Bend over, take a deep breath and drink some water! This is just one of hundreds of tips you might get if you have the hiccups  .Hiccups are so mysterious.We really don't know why they start and why they stop. Everyone has a favorite cure for a case of the hiccups.Some people think that a good scare is necessary to get well.Others eat a teaspoon of sugar.Still others drink a glass of water with a knife in it. An American man named Jack O'Leary said he had hiccupped 160 million times over a period of eight years.He tried 60,000 cures, but none of them worked.At last he prayed to Saint Jude, the saint of Hopeless cases, and his hiccupping stopped immediately. It took a British plumber eight months to cure his hiccups.People from all over the world wrote him letters with suggestions for getting well.He tried them all, but the hiccups continued.Finally, he drank a "secret" mixture someone had sent him.By that evening his hiccups were gone. Why did these cures work for these two men? No one really knows.But people who have studied many cases of hiccups have an idea--hiccups usually go away if you believe in the cure. How did Jack O'Leary stop his hiccups?
He took a deep breath. He prayed to Saint Jude. He ate a teaspoon of sugar. He drank a "secret" mixture.