KISSING AND SMELLING 195 



though they no longer actually carry out their threat, 

 habitually startle a foreigner by exclaiming — "I kiss your 

 hands." The Russian Sclavs are the most profuse and 

 indiscriminate of European peoples in their kissing. I 

 have seen a Russian gentleman about to depart on a journey 

 " devoured " by the kisses of his relations and household 

 retainers, male and female. Among the poor in rural 

 districts in Russia this excessive habit of kissing leads to 

 the propagation of the most terrible ulcerative disease 

 among innocent people — as related by Metchnikoff in the 

 lectures on modern hygiene which he gave in London some 

 seven or eight years ago (published by Heinemann). 



We may take it, then, that the act of kissing is primarily 

 and in its remote origin an exploration by the sense of 

 smell, which has either lost its original significance, and 

 become ceremonial, or has, even though still appealing to 

 the sense of smell, ceased to be (if, indeed, it ever was so) 

 consciously and deliberately an exercise of that sense. 

 This leads us to the very interesting subject of the sense 

 of smell in man and in other animals. There is no doubt 

 that the sense of smell is not so acute in man as it is in 

 many of the higher animals, and even in some of the 

 lower forms, such as insects. It is the fact that so far as 

 we can trace its existence and function in animals, the 

 sense of smell is of prime importance as distinguishing 

 odours which are associated either with objects or condi- 

 tions favourable to the individual and its race, or, on the 

 other hand, hostile and injurious to it. It never reaches 

 such an extended development as a source of information 

 or general relation of the individual to its surroundings as 

 do the senses of sight, hearing and touch. It depends for 

 its utility on the existence of odorous bodies which are 

 not very widely present, and are far from universal accom- 

 paniments of natural objects. Apart from some pungent 

 mineral gases, all odorous bodies are of organic origin. 



