[The present treatment of headaches (author's transl)]. / Thérqpeutiques actuelles des céphalées.

Considered from the point of view of clinical practice, the treatment of chronic headache may be either symptomatic and etiological or physiopathological. Progress in symptomatic treatment depends first on the reasonable and graduated use of pure analgesics, looking out for the toxic side effects of the usual drugs and then the fairly definite efficacy of certain psychotropic drugs. The discovery of an etiology gives a specific dimension to the treatment: either anti-cerebral oedema drugs with above all tetracosactide, a diagnostic test of cerebral tumours, or antidepressor or tranquillizer drugs, depending on the variety of disturbance to be corrected. An attack of migraine always benefits from ergotamine used occasionally and in limited dosage (not more than 6 mg daily or 10 mg per week). For the basic treatment the drugs act mainly peripherally and fairly regularly in the following order: methysergide, beta-blockaders, pizotifene, cyproheptadine, oxetorone. Other drugs have a central effect, Tiapridal, MAO inhibitors which are too often neglected, and clonazepam which is not very easy to use.

[Peripheral facial paralysis and post-antirabies-vaccination polyneuroradiculitis (author's transl)]. / Paralysies faciales périphériques et polyradiculonévrites post-vaccino-rabiques. A propos d'un cas de diplégie faciale avec dissociation albumino-cytologique.

A case of facial diplegia with albuminocytologic dissociation of cerebrospinal fluid after antirabies vaccination prompts the author to attempt a retrospective study of post-antirabies-vaccination neuropathies, with facial or extensive involvement. Fifty-seven cases are considered. Irrespective of vaccine type, certain clinical similarities emerge, notably the age of occurrence (adult), the early onset of the paralysis (during vaccine therapy or in the following week), and the prognosis (good survival rate, severity of functional impairment varying with extent of involvement). The author attributes the main pathogenic role to the peripheral myelinic basic protein contained in varying proportions in conventional vaccines, the corollary being that such accidents should disappear completely with the new vaccination based on tissue culture material. A therapy programme comprising the discontinuation of vaccine therapy and administration of corticoids is proposed.