Migraine  is  an  affection  characterized  by  paroxysmal  nervous  disturbance,
of  which  headache  is  the  most  constant  element.  ■  The  pain  is  seldom  absent
and  may  exist  alone,  but  it  is  commonly  accompanied  by  nausea  and  vomit-
ing, and  it  is  often  preceded  by  some  sensory  disturbance,  especially  by  some
disorder  of  the  sense  of  sight.  The  symptoms  are  frequently  one-sided,  and
from  this  character  of  the  headache  the  name  is  derived,  the  Greek  "  hemi-
crania "  (still  often  employed)  furnishing  the  French  migraine,  the  Ger-
man migran,  and  the  English  megrim.*  The  French  word  is  that  most
frequently  employed,  and  is,  on  the  whole,  the  most  convenient.  On
account  of  the  associations  of  the  pain,  it  has  received  the  popular  names  of
"  blind  headache,"  "sick  headache,"  and  "  bilious  headache,"  the  latter
being  derived  partly  from  the  fact  that  bile  is  often  vomited,  partly  from  the
old  humoral  pathology  which  regarded  the  bile  as  one  of  the  chief  morbific
fluids  of  the  body.  The  disease  is  often  associated  with  high  intellectual
ability,  and  many  distinguished  scientific  men  have  suffered  from  it  and  have
supplied  more  careful  observations  of  the  subjective  symptoms  than  we  pos-
ses of  any  other  malady.  Among  the  sufferers  may  be  mentioned  the  cele-
brated -Dr.  Fothergill,  Marmontel,  Haller,  Wollaston,  Du  Bois  Reymond,
Sir  Charles  Wheatstone,  Sir  John  Herschel],  Sir  George  Airy,  and  his  son,
Dr.  Hubert  Airy.f


*  The  English  word  has  been  developed  by  the  following  steps,  going  backward  :  megrim,
megrene,  emigranea;  Low  Latin,  hemigranea;  Latin,  hemicranea,  hemicranium;  Greek,
ilfiiKpaviov  (Skeat).
+  Dr.  H.  Airy  has  given  a  very  interesting  account  of  his  ocular  symptoms  in  the  Philo-
sophical Transactions  for  1870.  The  best  systematic  account  of  the  disease  is  that  of  Dr.
