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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxj!ihnp4!ihuxk!flyboy
From: flyboy@ihuxk.UUCP (Steve Veach)
Newsgroups: net.misc
Subject: Nasal Mucus
Message-ID: <784@ihuxk.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 25-Oct-84 13:43:14 EDT
Article-I.D.: ihuxk.784
Posted: Thu Oct 25 13:43:14 1984
Date-Received: Fri, 26-Oct-84 08:51:12 EDT
Organization: AT&T Bell Labs, Naperville, IL
Lines: 21

Help...Phychologist/Behaviorist needed for this one.

I am hoping for an explanation of a most peculiar phenomenon.
Namely, the strange behavior of one ingesting one's own nasal mucus.
For those of you who have never witnessed this, consider yourself fortunate.
When I was a child, I remember some of my classmates indulging themselves, but
as I grew up I assumed that this "habit" was something restricted to children.

Much to my disgust, I was wrong! I have witnessed two adult women at my place
of employ, quite casually and repeatedly, put a finger into their nose and then
into their mouth. PLEASE NOTE: I AM NOT MISTAKING THIS FOR AN INNOCENT ACTION
SUCH AS SCRATCHING AN ITCH NEAR THE NOSTRIL AND THEN BITING A NAIL. In fact,
at the risk of making everyone as sick as I am now, I have recently seen one
of these women actually put her finger in her nose, move it around a little,
and then examine what was found before putting the specimen into her mouth.

Can anyone out there explain this behavior? Has anyone ever done research on
this subject (strange oral fixations?)?

The siting of another one of these incidents is what just prompted me to run
up to my office and send this news out. Please help...