In the Journal of Mental Science for July 1950, Joan FitzHerbert suggested that head-banging originated in the infant's desire to reproduce the thrust of the mother's apex beat against his head while he was being nursed on the left arm, either as a means of self-comfort and/or retaliation for what he had felt to be an attack. In this paper she adds some typical data to support her thesis. The data has to do primarily with showing further associations between suckling and banging of the head. Six cases are mentioned in which an exaggeration of the force of the apical maternal beat was followed by the development of head-banging in the child. Similar mechanisms in instances where the headbanging began with an attack of otitis media are also described and related to the maternal heartbeat via introjection.