Welcome to brain stuff from how Stuff Works, Hey, brain Stuff Lauren vog Obam. Here, medical science continues to drive home the risks of holding in an explosive sneeze, this time in a b m J case reports discussion of spontaneous throat rupture and deep tissue air bubbles. Here's what happened, according to the papers authors. At the University Hospitals of Lester, a thirty four year old man entered the emergency room with reports of painful swallowing and curious popping sounds at
his neck, all following a suppressed sneeze. Upon closer examination, doctors observed swelling and tenderness in the neck tissue, and the popping sound proved to be crepitus. Crepitus is the medical term for popping and crackling sounds under the skin or in the joints. This is the creaking and cracking of joints that becomes especially noticeable in older age. Crepitus maybe due to several different causes, such as grating bones and snapping tendons, but it's most famously summoned every time
you crack your knuckle. This causes gas suspended in the joint snowvial fluid to form bubbles and burst. Unsurprisingly, Crepitus is also the name of a California based death metal band. But how does this relate to the thirty four year old patients neck. The doctors identified crepitus from his neck all the way down into his rib cage. These findings suggested air bubbles lodged in the deep tissue and muscles of the chest. Indeed, X rays revealed streaks of air
like the shrapnel of a detonated explosive. The hand grenade in this case was the suppressed sneeze, which resulted in spontaneous pharyngeal rupture. Doctors successfully treated the patient with antibiotics and tube feeding, But as how Stuff Works has reported in the past, a stifled sneeze can cause a host of undesirable symptoms, including the rupture of blood vessels in the brain. It seems ridiculous. A sneeze, after all, is such a natural thing. It's just an expulsion of air
and mucus from the nostrils due to irritation. Children especially sneeze boldly into their surrounding world, often with little consideration of decorum, superstition, or the fact that Grandma's face is right there in front of them. It's only as they become adults that they learned to cover their sneezes and in some cases attempt to stifle them by blocking both mouth and nostrils. For certain, no one wants to unleash a full blown sneeze at the theater or in a
crowded train car. It's a high velocity burst of mucus and other particles, after all, and exhibits the very lack of control we despise in our bodies. But as the medical science illustrates, such a force is not contained without risk. As Arthur Stanley P's explored in his nineteen eleven classical philosophy paper The Open of Sneezing, beliefs in the ominous or prophetic aspects of sneezing date back to ancient times.
These notions were well developed by the time of the Greek poet Homer in the eighth or seventh century b c. And subsequent thinkers and philosophers continued to pour over the idea that while a sneeze might mean nothing, it could also indicate the temporary presence of a divine force in the sneezer. God bless you indeed. Today's episode was written by Robert Lamb and produced by Tyler Clang. For more on this and lots of other explosive topics, visit our home planet, how Stuff Works dot com