Laborde referred to two cases of a
similar character reported by Viand.
Anomalous Sneezing.--In the olden times sneezing was considered a
good omen, and was regarded as a sacred sign by nearly all of the
ancient peoples. This feeling of reverence was already ancient in
the days of Homer. Aristotle inquired into the nature and origin
of the superstition, somewhat profanely wondering why sneezing
had been deified rather than coughing. The Greeks traced the
origin of the sacred regard for sneezing to the days of
Prometheus, who blessed his man of clay when he sneezed.
According to Seguin the rabbinical account says that only through
Jacob's struggle with the angel did sneezing cease to be an act
fatal to man. Not only in Greece and Rome was sneezing revered,
but also by races in Asia and Africa, and even by the Mexicans of
remote times. Xenophon speaks of the reverence as to sneezing, in
the court of the King of Persia. In Mesopotamia and some of the
African towns the populace rejoiced when the monarch sneezed. In
the present day we frequently hear "God bless you" addressed to
persons who have just sneezed, a perpetuation of a custom quite
universal in the time of Gregory the Great, in whose time, at a
certain season, the air was filled with an unwholesome vapor or
malaria which so affected the people that those who sneezed were
at once stricken with death-agonies.
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