Department of Molecular Medicine and Medical Biotechnologies, University of Naples "Federico II", Naples, Italy.
Neurologia-Stroke Unit, Azienda Ospedaliera dei Colli, Naples, Italy.
Cephalalgia. 2020 Jul;40(8):871-877. doi: 10.1177/0333102420905317. Epub 2020 Feb 4.
Headaches are a serious public health concern of our days, affecting about 50% of the world's adult population. However, such a plague is not limited to the modern era, since ancient archaeological, written, religious and cultural evidences testify to countless attempts to face such disorders from medical, neurosurgical, psychological and sociological perspectives.
Substantially, the Hippocratic and Galenic theories about headache physiopathology remained predominant up to the 17th century, when the vascular theory of migraine was introduced by Thomas Willis and then evolved into the actual neurovascular hypothesis. The medieval Medical School of Salerno, in southern Italy, where the Greco-Roman medical doctrine was deeply affected by the medio-oriental influence, gave particular attention to both prevention and treatment of headaches.
The texts of the School, a milestone in the literature of medicine, translated into different languages and widespread throughout Europe for centuries, provide numerous useful recipes and ingredients with an actually proven pharmacological efficacy.
头痛是我们这个时代严重的公共卫生问题，影响了约 50%的世界成年人口。然而，这种瘟疫不仅局限于现代，因为古代的考古、书面、宗教和文化证据证明了无数从医学、神经外科学、心理学和社会学角度面对这种疾病的尝试。
从根本上说，希波克拉底和盖伦关于头痛病理生理学的理论一直占主导地位，直到 17 世纪，托马斯·威利斯（Thomas Willis）提出偏头痛的血管理论，然后演变成实际的神经血管假说。意大利南部的萨勒诺中世纪医学院深受中东影响，对希波克拉底和盖伦的医学理论影响深远，对头痛的预防和治疗都给予了特别关注。
这些文本是医学文献的一个里程碑，被翻译成多种语言，并在欧洲流传了几个世纪，提供了许多有用的处方和成分，实际上具有已被证实的药理学功效。
