Abstract

Various 'official' techniques and remedies have been used to treat individuals affected by tarantism. Empirical treatment with music, although sanctioned by ancient use but not part of rational medical tradition, has less frequently been applied to nervous diseases. Luigi Desbout, an army medical officer of French origin living in the 18th century 'Granducato di Toscana', used an Aria by Paisello to cure a Jewish girl from Livorno affected by a sudden convulsive attack whose initial symptoms resembled those occurring after a spider bite. He subsequently described the beneficial effects of music in the treatment of mental diseases, thirty years after the works wherein in Serao and Kähler described the psychological nature of tarantism