The Female Physician / Containing all the diseases incident to that sex, in virgins, wives, and widows; together with their causes and symptoms, their degrees of danger, and respective methods of prevention and cure: to which is added, the whole art of new improv'd midwifery; comprehending the necessary qualifications of a midwife, and particular directions for laying women, in all cases of difficult and preternatural births; together with the diet and regimen of both the mother and child.

CHAP. XI.
Of the HEAD-ACH.

OF all the Parts of the Body, the Head is most expos’d to Pains; that is, to a troublesome and grievous Sensation of the Membranous Parts; proceeding from Vapours of the noxious Humours; which ascending to the Head, distend and rend, in a manner, the Membranes of the Brain.

THE Parts most commonly affected, are the Hairy Scalp, the Pericranium, and the Diploe; That is, the medullous Duplicature of the Cranium, otherways call’d the Meditullium: For these Parts, by a continual Solution, when it happens so, are always most severely pain’d. But besides, in a Woman that has conceiv’d, the Pains commonly shift and move from one Place, to another, of the Head; and take certain Intervals, longer or shorter, betwixt their Access and Recess.

BUT as the Infant grows, and exhausts a greater Quantity, or at last the whole of the Blood; and as the Humours fix in their proper Place: So this Symptom gradually goes off, and quite ceases.

HOWEVER, in case the Accesses be long and violent, they may be discreetly cur’d by repelling and mitigating Applications, or by peculiar Corroboratives and Discutients, or proper Alteratives, according to the Nature and Quality of the Cause. I refer what may be farther added on this Head, to Sect. IX. Chap. 3.