How did the scientific method change the study of music therapy in the 1800s?

In the 1800s, the refinement of the scientific method shifted the study of music therapy toward an empirical focus on the physiological changes that music could induce in the human body.

Rather than relying solely on philosophical or historical traditions, researchers began to investigate music through a clinical lens. This period saw the publication of academic dissertations on the subject, such as those by Edwin Augustus Atlee in 1804 and Samuel Mathews in 1806, both of whom studied under the physician Benjamin Rush, a prominent advocate for the clinical application of music. Furthermore, the 19th century marked the first instances of music therapy experiments being conducted on patients within institutional settings, specifically at Blackwell’s Island Asylum in New York.1