Sneezing Superstitions

By: Ryan Bowling

Posted: 3/4/05

Why do we say "bless you" or "God bless you" when someone sneezes? I was sitting in a class the other day and it happened, just like it happens in every class: someone sneezed and two or three people chimed in to bless the sneezer.

And for the first time, I couldn't help but wonder why. We all like to think of ourselves as unique individuals, some of us are even set on not conforming to the world; but how many of us habitually bless a sneeze without knowing why?

After a few moments of silence and a furrowed brow, freshman Jimmy Storms said, "I have never thought about [why we say bless you]," he said. "But I think it is polite."

Many people today see the blessing as etiquette, and as Storms said, the polite thing to do.

According to Wilson D. Wallis in The Scientific Monthly, even Aristotle "declared the sneeze an honorable acknowledgement of the seat of good sense and genius."

However, there are three common myths about where "bless you" originated from.

"I thought is meant that back in the day, there was a lot of illness and people sneezed when they were sick," freshman Leah Schroeder said. "And since there weren't many cures, people blessed the sneezer in case they died."

This is not far from the truth. According to the Old Wives Tales website, the saying 'Bless you' goes back to 150 AD when Tiberius Caesar would say it to a sneezer. At this time, many Romans died from serious illnesses.

This blessing carried the "belief that the more blessings offered to the sufferer may help lessen the chance of death." Also, Pope Gregory the Great, in the sixth century, instituted a prayer for the sneeze in hopes that one would not die, since at the time the plague was spreading and sneezing could foreshadow premature death.

There are other superstitions regarding the sneeze as well.
"Someone told me when I was 12 that your heart skips a beat or stops when you sneeze...so that's why you bless people," senior Odi Bosah said. "So I guess in case it stops beating for good or something."
This myth has also been around for a long time, but is false. According to Tom Wilson, M.D./PhD, Pathology, in the Div. of Molecular Oncology at the Washington University School of Medicine: "Your heart does not stop when you sneeze," he said. "From my perspective, it is hard to even imagine what this would mean. A sneeze itself is really a very brief event, occurring in a shorter time then a heartbeat."

Another common belief was that a sneeze expelled evil spirits.
"I heard that back in the old days, whenever that was, people thought that when you sneezed, you were sneezing out demons," sophomore Cara Britton said. "So they said bless you so [the demons] wouldn't come back."

Many cultures believed this was true. According to Wallis, in Persia, prayer is advised after sneezing. It indicated the victory of the expulsion of the demon within. The Mohammedans believe that "the nose is a dangerous retreat for evil spirits, and when one rises in the morning, he washes out the nose with water, for the devil probably visited during the night."

Nowadays we know that sneezing, also known as sternutation, it just a normal body function, free of expelling souls or demons. According to Cindy Blades, Drury's Registered Nurse, "[Sneezing] is a neurological response to allergens which you cannot stop. It is good. The body gets rid of the stuff from our nasal passages," Blades said.

If you hate that tickle in your nose and the constant sneezing during a cold, just be thankful you weren't Donna Griffiths. According to the Guinness Book of World Records, Griffiths, of Worchester, UK, sneezed consecutively for 977 days; occurring about one sneeze per minute and one sneeze every five minutes in the last stages.

So the next time you sneeze, sit back, and enjoy it. Your heart didn't stop; you won't sneeze incessantly for three years, and no evil demons exited your nostrils - just allergens and millions of bacteria. How comforting. Should we continue these blessings, to be polite? Whatever you decide, may God bless you in your sternutation, now, and the rest of your life.