Sexually-induced Sneezing - History

History

The phenomenon was noted as early as 1897 in John Noland Mackenzie's remarks before the British Medical Association at a meeting in Montreal. It was later commented upon in print in 1901 in Gould and Pyle's Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine:

Winn reports the case of a man who, when prompted to indulge in sexual intercourse, was immediately prior to the act seized with a fit of sneezing. Even the thought of sexual pleasure with a female was sufficient to provoke this peculiar idiosyncrasy.

In 2008, Dr Mahmood Bhutta and Dr. Harold Maxwell performed the first full-scale investigation of the phenomenon. Before their research, the most recent mention in published research was a letter to the Journal of the American Medical Association in 1972, which involved a 69-year-old man who had bouts of severe sneezing after orgasm. The two doctors noted that men and women often sought help or explanations for the disorder on Internet chat rooms and forums. Bhutta stated that these people often felt embarrassed bringing up the disorder with a doctor, and were more comfortable seeking advice anonymously. The Internet, he stated, could potentially be a new tool for medical researchers to investigate unusual or embarrassing symptoms that patients might not be comfortable discussing with their physicians.