best way to cure a headache is to attend an orchestral concert. It
works like a charm. It stirs up the circulation in the brain as a
brisk walk does in the body. Even brain disease is eased in this way.
The power of music even to cure insanity altogether, was frequently
maintained in ancient and mediæval times. This claim is doubtless
exaggerated, yet there is more than a grain of truth in it. There can
be no doubt that violent maniacs can be calmed, and melancholy ones
cheered and soothed, by music. To get an authoritative opinion on this
subject, I wrote to Dr. Hammond. He answered: "I know of no cases of
insanity that have been cured by music, but I have seen many cases in
which music has quieted insane persons, exerting the same calming
influence that it does on most of us when we are irritated by petty
annoyances."

"When we are irritated by petty annoyances." It is then that music
becomes a medicine and a moral tonic. Writers on ethics have,
hitherto, too much overlooked the moral importance of health. Where
there is a lack of health, we rarely find any moral sweetness of
temper. The vices may be small and peevish, but in their aggregate
they are enough to poison the happiness of the household. If a man
comes to ruin from drink and the crimes it leads him to commit, we
call him immoral. But is he not also immoral if, from excess of work
and worry, and wilful neglect of exercise, rest, and recreation, he
breaks down and beggars his family, becoming a burden to them instead
of a help? I think he is, and that, instead of pitying such a man, we
should censure him. Ignorance of the laws of hygiene, physical and
mental, is no valid excuse. He can buy a book on the subject for one
dollar. But he does not even need to do that. Music, we read in
Shakespere, has the power of "killing care and grief of heart," and
what he needs, therefore, is to hear some good music every evening, at