Proceedinfjs of the Royal Socletj/ of Victoria. 2S7 



Mr. Field said that if the nose were held wlien about to 

 sneeze the noise in one's ears was ahnost deafening. He 

 had found that by placing his finger upon a certain nerve 

 upon the top of the head when about to sneeze, the sneeze 

 would be stopped altogether. 



Dr. Barrett, in reply, said a considerable amount of 

 information had been furnished by the discussion. Members 

 on the whole were inclined to agree with him, that in 

 uncomplicated sneezing the bulk of the air passed through 

 the mouth. With regard to the remarks of Mr. Hogg, if 

 any voluntar}' effort wei'e made, the statement that the air 

 passed through the mouth no longer held good. Unless it 

 was a pure uncomplicated sneeze, it was impos.sible to reason 

 with any degree of accuracy. If the mouth were closed 

 firmly enough, the air was bound to go though the nose, or 

 something had to give wa}'. If you have the whole 

 force of the expiratory muscles at work, it is questionable 

 which is strongest, tlie tissues of the pharynx or the 

 expiratory muscles. If one sneezed with a closed mouth, 

 one stood a good chance of breaking the membrane, for a 

 tremendous pressure would be put upon a membrane, which 

 might not be very sound. In pure, uncomplicated sneezing, 

 the bulk of the air passed through the mouth. The case of 

 children, as instanced by Dr. Jamieson, was in point. Most 

 children had enlargement of the pharyngeal tonsil, which 

 gave rise to the loud breathing and the bulk of the ear 

 troubles in children. When this was the case, one could no 

 longer reckon upon the air going the proper way. He did 

 not think the inconvenience spoken of by Mr. Griffiths was 

 due to expulsion of mucus from the glottis. Under the 

 circumstances mentioned, Mi-. Griffiths had got his palate 

 inverted in part, and then, his palate acting feebly, a certain 

 amount of mucus dro[)ped down into the pharynx. With 

 regard to hay fever, wliat was called hay fever really meant 

 abnormal sensibility of the aperture of the no.se, and, 

 consequently, unusual liability to stimulant. Thus, a 

 stimulant which would produce practically no result in one 

 person with normal sensibility, would produce an abnormal 

 result in a person suffering from hay fever, and [)roduce, not 

 only a flow of water from the nose, but also from the eyes. 

 T''he last speaker had referred to the stoppage of the sneeze 

 by a pressure on a nerve. A sneeze could be sto[)ped in a 

 score of ways. How it was done would be rather a 



