The therapeutic properties of music throughout the centuries

The aim of this review is to present the therapeutic properties of music and its effect on both mental and physical illness, throughout the centuries as it is presented in published studies. Six articles from the international bibliography and fourteen articles from the Greek bibliography are reviewed in order to present the utility of music as a therapeutic method through the centuries and as an alternative healing method of nowadays. Ancient Greeks used refrains for the healing of men and animals and to prevent difficult and disastrous weather phenomena. Egyptians used to believe that musical notes hold magical powers. In African culture; music has an important role in healing ceremonies. According to the ideology of Greek philosophers the aim of healing is to restore the disturbed balance between body and soul. In classical ages, as Harmidis says, the treatment of headache is consists of the using of leaves from a certain plant in combination with specific refrains. Without chanting those refrains the medicine is useless. We are informed by the writing of Seneca that Maecena used music to eliminate fear so as to fall asleep. ΤΟ ΒΗΜΑ ΤΟΥ ΑΣΚΛΗΠΙΟΥ | ΤΕΥΧΟΣ 2ο 2007 2 In Renaissance, the era of conquers and philosophy, art and science, medicine was renewed and sow as music which gained human experienced basis and ability to express. In Islam, the dominant belief is that body is the house of soul and therefore the body will keep on complaining until the soul is healed. By the 20th century scientists have neither observed nor studied the effect of music in physiological parameters in the human body. In 1950, the American Society of Music Therapy was founded and so it formed the first center of clinical implementation and research of music therapy

Keywords: music, therapy, alternative therapies, nursing