Headache Causes

18-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:

Monday, September 15, 1913: For one thing I’ve had a splitting headache this afternoon and it still continues.

Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:

Ouch. . . headaches are no fun! I wonder what caused Grandma’s headache.

Here is what a hundred-year-old book said about headaches causes:

Headache is a symptom rather than a disease, but there is no symptom which requires more careful investigation of its cause than that of headache. It occurs at all ages, but is most common from ten to twenty-five years and from thirty-five to forty-five years. Women suffer from headache more than men, in the proportion of about three to one. Headaches are most common in the spring and fall of the year and in the temperate climates.

Causes of headache—These may be classified into those in which the blood is at fault; reflex causes; various nervous disorders; and organic diseases.

The blood may be impoverished, as in the case of anemia, where there is a deficiency in hemoglobin; but by far the most frequent cause of headache is where the blood is disordered, as in gout, rheumatism, kidney diseases, diabetes, and the infectious fevers and malaria.

Among the more common reflex causes are eye-strain, especially errors of refraction; disorders of digestion, particularly constipation; and pelvic disorders, as in inflammation of the pelvic viscera.

Functional diseases of the nervous system causing headache are overwork, neurasthenia, hysteria, epilepsy, and neuritis.

Among the most common of the organic diseases is arteriosclerosis; other diseases are meningitis and brain tumors.

Personal Hygiene and Physical Training for Women (1911) by Anna M. Galbraith

You also enjoy reading a previous post on Old-Time Headache Remedies.

Unexpected Visitors and Harvest Home Sunday

18-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:

Sunday, September 9, 1913: We got company today for a wonder. It was Alma and her folks. They took us by surprise.

Ruth and I went up to church this evening. They had Harvest Home services.

Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:

Alma was Grandma’s cousin—as well as a friend. In August Grandma visited Alma for three days.

A hundred years ago many families–including the Muffly’s–didn’t have phones, so if people wanted to let someone know that they were coming to visit, they needed to send a post card or letter.

Back then it was considered much more acceptable to just drop in than what it is now. . . and Sunday was considered one of the best times to go “visiting.”

Harvest Home

Harvest home Sunday was an annual event that churches held in the fall to celebrate, and to thank the Lord for, the bountiful harvest.

Often people decorated the church for the service with fruits and vegetables from their farms and gardens. After the service the food would be given to a needy family. Did Grandma and her sister Ruth take any produce to the service?

Hundred-Year-Old Advice About the Right and Wrong Ways to Care for a Baby

18-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:

Saturday, September 13, 1913: This day is a good bit like some other days.

Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:

Since Grandma didn’t write much a hundred years ago today, I’m going to share some fun drawings of the wrong and right ways to care for a baby that appeared in the October, 1913 issue of Ladies Home Journal.

Wrong

Right

Colgate’s Ribbon Dental Cream Advertisement

18-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:

Friday, September 12, 1913: I’ve forgotten for today.

Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:

Since Grandma didn’t write much a hundred years ago today, I’ll share a hundred-year-old ad for Colgate’s Ribbon Dental Cream that was in the March, 1913 issue of Ladies Home Journal.

Care of the teeth twice-a-day and every day is a good habit easily formed with Colgate’s.

COLGATE’S RIBBON DENTAL CREAM

DELICIOUS

ANTISEPTIC

ECONOMICAL

COMES OUT A RIBBON

LIES FLAT ON THE BRUSH

CANNOT ROLL OFF THE BRUSH

Its flavor is delicious—making its use a treat and insuring regularity.

Its antiseptic action is thorough—checking the germs which cause decay.

Its cleansing is safe—removing deposits and leaving the mouth non-acid without over-medication.

Every member of your household—man, woman and child—should have an individual tube.

Single tubes and boxes of half dozen at our dealer’s—or send us 2 cents for a trial tube and our booklet “Oral Hygiene.”

COLGATE & CO.

Dept. H

199 Fulton St., New York

Maker of Cashmere Bouquet Soap—luxurious, lasting, refined.

According to the Colgate website:

Colgate introduced its toothpaste in a tube similar to modern-day toothpaste tubes in the 1890s.

Until after 1945, toothpastes contained soap. After that time, soap was replaced by other ingredients to make the paste into a smooth paste or emulsion—such as sodium lauryl sulphate, a common ingredient in present-day toothpaste.

Old-fashioned Crab Apple Jelly Recipe

18-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:

Thursday, September 11, 1913: Nothing much.

Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:

Grandma, you must have done something. Were you too tired to write much because you spent the day in the kitchen helping your mother with the canning?

I made Crab Apple Jelly last week-end. It’s the season for crab apples—maybe you also made some a hundred years ago.

Crab Apple Jelly

5 pounds (approximately 10 cups) crab apples

8 cups water

Sugar

Remove stem and blossom ends from washed crab apples, cut in halves and place in large pan. Add water and cook until fruit is very soft, about 10 minutes.

Strain the mixture through a jelly bag. Do not squeeze or force just through bag.

Measure juice. There should be approximately 7 cups. Pour into a large pan. Stir in 3/4 cups of sugar for each cup of juice. Bring to a boil quickly and cook rapidly until the “jellying” point is reached. This is when the hot liquid coats the spoon and falls from the spoon in heavy drops (two drops forming side by side along the spoon edge that run together and fall off together). Immediately remove from heat. Do not overcook or the mixture will become a syrup rather than a jelly.

Skim off foam and pour into hot one-half pint jars to within 1/4 inch of the top. Wipe jar rim and adjust lids. Process in boiling water bath for 5 minutes.

Makes about 5 – 6 half pints.

1913 Books That Have Stood the Test of Time

18-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:

Wednesday, September 10, 1913: Didn’t feel the best the morning. Commenced reading a book.

Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:

What book was Grandma reading?

Goodreads lists two hundred books published in 1913 that are still in widely read. They probably were not the most popular books at the time, but rather they are the books that have endured –and whose message apparently continues to resonate a hundred years later.

Fifteen books on the list that I recognized the title or author are listed below:

1. O Pioneers by Willa Cather

2. Sons and Lovers by D.H. Lawrence

3. The Custom of the Country by Edith Wharton

4. Theodore Roosevelt: An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt

5. The Tale of Pigling Bland by Beatrix Potter

6. The Bobbsey Twins’ Mystery at School (Bobbsey Twins #4) by Laure Lee Hope

7. Chance by Joseph Conrad

8. Desert Gold by Zane Grey

9. The Adventure of the Dying Detective by Arthur Conan Doyle

10. The Inland Voyage and Travels with a Donkey by Robert Louis Stevenson

11. The Story of My Boyhood and Youth by John Muir

12. Little Wars by H. G. Wells

13. The Night Born by Jack London

14. The War Correspondence of Leon Trotsky: The Balkan Wars 1912-1913 by Leon Trotsky

15. La Follette’s Autobiography: A Personal Narrative of Political Experiences by Robert M. La Follette

You may also enjoy similar posts that I did for books published in 1911 and 1912:

1912 Books That Have Stood the Test of Time

1911 Books That Have Stood the Test of Time

Shopping in Small, Medium-Sized, and Large Towns a Hundred Years Ago

18-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:

Tuesday, September 9, 1913: Went to Watsontown this afternoon to get some things.

DSC03659.crop — A recent photo of downtown Watsontown

Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:

When I go shopping, the items that I want to buy determine where I go. If I just need a gallon of milk I walk to the local convenience store, but if I need to buy a week’s worth of groceries I drive to the nearest strip mall. And, if I want to buy some new clothes I head to a more distant large mall.

It was the same in Grandma’s day. She often shopped in three towns–McEwensville, Watsontown, and Milton.

McEwensville had a general store and pharmacy—and sometimes Grandma could buy what she needed there. Watsontown was a somewhat larger town and had a small shopping district. And, Milton was a little further away, but had more stores.

Grandma could have easily walked to McEwensville or Watsontown; a trip to Milton would have required to train or buggy ride.

A hundred years ago today Grandma must have needed some things that were relatively common—but not so common that the McEwensville stores would have had them; so she had to visit the medium-sized town.

An aside–Maybe the title of this post isn’t really right, since by most standards McEwensville, Watsontown, and Milton are all small towns–but in Grandma’s world she definitely would have differentiated between them and considered one small, the other medium, and the third large.