In the annals of genius, there occur a number of instances of those who suffered from attacks that have been diagnosed epilepsy or migraine. Because their ailment was associated with their extraordinary ability, they attracted an attention that concerned itself not at all with the circumstance that genius has also been liable to measles, scarlet fever, and so on. Epilepsy and migraine certainly occur in people of no supernormal gifts, and often in degenerates and subnormals. Yet the fact remains that these affections of the nervous system, so terrible to feel and to behold, have afflicted the finest brains of the race. About forty years ago the idea established itself that epilepsy, exhibiting itself in one form or another as "fits," and migraine, the severe periodic sick headache, were interconvertible manifestations of the same underlying morbid process in the brain. Nothing in the way of a concrete cause, attackable on the material side, was elicited by this generalization. Then the investigations of the pituitary in the last decade produced evidence of epilepsy-like and migraine-like symptoms in sufferers from tumors or other enlargements of it. Reasoning back, cases of epilepsy and migraine began to be examined for evidences of involvement of the pituitary in their troubles. These accumulated rapidly. The physiognomy and physique of the pituito-centric were discovered in them. The phenomena noted in Napoleon's case were often present: lowering of the pulse, chilliness, and an increased irritability of the bladder. In women the attack often coincides with the menstrual period, a typical time of endocrine unbalance. Finally X-ray examinations of the sella turcica, the bony lodging of the pituitary, clinched the matter: it often appeared small, or enlarged, with erosions of the bone, signifying a desperate attempt of the gland to grow, and meet the needs of the organism. The complex of appearances called migraine now becomes understandable. There are a number of factors, such as fatigue, intense cold, or high sugar food like chocolate, which will cause an engorgement of the gland with blood and swelling of it. But they do not concern us now. Intense mental occupation, concentration as the popular term has it, acts as a patent excitor of the attack.