The Problem of Headache

Headache is a symptom known and recorded throughout the ages. There is \ the British Museum a papyrus dating from the twelfth century B.C. in which lS depicted the exorcising of a half temple headache. Plato noted the relationship between headache and emotional disturbance. In America, headache is said to be tne chief complaint in more than half the patients seeking medical advice and is coffl??n enough in this country in all fields of clinical activity. Headache may be the pre' dominant symptom of the most malign and lethal conditions and yet is most coW monly seen in the absence of organic disease. Many of the more serious conditions are no respectors of age. Intracranial tumours may, unlike most neoplasms elsewhete> occur in children or young adults. Intracranial infections, traumatic intracrania haemorrhage and vascular abnormalities also predominate in the younger age groupAs a result, clinicians are always on guard lest they miss the early manifestations 0 organic intracranial disease. Unfortunately, the full investigation of a headache is formidable procedure involving the services of an electro-encephalographic depaf^ ment, a skilled neuro-radiologist and a skilled neuro-surgeon. On the other hand, 1 may be said that, as a generalization, it is easier to diagnose the cause of a headacn on "clinical" grounds than it is to diagnose the cause of almost any other comm?n