Cephalalgy and massage / by Gustaf Norström.

  • Norström, Gustaf.
Date:
1896
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Cephalalgy and massage / by Gustaf Norström. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    12/78 (page 6)
    its original form and say hemicrania. This is a pity, be- cause it seems to convey the meaning that the pain is localized in one of the halves of the head while it so often is extended to both. Do we find more unanimity as regards the pathogeny? We only have to read the chapter of the book in question to be edified. There are tempting theories. Ardent pleadings have been written in favor of one or the other. Thomas has meditated about them and frankly exposed them. One might think that he approves of them all, but when he comes to the critical appreciation, the improba- bilities are accumulated, the contradictions stare one in the face and from all this framework there only remain hypotheses without any proofs, the analysis of which is often cruel. After having argued and considered everything, the author, by exclusion, arrives at such a timid and doubting opinion that it is difficult to undertake to prove that it is false. All probabilities are in favor of a neuralgia hav- ing its primitive seat in a definite branch of the trigem- inal nerve. The irritation is later on propagated to the fiber of the sympathetic nerve and perhaps to the cerebral substance. Multiple causes can produce the attack of a constitutional nature; rheumatism and gout in particular prepare the ground. Which modifications have they im- pressed upon the nervous elements? This we cannot tell. Is this, then, that classic neurosis with such striking symptoms which I was reproached with not recognizing? An impartial author has the courage to go to the bot- tom of everything and to examine it without preconceived