head
aches, it is, nine times out of ten, simply doing a combination of
scapegoat and fire-alarm duty for the rest of the body. Just as the
brain is the servant of the body, rather than its master, so the devoted
head meekly offers itself as a sort of vicarious atonement for the sins
of the entire body. It is the eloquent spokesman of such "mute,
inglorious Miltons" as the stomach, the liver, the muscles, and the
heart. The humblest and least distinguished of all the organs of the
body can order the lordly head to ache for it, and the head has no
alternative but to obey.

To discuss the cause of headaches is like discussing the cause of the
human species. It is one of the commonest facts of every-day
observation, and can be demonstrated almost at will, that any one of a
hundred different causes,--a stuffy room, a broken night's sleep, a
troublesome letter, a few extra hours of work, eating something that
disagrees, a cold, a glare of light in the eyes,--any and all of these
may bring on a headache. The problem of avoiding headaches is the
problem of the whole conduct of life.

Two or three broad generalizations, however, can be made from the
confused and enormous mass of data at our disposal, which are of both
philosophic interest and practical value. One of these is that, while
headache is felt in the head, and particularly in those regions that lie
over the brain, the brain has comparatively little to do with the pain.
Headache is neither a mark of intellectuality, nor, with rare
exceptions, a sign of cerebral disturbance. Indeed, it is far more a
matter of the digestion, the muscles, and the ductless glands, than it
is of the brain, or even of the nervous system. It is, therefore, idle
to endeavor either to treat or try to prevent it by measures directed
to the head, the brain, or even the nervous system as such.

Secondly, it is coming to be more and more clearly recognized that,
while its causes are legion, a very large percentage of these
practically and eventually operate by producing a toxic, or poisoned,
condition of the blood, which, circulating through certain delicate and
sensitive nerve-strands in the head and face, give rise to the sensation
of pain.

Thirdly, the tissues which give out this pain-cry under the torture of
the toxins in the blood are, in a large majority of cases, neither the
brain, nor the nerves of the eye, nor other special senses, but the
nerves of common sensation which supply the