Discovery Health

Many people have become
accustomed to saying "bless you"
or "gesundheit" when someone
sneezes. No one says anything
when someone coughs, blows their nose or burps, so why do sneezes get special treatment?

What do those phrases actually mean, anyway?
Wishing someone well after they
sneeze probably originated
thousands of years ago. The
Romans would say "Jupiter
preserve you" or "Salve," which
meant "good health to you," and
the Greeks would wish each other
"long life." The phrase "God bless
you" is attributed to Pope Gregory
the Great, who uttered it in the
sixth century during a bubonic
plague epidemic (sneezing is an
obvious symptom of one form of
the plague).

The exchangeable term
"gesundheit" comes from Germany, and it literally means "health." The
idea is that a sneeze typically
precedes illness. It entered the
English language in the early part
of the 20th century, brought to the United States by German-speaking
immigrants.

Virtually every country around the
globe has its own way of wishing
sneezers well. People in Arabic
countries say, "Alhamdulillah,"
which means, "praise be to God."
Hindus say, "Live!" or "Live well!"
Some countries have special
sneezing responses for children. In
Russia, after children are given the
traditional response, "bud
zdorov" ("be healthy", they are
also told "rosti bolshoi" ("grow
big". When a child sneezes in
China, he or she will hear "bai sui,"
which means, "may you live 100
years."

For the most part, the various
sneeze responses originated from
ancient superstitions. Some people
believed that a sneeze causes the
soul to escape the body through
the nose. Saying "bless you" would
stop the devil from claiming the
person's freed soul. Others believed
the opposite: that evil spirits use
the sneeze as an opportunity to
enter a person's body. There was
also the misconception that the
heart momentarily stops during a
sneeze (it doesn't), and that saying
"bless you" was a way of
welcoming the person back to life.
We now know that sneezing is a
reflex action and is most often the
sign of something relatively
benign, such as a cold or allergy. A
sneeze also can be provoked by
being outside in the sunlight or
from smelling a strong odor. Still,
we persist in the custom of saying
"bless you" or "gesundheit," mainly
out of habit and common courtesy.

Never knew. Thank you