The Waterbury Democrat., 1931-04-29
THE AURA OF MIGRAINE

The neurosis commonly known as periodic
 one sided sick headaches is medically called mi
 graine An ld-fashoned way of saying mgraine | was megrim. That physicians classify the trou- l ble neuross does not mean that 1t is just | nerves" Doctors call any ailment that manifests itself mainly through disturbance of functions Of ogy. a neurosis. Primarily person having such l an ailment is q neurotic. but thls term has been
 loosely and unintelligentlv used by the laity h.
 til it has lost it's original nearing and now means anything nothing, prfeerably something cow 1 ardly or low. When say d neurosis has no def mite pathology, I mean we know of no particular organic change or damage or lesion Whlch accounts for the trouble. For instance. epilepsy is a neuross; doctor can tell by examination of the patient by examination of the body aft
 CT death. that the individual has or had epilepsy Epilepsy has been called a motor neuross and migraine a sensory neurosis. There Is consider | able similarity between the two. Either condition fly of an alcoholic forbear or a feeble minded forbear or drug addict or one who was queer lepsy. may occur here and there in family | where no such neuro:ic ancenstry can be traced. The truth is we know nothing whatVer aoout the cause of either ailment.
 An aura or warning precedes the seizure of epilepsy the seizure of mgraine. Without such aura we can scarcely make positive diagnosis of mierane. Sometimes the migrane victim has the aura yet escapes the headache or the nausea
 and vomiting altogether or suffers only shght attack E.. The aura of migraine in most cases is what doctors call "fortifcation scotomata That vision the victim has for several minutes before
 the headache belings. The scotomata are usually limited to One-nalI or the VISUAL o'' which the headache is felt. , There is just one kind of headache which l think is worse than migraine-I have never had either kind, but judge by the sufferings have seen. That is what one might call Jumping head- 1 ache--tic doloreauX At any rate tne vict,m os m of hours days his or her attacks usually iast
 The victim of tic do. serves an indeterminate sem tence. . ,, ,,u,, But heaven knows migrainc is bad enough, | and hundred times more common than JIG: AS an honest practitioaer-believe it or not--I have 1 always been glad of that. for you can JoHy a migraine patient along some of the tune, put by gravy you just have to break down and cry over your impotence when you encounter a poor wretch in the throes of tic doloreaux. encoun- tered such a when was young tyro doe tor and it nearly drove me into some other career.
 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS Too Much Salt and Water McColIum and Simmonds whose book. Food,
 CTS, advise drinking pint or more of salt water
 before breakfast every day tO clean out tnc sn.
 eacI, pint of water Is there any objection 10
 Ina btua long continued use of tliis lt ls Fatn.
 CT effort for me to drink so much water m the
 morning. (R. M)
 Answer--I consider that advice bad. and as l have carefully explained more than once In this column neither McCollum nor slmmonds Is qual- flied to give advice about the treatment of any
 ament. That chapter in the otherwise excellent m
 s book wbo Spsa eS soe o ca e auaed to deal with all matters of health or pathology ana t seems that nearly every customer thinks so too' Folks Are Lucky in Kentucky [ have been removing tOnsiIs by clcctr0.cOaeu. Iatl0n In whole or in part. fOr Che past seven
 years. say in pari f0F as you point out. thi. Is sufficient in many cases. ! am cussed and dl.' eusscd by my colleagues for using this mesn0u'
 but tO.dny ! finished up An old dissection SoD' -. M D)
 Answer--It must have beon hard fife for you six years ago. Doctor lt is only within the past
 yenr or sO that the old fossils In our profession
 have suddenly pot the soft pedal on their euasine nnd cleaned out some Of the e0bwebs fron the consolidation room Co make room for diathermv outfils