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Show Why You Feel LiRe Coughing' When Others Do A Hi that is necessary to set a whole audience into a violent fit of coughing Is for one of its mem bers to give Just a little cough. Such coughing j spells are of frequent occurrence where numbers of peo-Pie peo-Pie are gathered together and they interfere seriously with the enjoyment of plays concerts and lectures But why should thl3 be so' Why should the sound of a cough at once make those who hear It feel an irresistible irre-sistible tickling in their own throats That is what Professor William S Sadler of the Chicago Post Grad nate Medical School has been trying to find out and the results of his investigations as given in his Physi f ology of Faith and Fear" are of great interest and value ' After a careful study of the psychic element In va rfous coughs Professor Sadler finds little doubt of the f powerful influence and ability of the mind both to cause and cure certain forms of coughing In fact he comes to the conclusion that a very large percentage of com mon chronic hawking coughs are largely perpetuated by the mental state coupled with the force of habit f What he calls fear-attention is he believes certainly i able to generate and maintain a formidable cough To determine the efTect of suggestion on the tendency " cough Professor Sadler experimented with a lecture room In which there were 150 students all of them ig aorant of what was being done The room was divided into four sections and there was an observer In each Sec!i?n t0 note t&e number of students who coughed The professor proceeded to deliver nls regular lec tore and during the first thirty minutes only three stu cents in the room were heard to cough During the second period of thirty minutes the last half of the leure Professor Sadler purposely coughed at inter f. , .3. of three to Sve minutes The remarkable influence r ot this "suggestive coughing was clearly shown by the k bomber of students who promptly began to cough. During the first five minutes of the second period 11 fc coughs were heard during the second five minutes 15 r coughs third five minutes 19 coughs fourth five mln ? utes 17 coughs fifth five minutes 27 coughs sixth five ttinutes 16 coughs ; The$e results are quite typical of those secured from f t a large number of similar experiments It was found that audiences differ greatly In their degree of suggest! billty The maximum response was sometimes secured immediately but not usually until the end of ten or fifteen minutes. It was also found that the mere mention of coughing In the course of a lecture would often produce as marked an effect as the actual sound of a cough Or Sadler was once called to see a man who had been coughing continuously for three and one half hours and was almost prostrated with exhaustion During the physician 8 examination a neighbor's child was run over by a passing automobile and In the excitement which followed the patient bad his mind so distracted that he forgot to cough It was over half an hour before he discovered that he had fully recovered whereupon he at once began to cough frantically and violently again But this half hour of freedom from his affliction was sufficient to prove to him that his mind bad figured largely In producing pro-ducing the cough and so by summoning all his will power be began to control and suppress bis coughing impulse and made a speedy recovery There can be little doubt that many persons have the cough habit Others have the very disagreeable and nervous habit of Invariably clearing the throat a sort of hawking before they begin to speak. Whooping cough can undoubtedly be made worse by fear and concentration of the attention. It can also often be cured or at least greatly alleviated by nothing more or less than a good sound thrashing Of course all coughs are not psychic In origin but even in those cases where the cause Is wholly physical it is quite likely that the mind sooner or later comes to play an important part in the severity and persistency of the coughing Sneezing is less easily Influenced by the mind While suggestion has some power In this direction the most important Influences are the stimulation of the eye as by a powerful light and the irritation of the mucous membrane of the nose By will power we can produce a cough but not a sneeze |