In Case the Hair of the Dog Doesn't Work...

Just in case yesterday's post about the proverbial hair of the dog doesn't do the trick and you're too hungover to enjoy today's bowl games, here are a few possible solutions.

Genuine Aspirin, and you better say Bayer or God only knows what kind of quackery you'll wind up swallowing! This 1922 ad from Cosmopolitan (back when they did more than sex quizzes) gives the list of conditions for which you should pop an aspirin. Not too many people complain of lumbago any more and, for the most part, "rheumatism" has been replaced with good ol' arthritis. I'm guessing that a hangover would fall into the "pain, pain" category though no magazine of this era would expressly mention overindulgence in alcohol. In 1922 the insanity of Prohibition was in full force with federal agents and hatchet-wielding vigilantes like Carry Nation prowling the streets. Better to say you have a bad case of pain-pain than admit to buying bootleg hooch and face jail time or worse.

But what if we want to get right down to the source of our pain? What if we're interested in literally rooting out the cause and eliminating it all together? Well, we could reference this 1911 article from Pearson's Magazine entitled The Cure for Headaches. In it the author proposes that there are seven causes of headaches:

• Headaches from constipation
• The gluttonous headache
• The alcoholic headache
• The eye strain headache
• The catarrhal headache
• The sick headache
• The headache from chronic syphilis

Quite a list. We're concerned with the alcoholic headache in this post, but if you're interested catarrhal refers to inflammation of the mucous membranes. I guess old doc Maris wouldn't have felt he'd earned his white lab coat and stethoscope if he hadn't thrown in a few three-dollar words. I love the phrasing, "...more than one third of all headaches is the result of chemical embarrassments of some part of the digestive tract." The doctor goes on to compare headaches to disease caused by clogged sewers...and assuming your in the middle of a digestive embarrassment right now, I'll leave it at that. Dr. Maris' prescription - diet, exercise, and castor oil.

I think I'd go with the aspirin and a snooze on the couch, if I were you.