Overview

The unfolding influence of music and sound on the fundamental structure of the biomedical sciences, from ancient times to the present. The unfolding influence of music and sound on the fundamental structure of the biomedical sciences, from ancient times to the present. Beginning in ancient Greece, Peter Pesic writes, music and sound significantly affected the development of the biomedical sciences. Physicians used rhythmical ratios to interpret the pulse, which inspired later efforts to record the pulse in musical notation. After 1700, biology and medicine took a ""sonic turn,"" viewing the body as a musical instrument, the rhythms and vibrations of which could guide therapeutic insight. In Sounding Bodies, Pesic traces the unfolding influence of music and sound on the fundamental structure of the biomedical sciences. Pesic explains that music and sound provided the life sciences important tools for hearing, understanding, and influencing the rhythms of life. As medicine sought to go beyond the visible manifestations of illness, sound offered ways to access the hidden interiority of body and mind. Sonic interventions addressed the search for a new typology of mental illness, and practitioners used musical instruments to induce hypnotic states meant to cure both psychic and physical ailments. The study of bat echolocation led to the manifold clinical applications of ultrasound; such sonic devices as telephones and tuning forks were used to explore the functioning of the nerves. Sounding Bodies follows Pesic's Music and the Making of Modern Science and Polyphonic Minds to complete a trilogy on the influence of music on the sciences. Enhanced digital editions of Sounding Bodies offer playable music and sound examples.

Full Product Details

Author:   Peter Pesic
Publisher:   MIT Press Ltd
Imprint:   MIT Press
Weight:   0.369kg
ISBN:  

9780262046350

ISBN 10:   0262046350
Pages:   368
Publication Date:   11 October 2022
Audience:   General/trade ,  General
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   To order  
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Table of Contents

Introduction 1 Part I: Musical Origins 13 1 Pythagorean Medicine 15 2 The Controversial Project 29 3 Musica Humana 37 4 Homage to Herophilus 53 5 Kepler's Harmonic Physiology 71 6 The Musical Disease 89 Part II: Sonic Turns 107 7 Vibrating Fibers 109 8 Rhythms of the Heart 133 9 Songs of the Blood 151 Part III: Sounding Minds 169 10 Music, Melancholia, and Mania 171 11 Composing the Crisis 189 12 Catalepsy and Catharsis 205 Part IV: Sounding Bodies 217 13 Flying in the Dark 219 14 Ultrasounding Bodies 233 15 Tuning the Nerves 247 16 Telephonic Connections 269 17 Listening to Neurons 279 18 Sonic and Rhythmic Knowledge 299 19 Echoes and Envoi 311 Appendix: Two Papers on Muscle Sound by Hermann von Helmholtz 325 Notes 329 References 361 Source and Illustration Credits 387 Acknowledgements 389 Index 391

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Author Information

Peter Pesic, writer, pianist, and scholar, is Director of the Science Institute, Musician-in-Residence, and Tutor Emeritus at St. John's College, Santa Fe. He is the author of Labyrinth, Seeing Double, Abel's Proof, Sky in a Bottle, Music and the Making of Modern Science, and Polyphonic Minds, all published by the MIT Press.

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