Rensselaer Republican, Volume 18, Number 17, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 31 December 1885 — The Reason Why. [ARTICLE]

The Reason Why.

The ino eased and apparently increasing frequency of neuralgic headache among women has a cause. There is one of singular simplicity and quite obvious which has been overlooked, and to which it is worth while to draw attention. The pain experienced is generally located' in one or more of the branches of the second cervical nerve, very commonly those terminating in the scalp at the occiput. As a matter of fact the nerves of the scalp are irritated by the hair being drawn tightly, back and put on a strain, not as a whole, in which the strain would be spread over the large area of the surface, but by small bundles of hair which are pulled back and held in place by hairpins. Belief is also conspicuously experienced as a result of removing the hairpins, but this has only a temporary and partial effect. The injury done is lasting, if not permanent in its consequences. The pres-

ent style of dressing the hair should be discontinued, as it probably, in part, at least, accounts for the extreme prevalence of a form of suffering winch is both intractable and distressing.