•28G Proceed in < I )< of the Royal Socief// of Victorio. 



Mr. RUSDEN said lie was often troubled with ])ersisterit 

 Hiieezing. Usually the Vilust came through the mouth, but 

 lie had tried the experiment of closing the mouth tightly, 

 when an explosion through the nose took ])lace and expelled 

 the foreign body that was the cause of the trouble. 



Mr. Griffiths said the matter had been brought before 

 liim by Dr. Barrett a few days ago, and observations that 

 he had made since then seemed to confirm what bad been 

 said by several gentlemen, for it appeared that the air bla.st 

 did proceed through the mouth and not through the nose. 

 On one occasion, finding himself engaged in a series of 

 sneezes, he bad determined to make a strong efFoi't to close 

 liis mouth, and had found very great difficulty indeed in 

 keeping his mouth closed ; in fact, had failed to make a 

 complete closure. So far as he had succeeded in making a 

 ])erfect closure, he found that the air forced its way, at the 

 cost of very considerable inconvenience, through the nasal 

 passage, and seemed to blow some mucus from the glottis 

 into the posterior part of the nose, and in that way set up 

 considei-able irritation and annoyance, which would not 

 have been experienced liad the sneeze been allowed to 

 ])ursue the normal course. It had occurred to him that the 

 curtain of the soft palate might be forcibly closed for the 

 ver}^ purpose of preventing the foreign matter, such as 

 mucus lying in the glottis, from being shot straight out of 

 the air passage of the throat right into the back })ai-t of the 

 nose, on account of the irritation that would be set up by 

 transferring this substance from the glottis to the nose. 

 Such a transler would be followed by considerable incon- 

 venience, giving rise to furtlier efforts to expel from the back 

 of the nose that which had no right to be there, and which 

 would not be there but for attempting the \musual course of 

 trying to stop the mouth. 



Mr. Haig said that his experience in sneezing was 

 certainly that the blast came entirely through the mouth. 

 In fact he felt that the nasal passage was closed both before 

 and after the sneeze. The inspiration before the sneeze was 

 always through the moutli, never through the nose. Some 

 of the discharges that were spoken of as coming through the 

 nose might come afterwards ; as, for instance, the snufl". 

 The sneeze might come first with a blast through the mouth, 

 then the watery discharge would take place through the 

 nose, and with it the snuff. 



