18 THE LIFE OF SCIENCE 



not. But we are interested here primarily in the relationship be- 

 tween the composer and the doctor, — a relationship which is, I 

 believe, unique in its intensity. Billroth was a good amateur, a 

 clever pianist and a capable viola player much in demand for 

 quartets (bless the gentle violists for we need them) . Under the 

 combined influence of his scientific studies and of Brahms' conver- 

 sations, Billroth devoted more and more thought to the psycho- 

 physiological basis of music and gathered a number of notes on 

 the subject which were edited after his death under the title "Wer 

 ist musikaliscb?" by no less a person than Eduard Hanslick 

 (1825-1904). Who remembers Hanslick to-day? Yet he was the 

 leading critic of the German world, pontificating for a third of a 

 century in the T^Jeue freie Vresse, defending with painful iteration 

 the canons of "musical beauty" and of the "significant form" 

 (beseelte Jorm). He was a member of the 'Brahmscjemeinde 

 (Brahms clique) and was the champion of the Schumanns, of 

 Brahms, of Dvorak against the 'Musik der Zukunft. If Liszt and 

 Wagner irritated him so much what would he have thought, I 

 wonder, of the musical anarchists of our own days, of the "jazz" 

 and "swing," of all the music which seems to be written for the 

 spinal cord rather than for the brain? At that time the arch-of- 

 fender was Wagner, and I sometimes ask myself whether Hans- 

 lick was not right in his distrust of the Wagnerian witchery? His- 

 torians discussing our times a few centuries hence will be able to 

 discern more clearly than we can the spiritual origins of the pres- 

 ent chaos. They will probably recognize Wagner and Nietzsche 

 as the leaders in the movement to pull Germany back to the 

 Nibeluncjen level. 



IV 



There is considerably more to be said about medicine and 

 music, but these two examples must suffice. It is more pleasant to 

 talk about that, I think, than to write, for the talking would be less 

 deliberate and we could digress more capriciously, and perhaps 



