Der musikalische Arzt: Prescribing Music
“And it came to pass, when the evil spirit from God was upon Saul, that David took a harp and played with his hand; so Saul was refreshed and was well, and the evil spirit departed from him.”
— 1 Samuel 16:23 (KJV)
The healing properties of music have been posited since ancient times. The age of enlightenment in Europe, from the 17th to 19th centuries, saw much advancement in the fields of both medicine and the musical arts. The shift from a focus on humoral theory to viewing the body as an interconnected system of functions elevated the nervous system as a central subject of study. In this context, the pressures of modern urban life contributed to the widespread diagnosis of ‘nervousness’, particularly among affluent and intellectual urban populations.
James Gillray, A Little Music. Hand-colored etching, published 1810.
(Source: Art Institute Chicago)
One of the Whipple Library’s recent acquisitions, Peter Lichtenthal’s Der musikalische Arzt (The Musical Doctor), produced in Vienna in 1807, reflects this period when European intellectual life increasingly sought to explain human health through the interaction of body and mind. Peter Lichtenthal was an Austrian physician and composer. He studied medicine and music in Vienna and Der musikalische Arzt was written during his studies. Rather than presenting music purely as entertainment, Lichtenthal framed it as an intervention capable of altering one’s physiological and emotional states. This aligns with broader medical literature of the period, which increasingly described music as being capable of producing demonstrable changes to the functioning of the body.
Title page of the Whipple Library’s copy of Der musikalische Arzt (1807) by Peter Lichtenthal.
Lichtenthal’s thinking also reflects the influence of the Brunonian system of medicine, developed by the Scottish physician John Brown in the late 18th century. Brunonian theory argued that health depended on the body’s level of “excitability”, and that disease resulted from either overstimulation or understimulation. Treatment aimed to restore balance through either stimulation or sedation. Within this framework, music was understood not merely as entertainment but as a physiological catalyst capable of altering the body’s nervous state. Beyond Der musikalische Arzt, Lichtenthal is also known for his Dizionario e bibliografia della musica (Dictionary and Bibliography of Music), a foundational musicological reference work, which he produced during his time living in Milan in 1826, where he worked within the spheres of medicine and music until his death.
Early 19th-century Vienna was one of Europe’s most important centres of culture and learning. By the early 19th century, physicians and philosophers were attempting to move beyond purely anecdotal accounts toward testable theories of how music affected the body. This intellectual climate drew on older classical traditions that framed music as a force acting directly upon the body. Ancient Greek and Roman writers had long argued that melody and rhythm could alter emotional and physical states, and these ideas remained influential well into the modern period.
Lichtenthal’s epigraph is a quotation from Impetum faciens dictum Hippocrati (1745) by Abraham Kaau Boerhaave. In English, it roughly translates to: “I doubt whether all that is said about incantations and charms should not be attributed to the effects of music, because the ancient physicians excelled in them.”
Vienna boasted a highly developed print culture by the early 19th century. As was typical for scientific works produced in the German language of this time, Der musikalische Arzt employs Fraktur type, with minimal decorative elements.
With thanks to Nicole Atherton for providing this guest post.
References:
James Kennaway, From Sensibility to Pathology: The Origins of the Idea of Nervous Music around 1800, Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences, Volume 65, Issue 3, July 2010, Pages 396–426, https://doi.org/10.1093/jhmas/jrq004
Pratt, R.R., Jones, R.W. (1987). Music and Medicine: A Partnership in History. In: Spintge, R., Droh, R. (eds) Musik in der Medizin / Music in Medicine. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. Https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-71697-3_36
Kim, Youn, and Sander L. Gilman (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Music and the Body, Oxford Handbooks (2019; online edn, Oxford Academic, 10 July 2018), https://doi-org.manchester.idm.oclc.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190636234.001.0001