XIII
HE DISCUSSES THE MUSIC CURE
"Good-morning, Doctor," said the Idiot, as Capsule, M.D., entered thedining-room, "I am mighty glad you've come. I've wanted for a long timeto ask you about this music cure that everybody is talking about, andget you, if possible, to write me out a list of musical nostrums forevery-day use. I noticed last night, before going to bed, that mymedicine-chest was about run out. There's nothing but one quinine pilland a soda-mint drop left in it, and if there's anything in the musiccure, I don't think I'll have it filled again. I prefer Wagner tosquills, and, compared to the delights of Mozart, Hayden, and Offenbach,those of paregoric are nit."
"Still rambling, eh?" vouchsafed the Doctor. "You ought to submit yourtongue to some scientific student of dynamics. I am inclined to think,from my own observation of its ways, that it contains the germ ofperpetual motion."
"I will consider your suggestion," replied the Idiot. "Meanwhile, let usconsult harmoniously together on the original point. Is there anythingin this music cure, and is it true that our medical schools arehereafter to have conservatories attached to them, in which aspiringyoung M.D.'s are to be taught the _materia musica_ in addition to the_materia medica_?"
"I had heard of no such idiotic proposition," returned the Doctor. "Andas for the music cure, I don't know anything about it; haven't heardeverybody talking about it; and doubt the existence of any such thingoutside of that mysterious realm which is bounded by the four corners ofyour own bright particular cerebellum. What do you mean by the musiccure?"
"Why, the papers have been full of it lately," explained the Idiot."The claim is made that in music lies the panacea for all human ills. Itmay not be able to perform a surgical operation like that which isrequired for the removal of a leg, and I don't believe even Wagner evercomposed a measure that could be counted on successfully to eliminateone's vermiform appendix from its chief sphere of usefulness; but forother things, like measles, mumps, the snuffles, or indigestion, it issaid to be wonderfully efficacious. What I wanted to find out from youwas just what composers were best for which specific troubles."
"You'll have to go to somebody else for the information," said theDoctor. "I never heard of the theory, and, as I said before, I don'tbelieve anybody else has, barring your own sweet self."
"I have seen a reference to it somewhere," put in Mr. Whitechoker,coming to the Idiot's rescue. "As I recall the matter, some lady hadbeen cured of a nervous affection by a scientific application of somemusical poultice or other, and the general expectation seems to be thatsome day we shall find in music a cure for all our human ills, as theIdiot suggests."
"Thank you, Mr. Whitechoker," said the Idiot, gratefully. "I saw thatsame item and several others besides, and I have only told the truthwhen I say that a large number of people are considering thepossibilities of music as a substitute for drugs. I am surprised thatDr. Capsule has neither heard nor thought about it, for I should thinkit would prove to be a pleasant and profitable field for speculation.Even I, who am only a dabbler in medicine and know no more about it thanthe effects of certain remedies upon my own symptoms, have noticed thatmusic of a certain sort is a sure emollient for nervous conditions."
"For example?" said the Doctor. "Of course, we don't doubt your word;but when a man makes a statement based upon personal observation it isprofitable to ask him what his precise experience has been, merely forthe purpose of adding to our own knowledge."
"Well," said the Idiot, "the first instance that I can recall is that ofa Wagner opera and its effects upon me. For a number of years I suffereda great deal from insomnia. I could not get two hours of consecutivesleep, and the effect of my sufferings was to make me nervous andirritable. Suddenly somebody presented me with a couple of tickets for aperformance of 'Parsifal,' and I went. It began at five o'clock in theafternoon. For twenty minutes all went serenely, and then the musicbegan to work. I fell into a deep and refreshing slumber. Theintermission came, and still I slept on. Everybody else went home,dressed for the evening part of the performance, had their dinner, andreturned. Still I slept, and continued so to do until midnight, when oneof the gentlemanly ushers came and waked me up, and told me that theperformance was over. I rubbed my eyes, and looked about me. It wastrue--the great auditorium was empty, and was gradually darkening. I puton my hat and walked out refreshed, having slept from five-twenty untiltwelve, or six hours and forty minutes straight. That was one instance.Two weeks later I went again, this time to hear 'Goetterdaemmerung.' Theresults were the same, only the effect was instantaneous. The curtainhad hardly risen before I retired to the little ante-room of the box ourparty occupied and dozed off into a fathomless sleep. I didn't wake upthis time until nine o'clock the next day, the rest of the party havinggone off without awakening me as a sort of joke. Clearly Wagner,according to my way of thinking, then, deserves to rank among the mosteffective narcotics known to modern science. I have tried all sorts ofother things--sulfonal, trionel, bromide powders, and all the rest, andnot one of them produced anything like the soporific results that twodoses of Wagner brought about in one instant. And, best of all, therewas no reaction: no splitting headache or shaky hand the next day, butjust the calm, quiet, contented feeling that goes with the sense ofhaving got completely rested up."
"You run a dreadful risk, however," said the Doctor, with a sarcasticsmile. "The Wagner habit is a terrible thing to acquire, Mr. Idiot."
"That may be," said the Idiot; "worse than the sulfonal habit by a greatdeal, I am told; but I am in no danger of becoming a victim to it whileit costs from five to seven dollars a dose. In addition to thisexperience, I have also the testimony of a friend of mine who was curedof a frightful attack of the colic by Sullivan's 'Lost Chord,' played ona cornet. He had spent the day down at Asbury Park, and had eaten notwisely but too copiously. Among other things that he turned loose in hisinner man were two plates of lobster salad, a glass of fresh cider, anda saucerful of pistache ice-cream. He was a painter by profession, andthe color scheme he thus introduced into his digestive apparatus was toomuch for his artistic soul. He was not fitted by temperament toassimilate anything quite so strenuously chromatic as that, and, as aconsequence, shortly after he had retired to his studio for the night,the conflicting tints began to get in their deadly work, and within twohours he was completely doubled up. The pain he suffered was awful.Agony was bliss alongside of the pangs that now afflicted him, and allthe palliatives and pain-killers known to man were tried without avail,and then, just as he was about to give himself up for lost, an amateurcornetist who occupied a studio on the floor above began to play the'Lost Chord.' A counter-pain set in immediately. At the second bar ofthe 'Lost Chord' the awful pain that was gradually gnawing away at hisvitals seemed to lose its poignancy in the face of the greatersuffering, and physical relief was instant. As the musician proceeded,the internal disorder yielded gradually to the external and finallypassed away, entirely leaving him so far from prostrate that by 1 A. M.he was out of bed and actually girding himself with a shot-gun andan Indian club to go up-stairs for a physical encounter with thecornetist."
"And you reason from this that Sullivan's 'Lost Chord' is a cure forcholera morbus, eh?" sneered the Doctor.
"It would seem so," said the Idiot. "While the music continued my friendwas a well man, ready to go out and fight like a warrior; but when thecornetist stopped the colic returned, and he had to fight it out in theold way. In these incidents in my own experience I find amplejustification for my belief, and that of others, that some day the musiccure for human ailments will be recognized and developed to the full.Families going off to the country for the summer, instead of taking amedicine-chest along with them, will be provided with a music-box withcylinders for mumps, measles, summer complaint, whooping-cough,chicken-pox, chills and fever, and all the other ills the flesh is heirto. Scientific experiment will demonstrate before long just whatcomposition will cure specific ills. If a baby has whooping-cough, ananxious mother, instead of ringing up the doctor, wil
l go to the pianoand give the child a dose of 'Hiawatha.' If a small boy goes swimmingand catches a cold in his head and is down with a fever, his nurse, anexpert on the accordion, can bring him back to health again with threebars of 'Under the Bamboo Tree' after each meal. Instead of dosing thekids with cod-liver oil when they need a tonic, they will be set to workat a mechanical piano and braced up on 'Narcissus.' 'There'll Be a HotTime in the Old Town To-night' will become an effective remedy for asudden chill. People suffering from sleeplessness can dose themselvesback to normal conditions with Wagner the way I did. Tchaikowsky, to bewell shaken before taken, will be an effective remedy for a torpidliver, and the man or woman who suffers from lassitude will doubtlessfind in the lively airs of our two-step composers an efficient tonic tobring their vitality up to a high standard of activity. Nothing in it?Why, Doctor, there's more in it that's in sight to-day that is promisingand suggestive of great things in the future than there was of theprinciple of gravitation in the rude act of that historic pippin thatleft the parent tree and swatted Sir Isaac Newton on the nose."
"And the drug stores will be driven out of business, I presume," saidthe Doctor.
"No," said the Idiot. "They will substitute music for drugs, that isall. Every man who can afford it will have his own medical phonograph,or music-box, and the drug stores will sell cylinders and records forthem instead of quinine, carbonate of soda, squills, paregoric, andother nasty-tasting things they have now. This alone will serve topopularize sickness, and, instead of being driven out of business, theirtrade will pick up."
"And the doctor, and the doctor's gig, and all the appurtenances of hisprofession--what becomes of them?" demanded the Doctor.
"We'll have to have the doctor just the same to prescribe for us, onlyhe will have to be a musician, but the gig--I'm afraid that will have togo," said the Idiot.
"And why, pray?" asked the Doctor. "Because there are no more drugs,must the physician walk?"
"Not at all," said the Idiot. "But he'd be better equipped if he droveabout in a piano-organ or, if he preferred, an auto on asteam-calliope."