ed the Suffocation
of the Mother."

[609] Singer's "Shakespeare," pp. 384, 385; Wright's "Notes to
King Lear," pp. 154, 155.

_Infection._ According to an old but erroneous belief, infection
communicated to another left the infector free; in allusion to which
Timon ("Timon of Athens," iv. 3) says:

"I will not kiss thee; then the rot returns
To thine own lips again."

Among other notions prevalent in days gone by was the general
contagiousness of disease, to which an allusion seems to be made in "A
Midsummer-Night's Dream" (i. 1), where Helena says:

"Sickness is catching: O, were favour so,
Yours would I catch, fair Hermia, ere I go."

Malone considers that Shakespeare, in the following passage in "Venus
and Adonis," alludes to a practice of his day, when it was customary, in
time of the plague, to strew the rooms of every house with rue and other
strong-smelling herbs, to prevent infection:

"Long may they kiss each other, for this cure!
O, never let their crimson liveries wear!
And as they last, their verdure still endure,
To drive infection from the dangerous year!"

Again, the contagiousness of pestilence is thus alluded to by Beatrice
in "Much Ado About Nothing" (i. 1): "O Lord, he will hang upon him like
a disease: he is sooner caught than the pestilence, and the taker runs
presently mad." The belief, too, that the poison of pestilence dwells in
the air, is spoken of in "Timon of Athens" (iv. 3):

"When Jove
Will o'er some high-viced city hang his poison
In the sick air."

And, again, in "Richard II." (i. 3):

"Devouring pestilence hangs in our air."

It is alluded to, also, in "Twelfth Night" (i. 1), where the Duke says:

"O, when mine eyes did see Olivia first,
Methought she purged the air of pestilence."

While on this subject, we may quote the following dialogue from the same
play (ii. 3), which, as Dr. Bucknill[610] remarks, "involves the idea
that contagion is bound up with something appealing to the sense of
smell, a mellifluous voice being miscalled contagious; unless one could
apply one organ to the functions of another, and thus admit contagion,
not through its usual portal, the nose:"

"_Sir Andrew._ A mellifluous voice, as I am true knight.

_Sir Toby._ A contagious breath.

_Sir Andrew._ Very sweet and contagious, i' faith.

_Sir Toby._ To hear by the nose, it is dulcet in con