t speaks of "blood-drinking sighs." We may, too, compare the
words of Oberon in "A Midsummer-Night's Dream" (iii. 2), who refers to
"sighs of love, that cost the fresh blood dear." In "3 Henry VI." (iv.
4), Queen Elizabeth says:

"for this I draw in many a tear,
And stop the rising of blood-sucking sighs."

Once more, in "Hamlet" (iv. 7), the King mentions the "spendthrift sigh,
that hurts by easing." Fenton, in his "Tragical Discourses" (1579),
alludes to this notion in the following words: "Your scorching sighes
that have already drayned your body of his wholesome humoures."

It was also an ancient belief that sorrow consumed the blood and
shortened life. Hence Romeo tells Juliet (iii. 5):

"And trust me, love, in my eye so do you:
Dry sorrow drinks our blood."

_Small-pox._ Such a terrible plague was this disease in the days of our
ancestors, that its name was used as an imprecation. Thus, in "Love's
Labour's Lost" (v. 2), the Princess says: "A pox of that jest."

_Saliva._ The color of the spittle was, with the medical men of olden
times, an important point of diagnosis. Thus, in "2 Henry IV." (i. 2),
Falstaff exclaims against fighting on a hot day, and wishes he may
"never spit white again," should it so happen.[631]

[631] Bucknill's "Medical Knowledge of Shakespeare," p. 150.

_Sterility._ The charm against sterility referred to by Caesar in "Julius
Caesar" (i. 2) is copied from Plutarch, who, in his description of the
festival Lupercalia, tells us how "noble young men run naked through the
city, striking in sport whom they meet in the way with leather thongs,"
which blows were commonly believed to have the wonderful effect
attributed to them by Caesar:

"The barren, touched in this holy chase,
Shake off their sterile curse."

_Suicide._ Cominius, in "Coriolanus" (i. 9), arguing against Marcius's
overstrained modesty, refers to the manner in which suicide was thought
preventable in olden times:

"If 'gainst yourself you be incens'd, we'll put you,
Like one that means his proper harm, in manacles,
Then reason safely with you."

_Toothache._ It was formerly a common superstition--and one, too, not
confined to our own country--that toothache was caused by a little worm,
having the form of an eel, which gradually gnawed a hole in the tooth.
In "Much Ado About Nothing" (iii. 2), Shakespeare speaks of this curious
belief:

"_Don Pedro._ What! sigh