Harmony in Healing by James Garber

Author:James Garber [Garber, James]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Law, Intellectual Property, General, Medical, History
ISBN: 9781412813693
Google: LnmFnf9XxpAC
Publisher: Transaction Publishers
Published: 2011-12-31T04:59:34+00:00

Tarantism

The most curious connection between music and medicine was that found in the disease, “tarantism.”83 It initially occurred in Aquila, a city in the boot of Italy, (sixteenth century) and persisted intermittently for several centuries thereafter. The first scientific studies of Tarantism by physicians were published in the seventeenth century. This disorder was said to be caused by the bite of the Italian tarantula. It was noted that the inhabitants of this dry, hot area of the peninsula were subject to fevers, frenzies, madness, and a host of “inflammatory” diseases. G. Baglivi, a local physician at the time (1723), mentions a high incidence of melancholy in this population. A folk dance, the Tarantella, developed over the years and was said to have resulted from the frenzied dance performed by victims of tarantism. Baglivi asserted that only in Aquila was the tarantula venomous.84 The “disease” usually occurred in July or August. People would suddenly jump up with pain after a tarantula bite, although a tarantula was not always seen before the pain began or a bite mark described afterward. The victim would be compelled to run out of the house and forced to dance with great excitement. Others who had been bitten in the past, sometimes several years before, would then join them. It seemed the disease was never totally cured. Some relapsed annually for as long as thirty years. Young and old alike were afflicted—one as old as ninety-four. Men and women were equally prone to the disease. The rich and poor, religious and secular were similarly victimized. Bright clothes, worn by the dancers, seemed to alleviate the frenzy. Black was abhorrent to the afflicted. There were those who tore off their clothes and danced nude. Some howled and made lewd gestures. Others rolled in the dirt and all drank plentifully of wine. Music and dancing were the only effective remedies. Deaths were rarely reported. After dancing for several days, the sufferers would be exhausted and “cured,” though playing the Tarantella might reactivate the frenzied dancing. Over time the disease gradually died out and patients assumed a normal life After several centuries, the tarantula bite no longer incited men and women to dance in psychotic frenzies. There remains, even today, the question whether this was truly a disease or some form of mass hysteria—possibly a mixture of both.

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