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" Thus Aretaeus describes it, under the name of Heterocrania: And in certain cases the whole head is pained, and the pain is sometimes on the right, and sometimes on the left side, or the forehead, or the fontanelle; and such attacks shift their place during the same day … This is called Heterocrania, an illness by no means mild … It occasions unseemly and dreadful symptoms … nausea; vomiting of bilious matters; collapse of the patient … there is much torpor, heaviness of the head, anxiety; and life becomes a burden. For they flee the light; the darkness soothes their disease; nor can they bear readily to look upon or hear anything pleasant … The patients are weary of life and wish to die. "

Oliver Sacks , Migraine


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Oliver Sacks quote : Thus Aretaeus describes it, under the name of Heterocrania: And in certain cases the whole head is pained, and the pain is sometimes on the right, and sometimes on the left side, or the forehead, or the fontanelle; and such attacks shift their place during the same day … This is called Heterocrania, an illness by no means mild … It occasions unseemly and dreadful symptoms … nausea; vomiting of bilious matters; collapse of the patient … there is much torpor, heaviness of the head, anxiety; and life becomes a burden. For they flee the light; the darkness soothes their disease; nor can they bear readily to look upon or hear anything pleasant … The patients are weary of life and wish to die.