, 1890-03-13
PHILOSOPHY OF sNEEzING.
A Short HAPPIER Upon the ConvuIsIon of
the Nasal Organ.

~ wynn ~ OF
the Nasal Organ.
A witty FreIlchman of the last GEN.
fury based an attack upon the snuff
box on the ground that it was mainly
responsible for the decay of that an
cient form of po~liteness, the custom of
blessing a person after zneezing. He
contended that it was sacrilegious to
bless a sneezer who had coerced ma
ture into the performance of one of
her most invigorating functions, and
that the benson was no longer in any
degree the same thing. We how
ever, who know that the dethrone-
ment of the snuff box led to no actual
revival of the benedictory fashion,
may appeal to science to throw light
upon one of the most ancient forms of
innocent superstition.
According to a rabbinical legend,
sneezing, as a habit, is only referable
to the time of Jacob. Before patri-
archal days no man sneezed more than
once; for the sufficient reason that
the shock was invariably fatal. At ia
cob's i~ntercession this law was abro-
gated, but only on condition that all
races of men should henceforth en-
ploy fit words of congratulation for
the sneezer's happy deliverance.
Whatever its origin-and it may be
doubted if it ever had a particular or
local starting point-the practice has,
without doubt, been derived by the
Christian world from the times of
heathenism Polydore Virgil ayers
that it took its rise at the time of the
plague in 55S, when the infected fell
down dead %sneezing, though apparent
ly in good health. The Romans GER
tainly made oblations to the genius of
sneezing; but Catullus treats the in.
Fiction with gayety, as we find from
the lines in Cowley's translation:
Cupid, tickled at the sound
Sneezed aloud, and all around
The little lovers, that waited by,
Bow'd and blessed the augury.
1t is clear, however, that the Romans
simply followed an established Greek
custom. Centuries before, Aristotle
had given his own account of the
omen, and was so far refined in his ex-
plantations as to tell his readers why
~sneezing from noon until midnight
was good, and from night to noon un-
lucky. 1t would be fruitless to inquire
through what channel the practice
came to the Greeks, for traces of its
existence are to be found not only in
the wildly contrasted civilizations of
antiquity, but even among the barbar-
Gus tribes of every quarter of the
globe. Before Greece was a nation, the
sneezer was blessed alike in the Dark
Continent and beyond the Gauges.
The iHeffable Buddha himself once
sneezed, w%hereupon all his priests ex-
claimed, May the welcome one livei"
Buddha, however, took them severely
to task, and the right to say, MAY
you live, sirl" to a Buddhist priest is
still a fruitful subject of popular con
tention.
Although sneezing is a purely in
voluntary act, it is possible in some
measure to guard against its attacks.
In the cast of a fully developed cold,
the sufferer must necessarily submit
TO the ~infliction; but, as to the sueeze
casual, it would appear to have in.
huence only in a-listless or weakened
condition of the bodily powers. PEG.
pie seldom sneeze when their faculties
are in full tension. Great nervous ex
element will hardly admit of the re.
find a church, a ball or a theatre filled
with an audience ready to indulge on
the smallest provocation. They are in
the passive and recipient mood. On
the other hand, a strong con,
c|entration possesses the preacher, lee,
turer or actor. His faculties are grid.
ed up for the feat before him, and he
can at least temporarily defy the
draughts that make martyrs of some
of his hearers. London Graphic.