Sneezing

“ Coughing, sneezing, clearing the throat, etc., if done at all, must be done as quickly as possible. Snuffing, hawking and expectorating must never be done in society. A sneeze can be checked by pressing the thumb or fingers firmly across the bridge of the nose. ”

“ It is bad when coryza and sneezing either precede or follow affections of the lungs, but in all other affections, even the most deadly, sneezing is a salutary symptom. [496] A yellow spittle mixed up with not much blood in cases of pneumonia, is salutary and very beneficial if spit up at the commencement of the disease, but if on the seventh day, or still later, it is less favorable. And all sputa are bad which do not remove the pain. But the worst is the black, as has been described. Of all others the sputa which remove the pain are the best. ”

“ A scientific writer defines sneezing as "a phenomenon provoked either by an excitation brought to bear on the nasal membrane or by a sudden shock [Pg. 57] of the sun's rays on the membranes of the eye. This peripheral irritation is transmitted by the trifacial nerve to the Gasserian ganglion, whence it passes by a commissure to an agglomeration of globules in the medulla oblongata or in the protuberance ”

“ Stimulation of other nerves, as those of the skin by a draught of cold air, may also produce coughing. The expiratory impulses induced may attain great violence, so as in this respect to resemble the single impulse of sneezing. While, however, in sneezing, the stream of air escapes, as a rule, through the nose, in coughing it escapes through the cavity of the mouth, which is shut off by the raised soft palate from the nasal cavity, and enlarged by dropping the lower jaw, and by the depression of the floor of the cavity, the tongue at the same time being pushed forward. ”

“ Another effect of this irritation of the mucous membrane is sneezing, which is an effort of Nature to restore the equilibrium of the nervous center by another kind of reflex action. Sneezing in catarrh is a method Nature adopts to stimulate the prostrate nervous center, and thus enable it to reassert its proper control over the blood-supply to the part; indeed, it will be found that the effects of being exposed to a draught of cold air are often completely destroyed by a succession of sneezes. Of course, Nature does not always immediately succeed in these efforts ”

“ We enter by a spring door which closes after us with a bang, and everybody is immediately seized with a violent fit of sneezing. Particles of escaping tobacco dust float in the air and tickle our olfactories. We are actually standing within a huge snuff-box! After inhaling a wholesale pinch of this powder, which leaves us sneezing for the next quarter of an hour, we clamber to the heights of the establishment, and find ourselves in the printing and paper cutting departments. ”

“ Many thanks for your kindness in directing me.”
“Don’t mention it,” said Anthony. “I hope you haven’t caught cold.”
“Eh?” said the stranger.
“From kneeling on the damp ground, I mean,” explained Anthony. “I fancied I heard you sneezing.”
“I may have sneezed,” admitted the other.
“Quite so,” said Anthony. “But you shouldn’t suppress a sneeze, you know. One of the most eminent doctors said so only the other day. It’s frightfully dangerous. I don’t remember exactly what it does to you—whether [Pg 134] it’s an inhibition or whether it hardens your arteries, but you must never do it. Good morning.” ”

“ Sneezing is a sign that a sick person will be restored to health; he returns thanks after sneezing, saying, ‘Ye people of ours, I have gained that prosperity which I wanted. Continue to look on me with favour!’ Sneezing reminds a man that he should name the Itongo (ancestral spirit) of his people without delay, because it is the Itongo which causes him to sneeze, that he may perceive by sneezing that the Itongo is with him. If a man is ill and does not sneeze, those who come to him ask whether he has sneezed or not ”

“ As long as your larynx and windpipe are inflamed or tickled by disease-germs or other poisons, your body will do its best to get rid of them by coughing, or, if they swarm on the mucous membrane of the nose, by sneezing. To attempt to stop either coughing or sneezing without removing the cause is as irrational as putting out a switch-light without closing the switch. Though this, like other remedial processes, may go to extremes and interfere with sleep, or upset the stomach, within reasonable limits one of the best things to do when you have a cold is to cough. ”

“ There are some curious cases of anomalous sneezing on record, some of which are possibly due to affections akin to our present "hay fever," while others are due to causes beyond our comprehension. The Ephemerides records a paroxysm of continual sneezing lasting thirty days. Bonet, Lancisi, Fabricius Hildanus, and other older observers speak of sneezing to death. Morgagni mentions death from congestion of the vasa cerebri caused by sneezing. The Ephemerides records an instance of prolonged sneezing which was distinctly hereditary. ”

“ From Virginia Tucker to Mr. Jeffry Tucker.
Gresham, Oct. 15, 19—
Dearest Zebedee:
It gets worse and worse—We've had a whole month of it now and my demerits are much more numerous than my merits. I see no way of getting out of the hole I am in. Everything I do or don't do means just another black mark for me. Now who can help sneezing when a sneeze is crying out to be sneezed? And who can help making a face when a sneeze is imminent? Not a Tucker! You know yourself what a terrific noise you make when you sneeze and how you jump up and crack your heels together just as you explode. ”

“ When he heard the sneeze, Harlequin, who up to that moment had been in the deepest affliction, and bowed down like a weeping willow, became quite cheerful, and leaning towards Pinocchio he whispered to him softly:
"Good news, brother. The showman has sneezed, and that is a sign that he pities you, and consequently you are saved."
For you must know that whilst most men when they feel compassion for somebody either weep, or at least pretend to dry their eyes, Fire-eater, on the contrary, had the habit of sneezing. ”

“ I am a professional man. For the past five-and-twenty years, with only one exception (the year following the Diamond Jubilee of the late Queen Victoria) , I have fallen a victim during the first days of November to an attack of bronchial catarrh. In this distressing complaint, as you may be aware, an early symptom is a fit of sneezing, with other manifest discomfort which I need not here particularise.
For the past twenty-five years (with the one exception to which I have alluded) my first sneeze has been the signal for alarm among the women-folk of my household. ”

“ For the sensation, which causes it, disappears the instant before the inspiration; and if this be not strong enough, i.e. if the muscles do not receive the vibrations from the pituitary membrane with sufficient freedom, it returns again and again, being increased by this reciprocation, till at last it causes sneezing. It seems agreeable to this account, that the passage of air, cold absolutely or relatively, through the nose, will often occasion sneezing; and through the mouth, yawning. For cold air must contract the membranes along whose surfaces it passes. ”

“ Coughing, however, is generally caused by an irritation or obstruction of the larynx or trachea and the air is expelled through the mouth, while sneezing is caused by irritation of the nasal passages and the air is driven out through the nose. ”

“ Sneezing, for example, is a specific response made by the motor mechanism to stimulation of nociceptors in the nose, while stimulation of the larynx does not produce a sneeze, but a cough; stimulation of the nociceptors of the stomach does not produce cough, but vomiting; stimulation of the nociceptors of the intestine does not produce vomiting, but increased peristaltic action. There are no nociceptors misplaced; none wasted; none that do not make an adequate response to adequate stimulation. ”

“ On the whole, sneezing is considered auspicious, because it implies the expulsion of a Bhût. As a general rule, if a person sneezes when another is beginning some work, the latter stops for a while, and then begins afresh; if there be two sneezes in succession, there is no necessity for interruption. If a man sneezes behind the back of another, the back of the latter is slightly pinched. In Bombay, if a man sneezes during a meal, one of the party calls on him to name his birthplace.21 The threshold in the folk-lore of all nations is regarded as a sacred place. ”

“ One should salute a gentleman in yawning, salute him in hiccuping, salute him in sneezing, salute him in coughing;—and that evidently because of your interest in his health; for he may dislocate his jaw in yawning, and the hiccup is often a symptom of grave disorder, and sneezing is perilous to the small blood-vessels of the head, and coughing is either a tracheal, bronchial, pulmonary, or ganglionic affection. ”

“ For spasmodic asthma or hay fever there seems to be no cure; it just has to take its course. The sneezing is most distressing, and for that reason all draughts must be avoided. The patient should be kept in one room, with a fire, if possible. ”

“ Because particles of matter enter the nostrils and excite the nerves of feeling and of smell. In sneezing, as in coughing, the effort is to free the parts affected from the intrusion of some matters of an objectionable nature. And in this case, as in the former one, there is a very general sympathy of other organs with the part affected, and an energetic effort to get rid of the evil. ”

“ There is also mention of this custom (the observation of sneezing) in Homer, who has introduced Penelope rejoicing at a sneeze of her son Telemachus:
"Οὐχ ὁράας ὅ μοι υἱὸς ἐπέπταρεν"
Sneezing was not always a lucky omen, but varied according to the alteration of circumstances—"Τῶν πταρμῶν οἱ μὲν εἰσὶν ὠφέλιμοι, οἱ δὲ βλαβεροί," "Some sneezes are profitable, others prejudicial"—according to the scholiast upon the following passage of Theocritus, wherein he makes the sneezing of the Cupids to have been an unfortunate omen to a certain lover:
"Σιμιχίδα μὲν ἔρωτες ἐπέπταρον." ”

“ But the impression produced on this same peripheral expanse of nerve-branches by prolonged exposure to cold wind may, and often does, convey to the centres sensations which are quite different and provokes reflex movements which are altogether abnormal. Pain is the product in one direction; sneezing, perhaps, in the other. It seems absurd to say that sneezing is any part of the function of those motor nerves whose action regulates the performance of expiration. And it appears to me not less absurd to say that pain is the function of the sensitive fibres of the trigeminus. ”

“ How do the disease germs get into the air? When one sneezes, a spray of droplets is thrown into the air. If the person sneezing has the grip, these droplets contain the germs that cause grip. Whenever a person with consumption coughs, he sprays droplets which contain the germs that cause consumption. ”

“ Reflex action also occasions coughing and sneezing, {175}whenever improper substances enter the air-passages. Winking is an act of the same sort, and serves both to shield the eyes from too great glare of light, and to preserve them by keeping the cornea moist. Looking at the sun or other strong light, causes sneezing by reflex action. Laughing, whether caused by tickling the feet or by some happy thought, and also sobbing, are reflex acts, taking place by means of the respiratory muscles. ”

“ They were attended with a most inodorous effluvia, and caused such a general concert of sneezing and coughing, by night as well as by day, that one would have thought influenza, in its most fearful shape and with giant power, had seized every man by the throat. ”

“ The mention of sneezings in the passage quoted in page 128 from Alcuin is remarkable, for here again a very early superstition holds its ground in the nineteenth century. Nurses in Durham, not to say mothers, still invoke a blessing on children when they sneeze; indeed, some extend the practice to adults. In Germany such is certainly the case. A young cousin of mine, lately at school in the Duchy of Wurtemburg, was greatly astonished to find that a fit of sneezing in which one of the professors indulged was responded to by a cry from all the pupils of “Gesundheit,” or “good health;” ”

“ DIRECTIONS FOR COUGHING, SNEEZING, OR MOVING BEFORE THE KING AND QUEEN.
In the first place, you must not cough. If you find a cough tickling in your throat, you must arrest it from making any sound; if you find yourself choking with the forbearance, you must choke—but not cough.
In the second place, you must not sneeze. If you have a vehement cold, you must take no notice of it; if your nose membranes feel a great irritation, you must hold your breath; if a sneeze still insists upon making its way, you must oppose it, by keeping your teeth grinding together ”

“ Not only does an infected mouth work havoc to the body of which it is the vestibule, but it spreads disease about it. The original experiments of Koninger have shown that in a room where there is no current of air perceptible, a person coughing or sneezing can scatter germs to a distance of more than twenty-two feet. They are conveyed through the air by means of little droplets of saliva. ”