Editor of Five Volume Set on the History of Medicine and the Allied Sciences

The book, Music and Medicine, by Dr Levy MD is the highest expression of Culture/Bildung/Tarbut/Padeai/Kultur devotedly relayed with great love for music and cherishing and revering the artistic spirit. The book demonstrates a culture of redemption whereby science is informed and enhanced by appreciation for the arts. The book manifests how the etymology of the french word " la culture" derives from the latin term "colere" connotating "to take care of, grow, cultivate, nurture, and safegaurd" all essential traits of a good physician. The book joins bench mark studies on classical muscians by Jonathan Nobel [also a physican] and in the kindred spirit of the seminars run at Johns Hopkins medical school by Drs. Richard Macksey and surgeon George Uvrehey in the Medical Humanites. Dr Levy has written an interdisciplinary work in the history of medicine, narrative medicine, music, art, aesthetics, philosophy, neuroaesthetics, anthropology, musicology, and cultural studies relaying not only on secondary books but archival documents (box, folder, ms. #) such as the diaries, musical scores, unpublished medical notes, letters etc of: Bach and Handel, Mozart, Brahms, and H.L. Mencken etc. The book is an example of Nietzsche's understanding of the necessity of the Apolonarian harmony of science with music, a science informed by the Muses of the fine arts. The book shows the mutual influence of how humanistic inquiry and historical study are informed and benefitted by knowledge of science in the interplay (pun intended) of music and medicine. The book illustrates how the Humanities are relevant to medicine making one more sensitive to the needs of others, and advocates by example of a well rounded broadly educated Renaissance physician devoted to the pursuit of wisdom-understanding-knowledge who incorporates the whole gamut of the arts into the medical "arts". The book is a shining paradigm of how the Humanities are relevant to medicine and how an appreciation of the Humanities can enrich and deepen knowledge of the history of medicine and allied sciences. The book not only helps us better recognize the humanistic and cultural dimension of the history of medicine, but fosters a wider historical context of medicine elucidated by the medical Humanities. Such mutual symbiosis of science and music is expressed in the statement of Pythagoras, "there is geometry in the humming of strings, there is music, in the spacing of the heavenly spheres" and the conundrum of Victor Hugo, "Music expresses that which cannot be said and on which it is impossible to be silent." Like Einstein, who stated, "I know that the most joy in my life has come to me from (my violin) and music" Dr. Levy understands along with Henry Longfellow, that "music is the universal language of humanity" and that music is the most spiritual expression of the soul and the mouskie is always and activity of the spirit with an important social and educational role in the well rounded human being. The fact that Dr. Levy studied the sheet music and musical scores before ever going to a performance and educated himself on the background of relationship between literature and music, before attending any concert or symphony, understands music as a participatory event with specific ethical influencing formation of virtues (Arete/middot tovot) which as Plato states by noting the music modes (lydian, Frigeon, Dorian, Mxyolodian) benefit character as rhythm, balance, melody, hymns, pitch, and harmony find their way into the inner places of the divine soul in expressing something "beyond". The fact that Dr. and Mrs Levy hosted countless musicals in their living room where many Peabody music conservatory professors and students gave a shpiel about the piece they were working on and then played it in a duet or trio or quartet in a social context demonstrates that music was something living and not merely a passive event but an active participortary act of play with others in a cultural context. Dr. Levy demonstrates in his book that the inspired creativity to bridge between the human realm and the Olympic- Edenic- Paradisical bliss of the divine power of music to express the depths of lament and heights of joy, musical ecstasy, and transcendent meaning and metaphysical substance. (book review)