The Japanese attach significance to the number of times a man sneezes. Thus, one sneeze indicates that some one is praising him, while two betoken censure or disparagement; a triple sneeze is commonplace, and means simply that a person has taken cold.[369] In Mexico, also, it was formerly believed either that somebody was speaking evil of one who sneezed, or that he was being talked about by one or more persons.[370] Sussex people are prejudiced against cats which develop sneezing proclivities, for they believe that, when a pet feline sneezes thrice, it augurs ill for the health of the household, and is premonitory of influenza and bronchial affections.[371] In an interesting article in “Macmillan’s Magazine,” entitled “From the Note-book of a Country Doctor,”[372] a physician practicing in a remote part of Cornwall tells of a peculiar cure for deafness which recently came to his notice. One of his patients, an elderly woman whose name was Grace Rickard, complained that she could no longer hear the grunting of her pigs, a sound which, from childhood, had roused her from sleep in the early morning. The doctor was obliged to tell her that the difficulty was due to advancing years. A short time after, on calling at her house, he found her sitting before the fire with a piece of board in her lap, and deeply absorbed in thought. Just as the door opened, she exclaimed: “Lord, deliver me from my sins,” and this petition was followed by a peculiar noise which sounded like an abortive sneeze. “Don’t be frited, zur,” she said, “’tes aunly a sneeze.” “It’s the oddest sneeze I ever heard,” said the doctor; “why can’t you sneeze in the ordinary way?” “So I do, when I can,” she explained; “but now ’tes got up to nine times running, and wherever to get nine sneezes from is moor ’n I knaw.” It appeared that Grace was making trial of an infallible cure for deafness, the necessary apparatus for which consisted of a piece of board and some stout pins. One of the latter is stuck into the board every morning, the patient’s forefingers being crossed over the pin, while the pious ejaculation above mentioned is repeated simultaneously with a vigorous sneeze. On the next morning two pins must be stuck in the board, the petition and sneeze being once repeated; on the following morning three pins, three prayers, and three sneezes, and so on up to nine times. IV. THE DOCTRINE OF DEMONIACAL POSSESSION The natural instinct of the untutored savage is to regard the act of sneezing as the manifestation of an attack by a demon. Certain African tribes, for instance, are said to believe that whoever sneezes is possessed of an evil spirit, to whose malicious agency is due the violence of the paroxysm and its utter disregard of times and seasons.