Migraine

This very rich book by Katherine Foxhall is a joy to read. Each of the major chapters begins with an excerpt from a primary source written in a particular historical period, describing the sufferings and treatment of a patient with migraine: a tenth-century medical text and collection of recipes, a sixteenth-century letter pleading for help, nineteenth-century case notes from the National Hospital for the Paralyzed and Epileptic in Queen Square, London. Through these and other examples, Foxhall develops the changing medical and cultural perceptions of this long-known and agonising disorder, showing how its lived experiences transcend our current neurological definitions. The culmination is a series of artworks from the Migraine Art Competition (sponsored by the British Migraine Association, 1980–87), which present with ‘visceral clarity’ (p. 217) the impact of migraine pain on its victims’ daily lives. The reader closes the book with a greater understanding of the disorder and its

Genealogy · Migraine · Psychiatry · Diverse Historical and Scientific Studies · History · History of Science and Medicine · Medical History and Innovations · Psychology