"The medical philosopher, in his study of human nature, must have observed, that _sympathetic correspondence of action_ between the mind and body, which is _uniformly_ present in health and disease, though _varying_ with circumstances. The different passions, according to their nature, the degree or intensity of application, and the sensibility of the party, exhibit certain characteristic expressions of countenance, and produce obvious _changes_, actions, or motions, in the animal economy. MUSIC has been found to occasion _all_ these actions, changes, and movements, in some sensible systems; and where one passion morbidly predominates, as frequently happens in mania, those species of simple or combined sounds, _capable of exciting an opposite passion_, may be _very usefully_ employed. _If_ then such effects _can_ be produced by such a power, acting on a mind only endued with its healthy proportion of susceptibility, what may we _not_ expect where the sensibility is morbidly increased, and where the patient is alive to the most minute impressions? Cases frequently occur where such acuteness of sensibility, and _extreme_ delicacy of system exist, that most of the more common, _moral_, and medical means are contra-indicated; _here_ relief may be often administered through the medium of the _senses_; the _varied modulations, the lulling, soothing_ cords of even an Eölian harp have _appeased_ contending passions, _allayed_ miserable feeling, and afforded ease and tranquillity to the bosom _tortured_ with real or fancied woe: and I can easily _imagine_, that _jarring discord_, _grating harsh rending_ sounds, applied to an ear _naturally_ musical, would uniformly excite great commotion. Under circumstances calculated to assist this action, by producing unpleasant impressions through the medium of the other senses, as when SCREECHES and YELLS are made in an apartment painted _black_ and _red_, or _glaring white_, every man must be painfully affected: the maniacal patient, _however torpid_, _must_ be roused: or, on the contrary, where an opposite state obtains, extreme sensibility and impatience of powerful impression, there _much may be expected_ from placing the patient in an _airy room_, surrounded with _flowers breathing odours_, the walls and furniture _coloured green_, and the air agitated by undulations of the softest harmony. _Much_ of this may appear FANCIFUL and RIDICULOUS, but the _enquiring_ practitioner _will_ find, on making the experiment, it deserves his _serious_ attention; and no mean is to be despised that is capable of arresting the attention, changing the trains of thought, interesting the affections, removing or diminishing painful sensations, and ultimately rendering both mind and body sensible to impressions, and _all this has been effected by music_. Every individual is not capable of accurately estimating the _extensive powers_ of this agent; but I would ask the _musical amateur_, or the _experienced professor_, if he have not frequently felt sensations the most _exquisite_ and _indescribable_; if he have not experienced the whole frame _trilling_ with _inexpressible delight_, when the _tide_ of full harmony has FLOWN on his ear, and the most _wretched miserable_ feeling, UNIVERSAL HORRIPILATIO and CUTIS ANSERINA from the _grating crash_ of discord? All the varied sensations from transport to disgust, have been occasioned by the different movements in one piece of music. I might _amuse_ my readers with a great variety of instances where persons have been very singularly affected by means of music, and where its powers have extended to the _brute creation_, but this I purposely avoid."