closely associated with
human well-being in the past, and even in the present, to permit of
its being altogether "tabooed" by medical authority.

There are two kinds of "kissing" practised by mankind at the present
time--one takes the form of "nose-rubbing"--each kiss-giver rubbing
his nose against that of the other. The second kind, which is that
familiar to us in Europe, consists in pressing the lips against the
lips, skin, or hair of another individual, and making a short, quick
inspiration, resulting in a more or less audible sound. Both kinds are
really of the nature of "sniffing," the active effort to smell or
explore by the olfactory sense. The "nose-kiss" exists in races so far
apart from one another as the Maoris of New Zealand and the Esquimaux
of the Arctic regions. It is the habit of the Chinese, of the Malays,
and other Asiatic races. The only Europeans who practise it are the
Laplanders. The lip-kiss is distinguished by some authorities as "the
salute by taste" from nose-rubbing, which is "the salute by smell."
The word "kiss" is connected by Skeat with the Latin "gustus," taste;
both words signify essentially "choice." But it would be a mistake to
regard the lip-kiss as merely an effort to taste in the strict sense,
since the act of inspiration accompanying it brings the olfactory
passages of the nose into play. Lip-kissing is frequently mentioned in
the most ancient Hebrew books of the Bible, and it was also the method
of affectionate salutation among the Ancient Greeks. Primarily both
kinds of kissing were, there can be no doubt, an act of exploration,
discrimination, and recognition dependent on the sense of smell. The
more primitive character of the kiss is retained by the lovers' kiss,
the mother's kissing and sniffing of her babe, and by the kiss of
salutation to a friend returning from or setting out on a distant
journey. Identification and memorising by the sense of smell is the
remote origin and explanation of those kisses. The kissing of one
another by grown-up men as a salutation was abandoned in this country
as late as the eighteenth century. "'Tis not the fashion here," says a
London gentleman to his country-bred friend in Congreve's "Way of the
World." But we have, most of us, witnessed it abroad, and perhaps been
unexpectedly subjected to the process, as I once was by an
affectionate scientific colleague. Independently of the more ordinary
practice of kissing--there is the "ceremonial kiss"