In 1832 Dr. James Mease, of Philadelphia published a monograph on "The Cause, Cure, and Prevention of the Sick Headache," which is substantially a treatise on the dietetics of this particular form of headache. The work, however, is conspicuously lacking in those philosophical qualities which are so necessary to a true understanding of the questions involved. Dr. E.H. Sieveking published in 1854 a most interesting paper on "Chronic and Periodical Headache." The views therein expressed are remarkable for their succinct and thoroughly scientific elucidation of the two great physiological principles involved in the consideration of by far the greater majority of instances of cephalalgia. I refer namely to the importance ascribed by this eminent physician to the fluctuations of the blood-stream within the cranial vault. In speaking of this subject Dr. Sieveking says: "Nothing is of more importance in reference to the pathology and therapeutics of the head than clear and well-defined notions on the physiological subject of the circulation within the cranium; for, among the various sources of medical skepticism, no one is more puzzling or more destructive of logical practice than a contradiction between the doctrine of physiology and the daily practice of medicine."

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