Anglo-Saxon cow bile and garlic potion kills MRSA

What does this have to do with singing? Empiricism! From the article, this quote from Dr. Cristina Lee (no relation) jumped out at me: “We believe modern research into disease can benefit from past responses and knowledge, which is largely contained in non-scientific writings.”

The Old Italian school of training, which did not have the benefit of modern scientific knowledge, nevertheless produced singers capable of impressive feats of vocal virtuosity. Trial and error, and learning by experience how the voice works, is how the training principles were developed. Why throw that away?