relieved by cocain administered by
the mouth, as much as 15 grains being given in twelve hours. Laborde
and Lepine report the case of a young girl who was relieved of an
obstinate case of hiccough lasting four days by traction on her tongue.
After the tongue had been held out of the mouth for a few minutes the
hiccoughs ceased. 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. In this strait the pontiff is said to have devised a
form of prayer to be uttered when the paroxysm was seen to be coming
on, and which, it was hoped, would avert the stroke of the death-angel.

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.

Ellison ma