“Bless You”

Many people have become accustomed to saying “bless you” when someone sneezes. No one says anything when someone coughs blows their nose or burps. 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 Greeks would wish each other “long life”.

The phrase bless you is attributed to Pope Gregory the Greta, who uttered it in the 6^th century during a bubonic plague epidemic.

For most of the 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.