The respiratory movements are inhibited during the act of swallowing, so that food cannot be drawn into the pharnyx. If the acts of swallowing and inspiration are not properly correlated, small particles of food or liquid may be drawn into the respiratory channels occasioning an intense irritation of its lining membrane. Violent coughing ensues to dislodge the food or fluid and expel it from the air passages. The irritation results in a forceful contraction of the expiratory muscles furnishing a powerful blast of air which is forced through the cavity of the mouth. The coughing continues until the obstructing and irritating food or fluid is expelled.

A similar powerful reflexly produced expiration results when a particle of dust, a gnat, or other irritating substance is drawn into the nose. In this case, however, the blast of air is diverted through the nose to dislodge and expel irritating and obstructing substances there. The sneezing continues until the upper air passages are cleared. Discussing the rationale of disease, Trall says: "Any person who can explain the philosophy of sneezing, has the key which may be applied to all the problems before us. Does the dust or the snuff sneeze the nose, or does the nose sneeze the dust or the snuff? Which is acted on or expelled, and what acts? Is sneezing a healthy or a morbid process? No one will pretend that it is normal or physiological. No one ever sneezes unless there is something abnormal in or about the nasal organ. Then sneezing is a remedial effort, a purifying process, a disease, as much as is a diarrhea, a cholera, or fever".--True Healing Art.

Thus, it is readily seen that sneezing and coughing are each a forceful vigorous expiration--one intended to dislodge and expel irritating and obstructing matter from the lower air passages, the other directed at similar things in the upper air passages. They are but exaggerated expirations produced by more forceful and vigorous contraction of the chest walls and diaphragm than in ordinary expiration. They are truly physiological actions, and serve to protect the air passages.

Given the same amount and degree of irritating and obstructing matter, coughing and sneezing will be in proportion to the integrity and vigor of the membranes lining the air passages. The person "who has been reduced almost to the point of death by a catarrhal affection", says Trall, "has almost lost the power to sneeze at all." Those who have used snuff for long periods and weakened and depraved their nasal mucosa, will not sneeze. The more sound and vigorous the nasal membrane, the more readily will it resent and the more violently will it resist and expel, the snuff, dust, or other substance.

Sneezing is an excess of vital action and its very violence is an index to the body's fighting powers. A man may be too weak to sneeze--he may be so low that he cannot muster enough force for the exertion.

Sneezing that is a "symptom of disease" does not differ in any essential to sneezing caused by dust in the nose. In a cold, in hay fever, or other so-called disease, it is designed to expel irritations and obstructions--mucous in these cases--which is poured into the nasal cavity from the nasal membranes.

"Force is exerted in proportion to the necessity for it", says Trall and "in proportion to the vigor" of the organism, or organ. Coughing, like sneezing, is vigorous in the vigorous, less so in the weak. It is light when there is little to dislodge, powerful when irritation and obstruction are great. In a cold, in asthma, in pneumonia, in tuberculosis, in bronchitis, etc., coughing serves to expel mucous, pus, blood, exudate, that is blocking and irritating the air passages. It is "vital action in relation to things abnormal" ; it is remedial action.

Coughing is a complex act of the organism intended to expel irritating and obstructing substances from the air passages--lungs and bronchi,--and to prevent coughing by disabling the nerves that control the act, no matter by what method they are disabled, is to leave the body helpless in the presence of harmful materials which should be expelled and which the cough is intended to expel.

A friend of the author's was ill with tuberculosis. He was hemorrhaging freely from the lungs. As the blood accumulated in the lungs, coughing would expel it and thus keep the air passage clear. But he had severe pains in his chest and his physician administered morphine, hypodermically, at 4 P. M., to relieve his pains. He is still free of pain. At a few minutes after 7 P. M., he died. The morphine stopped the coughing. His lungs slowly filled and he drowned in his own blood.