Any sacrifice to secure silence
for these cases is worth while, because no air, however good, no
attendance, however careful, will do anything for such cases without
quiet.
[Sidenote: Music.]
NOTE.--The effect of music upon the sick has been scarcely at all
noticed. In fact, its expensiveness, as it is now, makes any general
application of it quite out of the question. I will only remark
here, that wind instruments, including the human voice, and stringed
instruments, capable of continuous sound, have generally a
beneficent effect--while the piano-forte, with such instruments as
have _no_ continuity of sound, has just the reverse. The finest
piano-forte playing will damage the sick, while an air, like "Home,
sweet home," or "Assisa a pie d'un salice," on the most ordinary
grinding organ will sensibly soothe them--and this quite independent
of association.
V. VARIETY.
[Sidenote: Variety a means of recovery.]
To any but an old nurse, or an old patient, the degree would be quite
inconceivable to which the nerves of the sick suffer from seeing the
same walls, the same ceiling, the same surroundings during a long
confinement to one or two rooms.
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