N. MATERIA MEDICA, THERAPEUTICS, AND HYGIENE. 565 



Ansemic murmurs are occasionally present with such inten- 

 sity as to suggest organic disease of the heart, although 

 none is ever found after death. With all this, the remark- 

 able fact exists that there is very little diminution of the 

 fat covering the body. Sometimes there are hemorrhages 

 from the nose and kidneys, accompanied by pernicious pa- 

 ralyses toward the end of life, when also dropsy sometimes 

 sets in with delirium. The course of the disease is always 

 chronic, and the determination always fatal ; and after death 

 a fatty degeneration of certain muscles of the heart, and of 

 some of the small blood-vessels, is noticed. 20 A, November 

 21,1874,582. 



DE CHEGAIN ON" HEADACHES. 



De Chegain, in a paper upon ordinary headaches, takes 

 the ground that they result from a nervous affection of the 

 arteries, that their starting-point is in the grand sympathetic 

 nerve, and their precise seat is in the nervous filaments which 

 accompany the arteries ; their material phenomena consisting 

 in the dilatation of these vessels, and the compression which 

 they produce upon the brain and other organs, since in a 

 genuine attack of intense headache the patient suffers every- 

 where : the hands are swollen, the muscles are sore, and ev- 

 ery movement is painful. From his studies on the subject, 

 M. De Chegain concludes that any treatment for headache 

 should be directed against affections of the nervous system, 

 especially of the great sympathetic, and against the arterial 

 dilatation which results, and constitutes the essential feature 

 of the malady, and that in this there are three points to be 

 considered : the intermittence, the pain, and the arterial dil- 

 atation. His special treatment, founded upon the considera- 

 tion of these circumstances, consists in the administration of 

 pills composed of: 



Sulphate of quinine 0.05 of a gramme. 



Tannin 0.05 " " 



Aconitine 0.001 " " 



He prescribes one of these pills a day, although he states 

 that, by a continuation of this treatment, those who have be- 

 come accustomed to it may use three or four pills per day 

 with marked success. The tannin appears to have a special 

 action, illustrated by the relief experienced from the contin- 



