MEGRIM, OR SICK-HEADACHE. 409 



different theories that have been brought forward, much less to cite the various 

 arguments adduced in their support. Let it suffice to say that nowadays no one 

 believes that sick-headache is merely a bilious complaint, or even that it has any- 

 thing to do with bile, and that the general opinion is that the real seat of the disease 

 is in the brain. 



Let us now consider what can be done in the way of treatment There appears 

 to be a very prevalent opinion that megrim is a complaint in which it is of 110 use 

 trying to do anything an opinion with which we venture to disagree, for we must 

 confess that we have an almost unlimited faith in the power of medicines that is, 

 of medicines properly used. 



Of course something can be done in the way of general treatment hygienic 

 measures and so on. The patient may have to be instructed what to eat and what 

 to drink, and still more important, what to avoid. Megrim is of constant occurrence 

 in those who are weakened by a poor and insufficient diet, by too frequent child- 

 bearing, and a prolonged suckling. It often arises from excessive hours of labour, 

 or occupations whioh entail close confinement in unwholesome and ill-ventilated 

 workshops and dwellings. The treatment of these cases is obvious, however difficult 

 to fulfil. The workman may not be able to induce his employer to get him a light 

 well-ventilated shop to work in, but knowing the value of fresh air he will pass as 

 much of his leisure time as possible out of doors. Women often ruin- their health 

 by suckling their children for twelve, fifteen, or eighteen months. With 

 town-dwellers the baby should be weaned at the latest when nine months old. The 

 poor should remember that if they have large families they must make an extra 

 effort to provide for them. In a somewhat higher grade of society we find the 

 malady brought on, or at all events aggravated, by excessive brain-work, with a 

 deficiency of bodily exercise, short restless nights, and insufficient sleep. 



So long as a brain-worker is able to sleep well, to eat well, and to take a fair 

 proportion of out-door exercise, it is not necessary to impose any special limits on 

 the actual number of hours he devotes to his labours. But when what is generally 

 known as worry steps in to complicate matters, when cares connected with family 

 arrangements, or with those numerous personal details which we can seldom escape, 

 intervene, or when the daily occupation of life is in itself a fertile source of anxiety, 

 then we find one or other of these three safeguards broken down. Probably the 

 man of business or the successful lawyer fails to shake himself free from his 

 anxieties at night, and slumber becomes fitful or disturbed. The nervous system, 

 unsettled by the mental strain, brings about various defects in nutrition ; the 

 appetite fails, and then we meet with the sleeplessness, the dyspepsia, the irresolution, 

 the irritability, and the depression which are the chief miseries of the over- worked. 

 The great thing in these cases is to get a rest at any cost. By rest we do not 

 mean doing nothing, but rather change of scene, of thought, and occupation. If you 

 tell a busy man that he must do nothing, he may endeavour to obey you, but he 

 will soon find out that he cannot, for his brain keeps on working in the same old 

 groove, and he is as much, or even more, worried about his business as if he were 

 still in the thick of it. The great thing is to get a rest by substituting one kind of 

 work by another, to have for a time a nice comfortable sort of occupation to replace 



