264

HEADACHE.

crania generally proceeds from crudities or indigestion. In-anition or emptiness will also occasion headaches. I haveoften seen instances of this in nurses who gave suck too long,or who did not take a sufficient quantity of solid food.

There is likewise a most violent, fixed, constant, and almostintolerable headache, which occasions great debility both ofbody and mind, prevents sleep, destroys the appetite, causesa vertigo, dimness of sight, a noise in the ears, convulsions,epileptic fits, and sometimes vomiting, costiveness, coldnessof the extremities, &c.

The headache is often symptomatic in continual and inter-mitting fevers, especially quartans. It is likewise a verycommon symptom in hysteric and hypochondriac complaints.

When a headache attends an acute fever, with pale urine,it is an unfavorable symptom. In excessive headaches, cold-ness of the extremities is a bad sign. When the disease con-tinues long and is very violent, it often terminates in blind-ness, an apoplexy, deafness, a vertigo, the palsy, epilepsy, &c.

In this disease the cool regimen in general is to be observed.The diet ought to consist of such emollient substances as willcorrect the acrimony of the humors and keep the belly open,as apples boiled in milk, spinage, turnips, and such like.The drink ought to be diluting, as barley water, infusionsof mild mucilaginous vegetables, decoctions of the sudorificwoods, &c. The feet and legs ought to be kept warm, andfrequently bathed in lukewarm water ; the head should beshaved and bathed with water and vinegar. The patientought, as much as possible, to keep in an erect posture, andnot to lie with his head too low.

When the' headache is owing to excess of blood, or a hotbilious constitution, bleeding is necessary. The patient maybe bled in the jugular vein, and the operation repeated if therebe occasion. Cupping also, or the application of leeches tothe temples and behind the ears, will be of service. After-wards a blistering plaster may be applied to the neck„behindthe ears, or to any part of the head that is most affected. Insome cases it will be proper to blister the whole head. Inpersons of a gross habit, issues or perpetual blisters will be ofservice. The belly ought likewise to be kept open by gentlelenitives.

But when the headache proceeds from a copious vitiatedserum stagnating in the membranes, either within or withoutthe skull, with a dull, heavy, continual pain, which will nei-