Sick Headaches

The sick headache, that nuisance in households one of whose members suffers therefrom, last week received close study at the University of Illinois College of Medicine. Despite the wide prevalence of the ailment, especially in neurotic families, its nature is not known. At least five major causes have been suggested. But those five are usually obscured because the victims, to get attention and coddling, often imagine or pretend other ailments. They fall into megrims, fancies, freaks; they have the blues, the dumps; they become hipped on their misery.

To study a sick headache systematically the University recently advertised for a victim. He or she must agree to stay under observation for three months at the College's Research & Educational Hospital. He must also endure experimental dosing and other treatment. For that he would get $50 a month, board and lodging.

Seven hundred and fifty sick headaches applied. Chosen was Theodore Roberts, 23, a whimsical, jobless, unmarried electrician of Lake Geneva, Wis. His natural hypochondria took the quirky turn of a boast: "I have headaches that are dandies. IVe had them ever since I was eleven and nobody has ever been able to give me any relief. I guess I inherited them, because my mother had them as far back as I can remember."

Causes. Nine out of ten cases inherit their sick headache. Women and members of neurotic families are the usual victims. Among causes inferred are:

1) Toxic products from disorder of intestinal digestion or other self-made poisons. 2) Spasms of arteries. 3) Trouble in the eyes, nose or sexual organs. 4) Increased pressure in the cerebro-spinal fluids. 5) Disturbance of the sympathetic nervous system.

The headaches may last a whole lifetime. But usually they cease, with women, at the menopause, with men at the age of 50.

Description. Victims of sick headaches make nuisances of themselves. But their misery is real and acute. Vexed intimates can understand that misery only with difficult sympathy.

The pain starts at a certain spot--generally on the temple or forehead, or in the eye. It bores right into the brain and spreads until one side of the head seems ready to rip away. Sometimes the pain passes to the same side of the neck and into the arm on that side. The pain is almost always confined to one side of the head. Hence, hemicrania, migraine, the megrims.

The most remarkable thing about this miserable malady is the periodicity of attacks. The headaches come on regularly --the same day every week, every fortnight, etc. The prostration of a victim of an attack is no pretense. The slightest noise or light really tortures him.

Treatment is a thing the physician must puzzle out for himself, according to each patient's peculiarities. Victims should avoid excitement, eat regularly and moderately, keep the bowels regular. Eyes should be corrected by glasses.

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