsic since she was eight years old,
 Las returned to New York from Can ada where she has been practising musico-therapy on the wounded Can adian boys who have returned from 1 the battlefls1Gs of France. She has | been engaged by Columbia Univer- i sity to organize a class which she
 will instruct in her methods with 1 view to using the same successful | treatments to restore our own boys l to health and vigor.
 Miss Anderton before the war had | effected some big improvements and 1 even cures by her usual treatments. i When the wounded soldiers began to return to Canada, she felt the call i to duty, and because she is a loyal British subject, she left her musical work in New York and has been ! spending many months with the
 wounded and disabled men in the Canadian military hospitals.
 The stories that she tells of her | work are inspiring as they are re- | markable. One of the most interest i ing cases of direct cure effected by | music W7as the restoration of memory l to a young captain suffering from aphasia, as a result of having been l hurle1 into the air and then buried 1 in the debris after the discharge of 1 a high explosive bomb. When Miss Anderton began her treatments, her efforts seemed almost hopeless, but one day the spell was broken, the poor shocked mind came into it's own and the Captain for the first
 time since his injury remembered his 1 name.
 Miss Anderson overcomes ortho- pedic disabilities by exercises which produce pleasing sounds from some | musical instrument and so successful
 las she been that one of her patients who lest a foot is now earning his | living playing a church pipe organ, using his false foot to operate the ! base pedals.
 Chronic melancholia responds to 1 nusico-therapy with remarkable sat isfaction to the operative. A man of 1 forty-five, blinded and consequently i most Respondent was reached after ! many patient efforts through the medium of a small lap instrument, i strung like a piano in the miniature. 1 The first time he sounded the in l strument was in an outburst of bad i temper, but later he was heard i sounding the strings over and over i again to produce whatever pleasing sounds he was able. A few days
 later, Miss Anderton returned to him ] to show him how to pick out the 1 melody of God Save the King" So 1 bUsy was he with this new means ! of passing away the time that hung
 so heavily, that the outbursts of pas | sion became fewer and less violent i One day, his benefactor purposely
 threw his "G'' string out of tune,
 without the patients knowledge, Then he sent for her and explained | that something had gone wrong with l his "toy.' His first lesson in tuning | followed and he is now completing | pleting Q course in piano tuning
 in the occupationaI sanitariums of
 the Canadian government, with his
 mental attitude entirely corrected,
 and the man feels that after all life
 is worth living.
 A young man who had been a
 blacksmith in civil life had not only
 been gassed. but shot through the
 lung. Miss Anderton appreciated
 that singing would be less monoton-
 GUS exercise than just deep breath
 ing. The young Welshman developed
 q remarkably sweet tenor and was later engaged by a vaudeville agency
 to sing at forty dollars week to be-
 gin with, and was later increased to | sixty dollars. This has made it pos-
 sible for him to reaI-ze a life ambi-
 ton to become an electrical en- | gineer.
 In England a "Vocal Therapy
 Fund" has been established to pro-
 mote the restorat ation of the powers | Of speech lost to soldiers through
 shell shock and, in general, the phyi-
 cal and mental health of sick,
 wounded and disabled sailors and
 soldiers in hospitals, convalescen,
 camps and training centers.