The Wyandot pioneer. (Upper Sandusky, Ohio) 1853-1868, 1868-11-19
MIR. Beecher on Hay Fever.
A LEDGER" STORY.

Mr.. BoNNER:-I received letter
from a friend-I may say, confidential
ly, the editor of the best daily paper in
the United States-saying that he had
sneeZed all day, and inuuiring of me
whether that was the symptom of hay
fever? My reply to him will perhaps
be Of service to others, and l copy it
for The Ledger"
My Dear Friend: That you are q
novice in the matter cf hay fever isvery
plain from the question that you put
For if you had ever had it you would
never ask, and, if you have it, you Will
never again ask what are the symptoms.
Imagine man asking what are the
symptoms by which he might know
whether his nose had been pulled, or
whether he had been kicked down
stairs, or whether some one had thrown
over him the unsavory contents of a
bucket!
The hay fever is all symptoms.
You notice some evening that your
eyes are suddenly weak. The light dis.
turbs them. All in an hour begin to
shed copious tears. The nose sympa-
thizes. Your handkerchief suddenly
becomes the most important object in
life. BY the next day the slightest draft
OF wind sets you to sneeZing. 1t is a
revelation. You never before even sus-
pected what il was really to sneeze. If
the door is open you sneeze. Ii pane
OF glass is out you sneeze. If you look
into the sunshine you sneeze. Ii a lit
tie dust rises from the carpet, or the
odor of flowers is waited to you, or smell
of smoke, you incontinently sneeze. If
you sneeze once you sneeZe twenty
times. 1t Is a riot of sneezcs. First, a
single one, like leader in a flock of
sheep, bolts over; and then, in spite of
all you can do, the whole flock. fifty by
count, come dashing over, in twos, in
tives, III punches of twenty.
They do not wait for order. They
tread on each other. Four or five sneezes
run together-a mere crash Of sneezes.
Your eyes, meanwhile, overflow. Your
nose rejoices. That has befalIen YOU
which the prophet longed, Your head
has been fountain Of tears' I have
heard it said that no one can do, We'll.
more than one thing at a time. Itonly
you nave optLalmic catarrh, you may
cry, blow, snecze and cough each per
fectly and altogether. After twenty
minutes, the paroXysm passes and you
cautiously put your hand up to see if
| III W ttin is loft OF t. III
there! Gradually you get used to it.
and come to regard your head as a piece
of artillery, invented to throw sneezes.
1t is well known that. when in health,
one may stop sneeze by stroking his
nose SO as to fiatten it little. There
are times when, though sneeze is
luxury, it is out of place. Much as we
like luNuries, we are conscious that they
do not fit all seasons or grace all places.
One could not willingly eat ice cream
at funeral, nor be married with ci-
gar in his mouth.
Lounging on summer veranda, the
bees droning and the flies buzzing, a
hearty sneeze is enjoyable. But when
| SloHS LOUCliiIlS, GlC
house is still, and the climax is just
reached, a resounding sneeze, especial
ly if you split up by trying to suppress
it, introduces q new train of associa-
tions. This is even less agreeable if you
are an honorary member, or some dis
tinguished person, put upon the plat
| form, as girls put their pearls or ribbons
on the neck for show.
| But just imagine a man in the full
fight of hay cold going to meeting,and
| not only, in the words of the immortal
| Watts, firing his zeal along the road"
but breaking out in sermon time, with
rattling of sneezes-a perfect fusilade.
One man sneeZing can wake an audi
| ence out of Whitefield or Demosthenes.
Wherefore sneeze is stronger than an
Grafton.
These are the early symptoms, and
continue about a fortnight. Then, with
out letting go of sneezing, your head
| becomes stuffed with real premium
cold. You can not breathe through
your nose, and not much through your
| mouth. You can smell nothing and
taste nothing, and see but very little.
and that little in water colors. Eating
becomes matter of skill. You cannot
eat with your mouth at the same time
| that you are breathing through it. Two
| trains meeting on Il single track one or
| the other must switch off. Thus, you
| chew and hold your breath; and then
you switch to one side your cud, and
breathe awhile. Thus you shut off, al
ternatelY, bread and breath. This
stage lasts about two weeks more. 1t
is uniform and dull. Now and then
day will, without cause of warming,
plump down on you with all the symp-
toms of the first period. The structure
will be removed; eyes and nose like
| the hill after winter. will flow down in
rills, and sneezes will awaken sylvan
echoes, like birds among the trees.
The third stage is known by the ten
dency of the whole complaint to de-
scend. 1t seeks to become bronch al
You are seized with spasmodic coughs
If you give way to them they will leave
you feeling as if blunderbus, loaded
with shot, had been discharged through
your lungs. A cough, like breachy
horse, should be ridden with snatfle,
not suffie] and curb. and never suffered
| to get under way, or to go faster than a
| walk. But it is not an unrelieved cough,
for it alternates with asthma-a COM
plant in which man feels, when asleep,
as if some one was suffocating him with
an unfair use of hemp; and, when
awake, as if the hemp grew inside of