You know that a headache is like other diseases in that the cause must be suppressed and something opposite must be opposed to it. Then, useful measures that stop headaches include reducing the amount of food, drinking, especially wine, and getting more sleep. However, excessive dietary restriction is just as harmful for a hot headache as increased nutrition for a chronic headache. For a headache, there is nothing more beneficial than calmness and abstinence from everything that moves the juices, such as intercourse, long thoughts, and the like. For headaches caused by matter, you should try to divert the juices down, at least even with the help of hot enemas. In addition, strong enemas should be given so that they can empty the area of the liver and stomach. Among the strong remedies that pull matter down and relieve headaches is rubbing the legs, after which the patient often falls asleep, sometimes this is done to the patient continuously until the headache goes away. If you want to use ointments and medicinal dressings for a strong, constant headache, whether it is hot or cold, then you need to shave your head: this helps the power of the medicine penetrate more into the head. Placing a crown of dough or wool on the crown of the head also helps: it prevents the liquid substances that are poured on the head from draining, so that the brain completely absorbs them and the air does not carry away their force so quickly.
Philagry says: For someone who wants his headache to go away and never return, it is very useful to bleed from the frontal vein, constantly place blood-sucking cups on the lower part of the head, rub the limbs and put them in hot water, walk a little and not take foamy, steamy and slow-digesting food. And I say: we often poured hot water on the limbs of those suffering from headaches and did this for a long time, and the patient felt that the pain seemed to descend from the head to the limbs and at the same time dissipate. Know that sour dishes are not suitable for patients suffering from headaches, unless the headache is caused by the complicity of the stomach and the dishes do not belong to those that tan the mouth of the stomach, strengthen it and prevent the outpouring of bile into it.
If, with a constant headache, any new concomitant phenomenon arises that causes suffering, then direct treatment to it as well, for sometimes such phenomena become the cause of an intensification of the main ailment due to which they arose. So, for example, if insomnia occurs due to a headache and then intensifies, then it itself becomes one of the causes of increased headaches and must be eliminated. In the case that we gave as an example, you need, say, to use such remedies as pumpkin and willow oil, water lily oil, as well as milk of various animals scented with camphor, and the like. Sometimes in such cases it is necessary to induce a slight numbness and euthanize the patient. For any headache accompanied by catarrh, do not try to cool and moisturize the head with oils and the like, but, on the contrary, resort to emptying and bandaging the limbs, rubbing them and immersing them in hot water. If you want to apply medicines to the head, the power of which penetrates inside the head, then, as you already know, there is no need to apply them anywhere except the front of the head, where the coronal suture is located, as well as the crown, for the penetration of such drugs can be expected precisely in these two places. As for the back of the brain, the bone that surrounds it is harder and does not penetrate through it what should penetrate into the brain. If the penetrating power of the medicine is increased, then the benefit from this is no greater than from the medicine applied only to the front of the head and to the middle of the crown; besides, if this medicine is cooling, then it harms those places where the nerves begin and the base of the spinal cord is located, but you can do without it.
A headache with painful throbbing sometimes accompanies a hot or cold swelling. This is a pain that seems to beat like a pulse. If the cause is hot, then coolants are used, || which are characterized by some softness; They also use blood-sucking cups on the back of the head, place leeches on the temples and bandage the limbs. If the cause is cold, then resort to absorbable agents, also adding strengthening and somewhat cold substances; for example, rose oil is mixed with rue or mint. If such a headache becomes so severe that in children it even leads to rupture of the sutures of the skull, then finely ground celandine mixed with rose oil and vinegar, used as an ointment after the head has been washed with water and salt, is praised as a remedy. When using strong absorbable agents introduced into the nose, use them gradually, as stated in the Canon. While possible, you should not resort to numbing agents; however, we will mention some of them in the paragraph on drugs that soothe headaches by causing numbness.
Know that vomiting is not a treatment for headaches. It is very harmful to the headache sufferer, unless it arises due to a disease of the stomach and its complicity. In this case, vomiting is beneficial. If the pain in the back of the head is not due to fever, then it is treated first by emptying it with a laxative decoction corresponding to the strength of the patient, and then by bloodletting. If someone feels that his headache is moving and it is soothed by the cold, then he should definitely bleed or put cupping so that the constant pain does not attract excess to the head.