Brown-Séquard's Comment on Du Bois-Reymond's “Hemikrania Sympathicotonica”

Abstract

In 1859 the famous physiologist Du Bois-Reymond, a migraine sufferer, stated that migraine could be due to an increased sympathicotonic influence on the blood vessels of one side of the head. Migraine, hethought, was not a disease of the brain or cranial blood vessels, but of the cilio-spinal center in the spinal cord. The physician and physiologist Brown-Séquard, who, independently from Claude Bernard, discovered and interpreted the action of the vasomotor nerves in the early 1850s, commented on Du Bois-Reymond's paper, stating that irritation of the cervical sympathetic does not cause pain. From his great experience from animal experiments and clinical observations he had concluded that stimulation of the cervical sympathetic would cause epileptic seizures, rather than migraine attacks. He felt that Du Bois-Reymond's observations would better fit a sympathico-paralytic model of migraine. He was seconded by other physicians like Möllendorff, until Latham tried to unify both theories.