488 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



persons of opposite sex is generally considered to be instinctive. 

 Reichenbach sought to explain it on the theory that the mouth was 

 the focus of his " odic force/' and that these two foci of opposite 

 sexes possessed natural attraction to each other. The hypothesis 

 that the kiss is to be derived from the mutual licking of each other 

 by the subhuman animals is unsatisfactory, because those animals 

 seldom bring the soft parts of their respective mouths into con- 

 tact. They exchange licking as they exchange rubbing of other 

 parts of the body, and such lickings and rubbings are unrelated 

 to sex. But the fact that the mutual kiss between opposite sexes 

 is not general among the tribes of men is abundantly shown by 

 the observations of travelers in the lands where savagery and 

 barbarism still exist. Where it is now practiced it is not probably 

 of great antiquity. In some languages, notably the Japanese, 

 there is no word for kiss. 



When, however, the kiss was introduced to include women, its 

 vogue, like that of other new inventions, was carried to excess. 

 According to the chronicle of Winsenius, it was unknown in Eng- 

 land until the Princess Rowena, the daughter of King Hengist, 

 of Friesland, instructed the insular Vortigern in the imported 

 salute. Though the Saxon statistics are not probably exact, it is 

 historical that in England, not many generations ago, it would 

 have been the imperative duty of a visitor to have kissed all the 

 ladies of the household, even without previous acquaintance. 

 Such was the experience of many surprised literary foreigners, 

 notably Erasmus. The contemporary drama shows the usage to 

 have lasted into the Georgian era, and it is to be noticed that the 

 performance was generally called a "salute," sometimes "the 

 salute." 



The history of the early Christian Church affords instruction 

 on this topic. At first the kiss was an adopted sign of fellowship 

 "Greet all the brethren with a holy kiss" (1 Thess., v, 2G). It 

 early passed into ceremony as the kiss of peace given to a newly 

 baptized convert, and in celebrating the Eucharist. But, as it was 

 found to have some qualities not adapted to religious and spirit- 

 ual use between the sexes, it was ordered that only men should 

 kiss men and women only women. The awkwardness of this 

 practice, or perhaps the experience that promiscuous kissing, even 

 when limited to the same sex, was liable to convey contagious 

 diseases, induced another amendment, by which the ceremonial 

 kiss in the Roman Church was only passed between the minis- 

 trants, and a relic or cross called the oscillator ium "Or pax waS 

 passed to the people for their lips. 



It may, perhaps, be suggested that one reason for the very long 

 delay in the practice of the mutual kiss was in the general use by 

 one or both of the sexes of nose-rings or labrets, either of which 



