1896-97.] Chairman's Opening Address. 193 
grouping of notes with regard to their duration, it gives pleasure. 
Rhythm has been well called the metre of music. It depends 
largely on appreciation of time and accent. 
The stimulation of the skin by the method devised can therefore 
only give certain of the elements of music. It gives no accurate 
appreciation of pitch, although when stimulations are comparatively 
few in number, the sensation is rough and different from the con- 
tinuous sensation when the stimulations are very numerous. 
Quality is absent ; nor is there any feeling like that which leads 
us, when we intelligently listen to music, to be, as it were, searching 
for the tones that determine scales. There is also absent that 
effort at analysis which, it appears to me, constitutes one of the 
pleasures excited by modern music, both as regards its elaborate 
compositions and the large and complicated instruments and 
orchestras by which the ideas of the composer are given to the 
audience. There still remain the elements of rhythm, and this 
includes both duration of successive stimulations and intensity. 
As to time and duration, the sensations are quite distinct. I have 
tested many varieties of both simple and compound times, as 
known to the musician, and there is no difficulty in distinguishing 
the one from the other. 
In this way, the deaf can be led to understand some of the 
elements of music. It will, however, if I may use the expression, 
be music on one plane. Several deaf persons on whom I have 
experimented have appeared to be startled with the new sen- 
sations, and when it was explained that there was something of 
this in music, they apparently had pleasure. It is also conceivable 
that if spoken words fell on the microphone-transmitter, sensations 
of electrical stimulation of the fingers might be explained, agreed 
upon, and afterwards understood by the deaf. 
There is still another aspect of the matter I venture to bring 
before you. It is known to physiological psychologists that the 
connections that exist between processes in the brain centres 
corresponding to the different senses are real physiological connec- 
tions and not merely intellectual relations. Sensations of sound 
affect those of colour and vice versa , so vividly in some persons that 
they always associate colour and sound. Thus Joachim Raff, an 
eminent musical composer, said that he saw the colour of the flute 
YOL. XXI. 21/12/96 N 
