=Neuralgia and Headache.=--In the grown person neuralgia, as many of us know to our cost, is by no means infrequent; in the child it is very rare, and when a child complains of severe pain in the head, or of severe pain to the knee or hip apart from rheumatism, it is almost invariably the sign of disease of the brain in the one case, of the hip-joint in the other. To this rule there are indeed exceptions, but it will always be well to leave it to the doctor to determine--no easy matter by the bye--whether any given case is one of the rare exceptions or not. There is, however, one form of real _neuralgic headache_ which is by no means rare in children after the commencement of the second dentition, and which sometimes goes on into early manhood or womanhood, when it becomes what is commonly known as sick headache. It is essentially an ailment of development, incidental to the time when the brain is first called on for the performance of its higher functions. It does not by any means always depend on over-study, though I do not remember meeting with it in children who had not yet gone into the school-room; and I have frequently found it dependent on too continuous application, though the number of hours devoted to study in the course of the day may not have been by any means excessive. The child's brain soon tires, and the arrangement, so convenient to parents of morning lessons and afternoon play, works far less well for it than if the time were more equally divided between the two. The attacks not infrequently come on on waking in the morning, and rapidly become worse, the pain, which is almost always referred to the forehead, being attended with much intolerance of light and sound, with nausea, and often with actual vomiting. Like the vomiting of sea-sickness, however, previous stomach disorder has no necessary share in its production, and I may add, indeed, that it is often difficult to assign any special exciting cause for the attack. The suffering is more often relieved by warm or tepid than by cold applications, and not infrequently pressure or a tight bandage greatly mitigates it. In no case does the attack last more than twelve hours--usually not more than half that time; it passes off with sleep, and leaves the patient weak and with a degree of tenderness of the head to the touch. Such attacks may occur every fortnight, ten days, or even oftener, but their very frequent return, instead of increasing apprehension, should diminish anxiety. A first attack, indeed, may seem as though it threatened mischief, till it is seen how speedily and completely it passes off, and when afterwards a second or a third attack comes on with the same severity of onset, the same rapid worsening, and the same quick passing away, you will feel convinced that the symptoms have no grave meaning.