Music as a Tool in the Development of Nineteenth-Century Neurology

Abstract

Music has become an increasingly popular topic in neuroscience research over the past two centuries. The roots of the current interest in music and the human brain can be traced back to the second half of the nineteenth century, when neurology emerged as a medical specialty (although there were a few observations prior to the nineteenth century). Several prominent, nineteenth-century neurologists used music as a tool to help understand brain function, just as they used a reflex hammer and other clinical tools. Music was used, in particular, to examine the varieties of higher cognitive functions in patients with aphasia who had difficulty with speaking or understanding language after brain damage. Early scholars were fascinated by the paradox that some patients who were unable to speak were able to sing the text of songs. This simple observation inspired neurologists to explore music function in more depth in order to better understand aphasia and also to develop ideas about higher cognitive functions and emotion. The initial observations about music in persons with aphasia appear to be mostly by ‘chance’, and more systematic evaluations of music abilities were not done until the later nineteenth century.