Western sentinel. [volume] (Winston [i.e. Winston-Salem], N.C.) 1856-1886, 1880-05-27
Habitual Headache and Brain Ex-
nauStiOn.

nauSuOn.
"The following paper was read
by DIR. TreichIer, upon the dan
gers Of habitual headache and in
tellectnal exertion of the exhausted
brain," at the fifty-secord meeting
OF the German Association of Nat
ural Historians and Physicians,
held at Baden-Baden, 1871
"School hygiene, the youngest
step-child Of medicine, has, till
now, only sought to ward off bodily
mischief; yet as schools are chiefly
concerned with brain activity, it is
very probable that a rich material
lies here before psychology and
psychiatry, and a wide field Of work
in watching over it and raising their
warning voice, that the activity and
excrtien of the brain be ncrrual,
and that it be not allowed to be-
come the canse of serious illness in
later lite. Learned men have been
very egotistical in this respect !;
they observe the mischief in their
own and other peoples children,
but they are so engrossed by their
own special studies and callings
that they allow the health of these
young people to suffer irrcparable
harm and this is especially to be
lamented in the case of young wo-
men, who are far more heavily
weighted than men by the retric-
tions Of fashion and prejudice. Ac-
cording to my experience, habitual
headache has considerably increas-
ed with boys and girls; it destroys
much ct the happiness and cheer
fn!ness OF life, produces aDemia and
want of intellectual tone, and, what
is worse. it reduces many a highly
gifted and poetic soul to the level
of a discontenteG drudge. Physi-
clans and psychologists have paid
far too little attention to this af-
fection as we'll as TO school hygiene,
and 1t would be a good work for
the German Scientific Association
to inaugurate a change in tiiis re-
spect. Although it is more duff
cult to collect precise statistical
data on habitual headache than on
myopia, yet the result of various
Investigations at Darmstadt, Paris,
and Neuenbnrg goes to prove that
one-third Of the pupils suffer from
it. Undoubtedly, the principal
cause is intellectual over-exertior,
entailing work at night, and the
insisting by parents on the too
earnest taking mp of a variety of
subjects-music among the rest
L he pathological anatomical
changes in the worst cases of this
unhealthy condition [ consider to
be disturbance created by anemia
in the nutrition of the ganglion
cells of the cortex of the cerebrum.
1t is we'll known that badly nour-
ished brain is much more quickly
fatigued by intellectual exertlon
than brain in normal condition,
just as is the case with the muscles.
A second cause OF habitual head
ache is passive dilation of the
blood vessels ut the brain also con-
nectcd with serious disturbances of
nutrition, whereby the pcrivascular
space round the capillary vessels is
contracted, and the getting rid of
nsed-np matter greatly impeded.
Modern pathology now looks on
progressive paralysis, in its earliest
stage, as vasonotor disturbance
of nutrition of the cortcx of the
cerebrnrn, in which the vessels of the
pia-matte get into a palsicd condi-
ton of dialation, and we have
degeneration of the cortcx of the
brain produced by stagnation of
the current of lymph. Ii I am cor
rect in this pathological definition
of the two diseases, it is plain that
they have a distant resemblance
and affinity to each other, and that
physicians ought by no means to
ignore them. In hab;tual head
ache the palsied condition of the
brain vessels is transitory in pro-
gressive paralysis it is usually ire
parable. A second great evil, in
the more advanced schools, consists
ir intellectual overlooking of the
pupils, and in their being compell-
ed to take up too many subjects,
also in working on at night, when
the ganglion cells are thoroughly
exhausted. This must produce the
same condition in the brain as
would be produced in the muscles,
if, after a long days march, a
mountain climber were to continue
walking far on into the night, and
were to repeat this day after day.
l might here prove that the method
of instruction nowadays is not only
cause of disease, but also perfect
ly useless, because, Instead of in
creasing knowledge, it produces