"Hearing Cultures"

'Raising spirits & Restoring souls: Early modern medical explanations for musics effects' - Penelope Gouk`

"Music (as embodied as sound, movement etc.) is variously used by cultures to restore balance between people and their environment"

"Music used in 'healing' since the late 1600's early 1700's"
1729 - 1749 First recorded texts of music used within healing. However texts exploring the use of music in the altering of patients moods go back as far as 1489.
It was particularly noted that "music could help cure certain ailments, especially nervous diseases and mental disorders" (recorded mid 1700's - Browne & Brocklesby)

The fact that music has been used within 'healing' for over 250 years shows how people see music as having 'healing qualities' and being beneficial for the patients specificially with 'brain injury' or mental health issues.

"Peculiar power of music was due to a similarity between the air, the medium in which the music was transmitted and the human spirit"
This quote shows the way in which people used to believe that music effected people via their 'spirit' through the air, which in turn presents interesting ideas referring to the vibrations within the air created by sound waves. Could this vibration be used within 'healing'?

The essay quoted above was sourced from the book:

'Hearing Culture; essays on sound, listening and modernity' - Veit Erlman, Berg Publishers 2005.