life and in men to about the fortieth year.

The periodical headache is usually preceded by yawning, chilliness,
languid, exhausted feelings, in others by peculiar emotional or mental
activity. This is followed by unusual drowsiness, in which the night's
rest is broken by dreams, and from which the patient awakes tired.
Gradually, during the day, the headache develops, beginning in the eyes
or bones over them. It gets more and more severe, shooting into the jaws
and neck or extending to the back of the head and spine. As the pains
get most severe, nausea or vomiting, often repeated, follow, in which
the contents of the stomach, with mucus and bile, is ejected. The whole
paroxysm lasts from five hours to two or even three days.

NEURALGIC HEADACHE is a common variety; often the pain is not confined
to the head, in fact neuralgia may affect almost any part of the system.

NEURALGIA.

Neuralgia is an affection of the nerves, of which the chief symptom is
pain. This is of variable intensity and character. It follows the course
of the affected nerve and its branches, and occurs in paroxysms, of
agonizing pain with periods of intermission during which the pain may be
very slight, and cause but little discomfort.

The severe pain is described as lancinating, cutting, tearing, burning,
boring and pressing. Patients use different words in describing the
attacks, and there is probably a difference in the character of the
pain, though in a severe paroxysm one is scarcely able to make a very
nice distinction. We have known cases in which the pain occurred
suddenly and overwhelmed the patient's fortitude by its severity and
unexpected onset. Between the paroxysms there may be less severe pain,
which is then more frequently of an aching, burning or pricking
character. In some, paroxysm after paroxysm succeed each other with
almost lightening-like rapidity, and even in the intervals the pain is
very intense. At another time there is only one sharp sting of pain,
which attacks recur several times an hour or day, or may be absent for
days or months. An extended freedom from all pain is rare in a patient
very much affected. The first attacks in all forms of neuralgia are
often comparatively light, and the severity of the pain gradually
increases as the attacks multiply. We have frequently had patients
unacquainted with anatomy, map out the distribution of a nerve very
perfectly, simply describing the portion of the body in which