HEADACHE PROBLEMS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 7 January 1939, Page 8

HEADACHE PROBLEMS

CAUSES TRIFLING AND GRAVE. Headache is not a disease, but a symptom, arising from many and various causes, some trifling, others extremely grave., Its source may be in some small and remediable condition as lack of ventilation, a transient digestive fault, or constipation; but not seldom it arises from disease that is serious and incurable, such as advanced Bright’s disease, tumour, and abscess of the brain, or impending apoplexy. The aim of medical practice should be not to treat a symptom, but to investigate it, and this is especially true when the symptom is pain. For the constant masking of pain by drugs allows the disease that causes it to go unnoticed and so unhindered on its way. The causes of headache can be classified as follows: —

(A) Causes arising in the head itself. (1) Injury to the brain as in cerebral concussion. (2) Diseases of the brain, such as inflammation, abscesses, or tumours. (3) Diseases of the blood vessels of the brain, giving rise to bleeding (cerebral haemorrhage) or clotting (cerebral thrombosis). (4) Disease of the membranes lining the brain or meningitis. (5) Diseases of the eyes and ears and of certain air-cells in the bones of the skull, connecting by ducts with the nose, known as the accessory nasal sinuses.

(B) Causes due to poisoning of the brain, either from outside or from inside the body. These are known as toxic causes. (1) From outside the body. In these cases headaches is caused by poisonous gases, such as are engendered in badly-ventilated rooms or mines, or produced by the exhaust of the engine of a motor car. The headaches caused by alcohol or tobacco also come into this category. (2) From inside the body. The most important of these are fevers, es- ' pecially typhoid fever, advanced kidney disease, gout, diabetes, dyspepsia, and constipation.

(C) Functional causes. (1) Alterations in blood pressure, whether rise or fall, are a common cause of headaches. (2) Disturbances of a recurrent or occasional type as migraine, epilepsy, and mental or emotional strain. (3) Mechanical causes from outside the body, among which are tight ■ hats, persistent noise, and sunstroke. TRIVIAL AND SERIOUS. This classification essays to include the more common causes of headache. They range from trivial disorders through serious but remediable disabilities to grave, incurable, and inexorably fatal diseases. They vary in situation, in character, in severity, and in time of occurrence. Careful scanning of these four characteristics will often supply an important link in the chain of their investigation. For instance, a generalised, boring, nocturnal, headache, of severity sufficient to wake a patient from sleep, often means organic disease of the brain; while a headache in the morning, that occurs in the back or front of the head, that throbs, and is of moderate severity, is more likely to indicate disease of the kidneys or blood vessels. For their cur.e, headaches may require a surgical operation, a holiday, an alteration of habits or working conditions, the discharge of a debt, or a reversal of emotional outlook. If cure is impossible, then palliation is the mark to be aimed at, and it should not be forgotten that palliation of many incurable diseases lies not in drugs or diet, but in making a good bargain with disability; that is, in pruning one’s mode of living to fit comfortably inside the limits that disease imposes.