The occasional or exciting causes of headach, then, are principally these:—
- Emotions of mind, as fear, terror, and agitation of spirits; yet these will sometimes take off headach when present at the time.
- Whatever either increases or disorders the general circulation, and especially all causes that increase the action of the cerebral arteries, or, as it is usually though improperly expressed, which occasion a determination of blood to the head. Of the former kind are violent exercise, and external heat applied to the surface generally, as by a heated atmosphere or the hot bath; of the latter, the direct application of heat to the head; falls or blows, occasioning a shock to the brain; stooping; intense thinking; intoxicating drinks, and other narcotic substances. These last, however, as well as mental emotions, often relieve a paroxysm of headach, though they favour its return afterwards.
- A disordered state of the stomach, of which a vomiting of bile may be one symptom, is also to be ranked among the occasional causes of headach.
These occasional causes do not in general produce their effect, unless where a predisposition to the disease exists. This predisposition is often hereditary, or it may be acquired by long-protracted study and habits of intoxication.—Dr. Clutterbuck's Lectures on the Diseases of the Nervous System.
HYDROPHOBIA.
There is no cure for this disease when once the symptoms show themselves. A variety of remedies have from time to time been advertised by quacks. The "Ormskirk Medicine," at one time, was much in vogue; it had its day, but it did not cure the disease, nor, as far as I know, did it mitigate any of its symptoms. With regard to the affection of the mind itself in this disease, it does not appear that the patients are deprived of reason; some have merely, by the dint of resolution, conquered the dread of water, though they never could conquer the convulsive motions which the contact of liquids occasioned; while this resolution has been of no avail, for the convulsions and other symptoms increasing, have almost always destroyed the unhappy sufferers. —Abernethy's Lectures.
EFFECTS OF KINDNESS ON THE SICK.
Under all circumstances, man is a poor and pitiable being, when stricken down by disease. Sickened and subdued, his very lineaments have a voice which calls for commiseration and assistance. Celsus says, that knowing two physicians equally intelligent, he should prefer the one who was his friend, for the obvious reason that he would feel a deeper interest in his welfare. Kindness composes, and harshness disturbs the mind, and each produces correspondent effects upon the body. A tone, a look, may save or destroy life in extremely delicate cases. Whatever may be the prognosis given to friends, in all febrile cases, the most confident and consoling language about the ultimate recovery should be used to the sick, as prophecies not unfrequently contribute to bring about the event foretold, by making people feel, or think, or act, differently from what they otherwise would have done. Again, in chronic cases, as time is required for their cure, by explaining to the patient this fact, we maintain his confidence, we keep his mind easy, and thus gain a fair opportunity for the operation of regimen or remedies; in short, the judicious physician, like the Roman general, Fabius, conquers through delay, by cutting off the supplies, and wearing out the strength of the enemy. In large cities, where the mind is so much overwrought in the various schemes of private ambition, or of public business, anxiety is very frequently the grand opposing circumstance to recovery; so that while the causes which produced it are allowed to operate, mere medical prescription is of no avail. The effects of this anxiety are visible in the pallid face and wasted body. But if the patient be possessed of philosophy enough to forego his harassing pursuits; if he have not, from the contact and cares of the world, lost his relish for the simple and sublime scenes of nature, a removal into the country is of the utmost efficacy. The deformity and conflict of the moral world are exchanged for the beauty and calm of the physical world; and surrounded by all the poetry of earth and heaven, the mind regains its peace, and the health, as if by magic, is perfectly restored.—Dr. Armstrong's Lectures.
DIET.
Experience has taught us that the nature of our food is not a matter of indifference to the respiratory organs. Diseased lungs are exasperated by a certain diet, and pacified by one of an opposite kind. The celebrated diver, Mr. Spalding, observed, that whenever he used a diet of animal food, or drank spirituous liquors, he consumed in a much shorter period the oxygen of the atmospheric air in his diving-bell; and he therefore, on such occasions, confined himself to vegetable diet. He also found the same effect to arise from the use of fermented liquors, and he accordingly restricted himself to the potation of simple water. The truth of these results is confirmed by the habits of the Indian pearl-divers, who always abstain from every alimentary stimulus previous to their descent into the ocean.—Dr. Paris on Diet.