Professor Tarchanoff made
use of the ergograph of Mosso, and found that if the fingers were
completely fatigued, either by voluntary efforts or by electric
excitation, to the point of being incapable of making any mark
except a straight line on the registering cylinder, music had the
power of making the fatigue disappear, and the finger placed in
the ergograph again commenced to mark lines of different heights,
according to the amount of excitation. It was also found that
music of a sad and lugubrious character had the opposite effect,
and could check or entirely inhibit the contractions. Professor
Tarchanoff does not profess to give any positive explanation of
these facts, but he inclines to the view that 'the voluntary
muscles, being furnished with excitomotor and depressant fibers,
act in relation to the music similarly to the heart--that is to
say, that joyful music resounds along the excitomotor fibers, and
sad music along the depressant or inhibitory fibers.' Experiments
on dogs showed that music was capable of increasing the
elimination of carbonic acid by 16.7 per cent, and of increasing
the consumption of oxygen by 20.1 per cent. It was also found
that music increased the functional activity of the skin.
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