Some  relief  is  often  given  to  the  pain,  but  the  relief  is  transient  only,  and  it
is  doubtful  whether  guarana  is  really  more  effective  than  tea  and  coffee.
Antipyrin,  in  ten-  or  fifteen-grain  doses,  has  also  been  recently  recom-
mended.
Local  applications  sometimes  afford  slight  relief — sedative  liniments  of
belladonna,  aconite,  etc.,  or  simple  counter-irritation  by  a  mustard  plaster
to  the  nape  of  the  neck.  Solid  menthol  is  occasionally  useful,  rubbed  on
the  skin  for  a  few  minutes  where  the  pain  is  greatest,  but  it  is  too  feeble  an
agent  to  have  much  influence  on  any  severe  pain.  Sometimes  relief  is
afforded  by  a  hot  bath  of  mustard  and  water  to  the  feet,  and  in  all  cases  it  is
well  to  keep  the  extremities  warm.
*  Guarana  contains  twice  as  much  of  the  alkaloid  as  tea,  and  five  times  as  much  as
coffee.
HEADACHE.  1189

Electricity  is  not  often  of  service.  Faradaism  usually  does  harm.  The
voltaic  current  passed  through  the  head  occasionally  gives  transient,  but
rarely  permanent,  -relief.  Repeated  galvanization  of  the  sympathetic  has
been  recommended  in  Germany  as  a  remedial  measure,  one  pole  pressed
deeply  in  front  of  the  sterno-mastoid,  the  other  held  in  the  hand,  and  it  is
advised  that  when  the  symptoms  of  vasomotor  spasm  predominate,  the  posi-
tive pole  should  be  placed  over  the  sympathetic,  and  the  negative  when
there  is  evidence  of  vasomotor  paralysis  (Berger,  Horst).  The  value  of  the
treatment  is  very  doubtful.
HEADACHE.
Headache  is  a  symptom  of  almost  all  kinds  of  morbid  states  of  the  sys-
tem, and  can  scarcely  ever  be  regarded  as,  in  itself,  a  definite  disease.
