Huntsville gazette., 1882-07-29
That Nervous Headache.

What does it come from, friend,
that nervous headache, whose sharp
twinges of pain are wearing out your
strength and sapping your energyP You
have tried tonics and cordials and pills
for it, but it refuses to be exercised.
1t clings to you till you are almost In
despair. It drives you to frantic ex,
clamations of trouble by day, and it Will
not let you sleep at night.
To find out precisely whence 1t came,
we might have to 60 long way back
into the past. 1t IS very possible that
your daughter, just set free from school
by the summer commencement, is re-
peating in her person the follies which
in yours are responsible for the aching
brain and tortured nerves. She has
been studying necessarily, resting her.
self from books of rhetoric and mathe-
matics by an exciting novel, going now
an then to a party, and eating too
little solid food and too many dainties.
Your doing, and not doing the right
things, twenty years ago are among the
causes for your suffering now.
To let the past alone, however, you
need not look further than your work
basket for some or your distress. The
needle is a potent cause of a great
manv peoples neuralgia. The beau
tiful, elaborate, and stylish clothing,
which you think you must make
economy forbidding you to employ
much help in the making-this is wear
ing out your strength. Fewer dresses
for yourself and children, and palmer
attire, would afford you breathing space
and time imperatively needed for sit
ting sometimes with folded hands. Less
worry about the household, less anxiety
about the way things are going to turn
out, less careful thought of the morrow
(Which you have Gods word that He
will care for)-and that headache might
cease to be an attendant phantom.
Very possibly, however, it is neither
worry nor the needle which is at the
bottom of your particular trouble. You
were brought up to regard an abundant
table and great variety Of dainty eata-
bles as sine qua non in housekeeping.
Your grandmother and your mother
were famous for their cakes and confec-
tions, their pastry and preserves, and the
family reputation has not suffered in
your hands. It is not that you person
allv eat so much of the delicate viands
which prove your culinary skill. Every
good cook has known the feeling OF tri-
umph in her own productions, mingled
with an entire lack OF appetite. Either
way, if you are in the habit OF spending
your physical resources on the prepara-
ton Of rich super-elegant food or in the
NJ hif af1 1.rinor food uhInh If
taxes the digestive powers to properly
assimilate, you may thus account for
your headache.
The home table may be spread with
varied and nutritious bill of fare with
out great labor to the housewife, and
with common sense as regards health.
Cereals may be prepared for the daily
breakfast, and whether rice, oatmeal,
wheaton grits, crushed corn, or farina
are preferred, none of them are un-
wholesome and all are easily cooked.
The mistake made by most cooks is in
hurrying over their making of porridges.
Porridges require slow coaxing, sim
mering, steaming, and brooding over
gentle fires, to bring out their best quail
tiles. One may read, sew, or dream,
practice her scales, or write her letter,
while her oatmeal, in its leisurely swell
ing, is yielding up its inner sweetness.
Fruits uncooked, or stewed soups and
broths, which are not the trouble the
uninitiated imagine, and juicy meats,
boiled, broiled, or baked, furnish forth
the family table well and sensibly. And
no lurking headache hides in such diet
as they supply, unless people over-eat, or
eat at irregular times, or eat when over
wearied and exhausted.
The truth of the matter is that many
bodily ailments are very much within
our own power of control or banishment,
and that the last thing in most cases to
be done is to fly to stimulants, narcotics,
or other drugs. for a temporary relief
which leaves the main trouble unhelped
and unchecked d-Chy.istin2 T,1feIL0e72rer.