40 
Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. . [sess. 
Note of a Case of Early Appreciation of Musical Pitch. 
By John G. M‘Kendrick, M.D., Professor of Physiology 
in the University of Glasgow. 
(Read February 17, 1896.) 
A hoy has recently come under my observation in whom the 
appreciation of pitch is developed at so early an age and with so 
remarkable a degree of accuracy as to justify a record being made 
of the case. 
His name is John Baptist Toner. He was horn on 11th June 
1891, so that he is now a little more than four and a half years 
of age. He is a fine healthy-looking hoy. His parents, who are 
young, are both musical. The mother sings and has a keen appre- 
ciation of music. The father plays on both the piano and the 
organ, has all his life taken much interest in music, and has studied 
the theory of the art. So far as can he discovered, neither the 
grandparents, nor any member of collateral branches of the family, 
were distinguished by musical ability. 
Since he was two years of age, the hoy has had access to a 
piano, and he seems to find pleasure in fingering the keys. During 
the last week of 1895, his father first taught him the names of 
the notes on the piano, and he says that his little hoy picked up 
this information with astonishing rapidity. He acquired the 
names of the white keys in two or three minutes, in his first 
lesson, and the names of the black keys were acquired on the 
following day in an equally short period of time. Since that 
date, he has not forgotten the names of the notes, and when any 
note is sounded, by striking a key on the piano, he invariably can 
tell the name of the note, simply after hearing the sound, and 
without seeing the key struck. Not only so, but he can name 
two notes when two notes are struck on any part of the keyboard, 
and he can name the notes of any chord, or give the names of the 
notes when any three keys are struck on the piano at the same 
moment. 
I examined the boy in the first instance in his father’s house. 
