The treatment of headache or migraine, like that of fatigue, mental lethargy, and the whole complex of neurasthenia, is admittedly unsatisfactory. The reason for this lies primarily in our ignorance of the genesis of these clinical disturbances. There seems to be a crying need of immediate further studies in this field of medical research. The failure of clinical medicine to make satisfactory progress in the management of certain types of functional nervous disturbances justifies us in giving a respectful hearing to any reasonable proposal. In this spirit, reference may be made to the suggestions of Pemberton that many forms of neurasthenia, headache, migraine, most cases of neuritis, certain types of mental depression and melancholia—possibly a few supposedly organic conditions—are the result of interruptions in a chain of metabolic processes. Such statements, like the frequently made claim of “suboxidation” or “impaired oxygen” as a cause of disease, mean nothing unless they can be substantiated by some sort of evidence that may be subjected to critical evaluation. Pemberton has been impressed by the similarity of the conditions mentioned to the neuropsychiatric symptoms observed in arthritic patients. He therefore assumes similar underlying causes; and since the treatment of many cases of arthritis from the standpoint of the existence of metabolic upsets has been favorable in his hands, Pemberton advocates an analogous procedure in the relief of the less complicated disturbances of the nervous functions.