"Mysterious revolutions"

Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 by Havelock Ellis is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this book here. THE PHENOMENA OF SEXUAL PERIODICITY II

THE PHENOMENA OF SEXUAL PERIODICITY II

The Question of a Monthly Sexual Cycle in Men—The Earliest Suggestions of a General Physiological Cycle in Men—Periodicity in Disease—Insanity, Heart Disease, etc.—The Alleged Twenty-three Days' Cycle—The Physiological Periodicity of Seminal Emissions during Sleep—Original Observations—Fortnightly and Weekly Rhythms.

For some centuries, at least, inquisitive observers here and there have thought they found reason to believe that men, as well as women, present various signs of a menstrual physiological cycle. It would be possible to collect a number of opinions in favor of such a monthly physiological periodicity in men. Precise evidence, however, is, for the most part, lacking. Men have expended infinite ingenuity in establishing the remote rhythms of the solar system and the periodicity of comets. They have disdained to trouble about the simpler task of proving or disproving the cycles of their own organisms. It is over half a century since Laycock wrote that "the scientific observation and treatment of disease are impossible without a knowledge of the mysterious revolutions continually taking place in the system"; yet the task of summarizing the whole of our knowledge regarding these "mysterious revolutions" is even to-day no heavy one. As to the existence of a monthly cycle in the sexual instincts of men, with a single exception, I am not aware that any attempt has been made to bring forward definite evidence. A certain interest and novelty attaches, therefore, to the evidence I am able to produce, although that evidence will not suffice to settle the question finally.

The great Italian physician, Sanctorius, who was in so many ways the precursor of our modern methods of physiological research by the means of instruments of precision, was the first, so far as I am aware, to suggest a monthly cycle of the organism in men. He had carefully studied the weight of the body with reference to the amount of excretions, and believed that a monthly increase in weight to the amount of one or two pounds occurred in men, followed by a critical discharge of urine, this crisis being preceded by feelings of heaviness and lassitude.[119] Gall, another great initiator of modern views, likewise asserted a monthly cycle in men. He insisted that there is a monthly critical period, more marked in nervous people than in others, and that at this time the complexion becomes dull, the breath stronger, digestion more laborious, while there is sometimes disturbance of the urine, together with general malaise, in which the temper takes part; ideas are formed with more difficulty, and there is a tendency to melancholy, with unusual irascibility and mental inertia, lasting a few days. More recently Stephenson, who established the cyclical wave-theory of menstruation, argued that it exists in men also, and is really "a general law of vital energy."[120]

Sanctorius does not appear to have published the data on which his belief was founded. Keill, an English, follower of Sanctorius, in his Medicina Statica Britannica (1718), published a series of daily (morning and evening) body-weights for the year, without referring to the question of a monthly cycle. A period of maximum weight is shown usually, by Keill's figures, to occur about once a month, but it is generally irregular, and cannot usually be shown to occur at definite intervals. Monthly discharges of blood from the sexual organs and other parts of the body in men have been recorded in ancient and modern times, and were treated of by the older medical writers as an affliction peculiar to men with a feminine system. (Laycock, Nervous Diseases of Women, p. 79.) A summary of such cases will be found in Gould and Pyle (Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine, 1897, pp. 27-28). Laycock (Lancet, 1842-43, vols. i and ii) brought forward cases of monthly and fortnightly cycles in disease, and asserted "the general principle that there are greater and less cycles of movements going on in the system, involving each other, and closely connected with the organization of the individual." He was inclined to accept lunar influence, and believed that the physiological cycle is made up of definite fractions and multiples of a period of seven days, especially a unit of three and a half days. Albrecht, a somewhat erratic zoölogist, put forth the view a few years ago that there are menstrual periods in men, giving the following reasons: (1) males are rudimentary females, (2) in all males of mammals, a rudimentary masculine uterus (Müller's ducts) still persists, (3) totally hypospadic male individuals menstruate; and believed that he had shown that in man there is a rudimentary menstruation consisting in an almost monthly periodic appearance, lasting for three or four days, of white corpuscles in the urine (Anomalo, February, 1890). Dr. Campbell Clark, some years since, made observations on asylum attendants in regard to the temperature, during five weeks, which tended to show that the normal male temperature varies considerably within certain limits, and that "so far as I have been able to observe, there is one marked and prolonged rise every month or five weeks, averaging three days, occasional lesser rises appearing irregularly and of shorter duration. These observations are only made in three cases, and I have no proof that they refer to the sexual appetite" (Campbell Clark, "The Sexual Reproductive Functions," Psychological Section, British Medical Association, Glasgow, 1888; also, private letters). Hammond (Treatise on Insanity, p. 114) says: "I have certainly noted in some of my friends, the tendency to some monthly periodic abnormal manifestations. This may be in the form of a headache, or a nasal hæmorrhage, or diarrhœa, or abundant discharge of uric acid, or some other unusual occurrence. I think," he adds, "this is much more common than is ordinarily supposed, and a careful examination or inquiry will generally, if not invariably, establish the existence of a periodicity of the character referred to."

Dr. Harry Campbell, in his book on Differences in the Nervous Organization of Men and Women, deals fully with the monthly rhythm (pp. 270 et seq.), and devotes a short chapter to the question, "Is the Menstrual Rhythm peculiar to the Female Sex?" He brings forward a few pathological cases indicating such a rhythm, but although he had written a letter to the Lancet, asking medical men to supply him with evidence bearing on this question, it can scarcely be said that he has brought forward much evidence of a convincing kind, and such as he has brought forward is purely pathological. He believes, however, that we may accept a monthly cycle in men. "We may," he concludes, "regard the human being—both male and female—as the subject of a monthly pulsation which begins with the beginning of life, and continues till death," menstruation being regarded as a function accidentally ingrafted upon this primordial rhythm.

It is not unreasonable to argue that the possibility of such a menstrual cycle is increased, if we can believe that in women, also, the menstrual cycle persists even when its outward manifestations no longer occur. Aëtius said that menstrual changes take place during gestation; in more modern times, Buffon was of the same opinion. Laycock also maintained that menstrual changes take place during pregnancy (Nervous Diseases of Women, p. 47). Fliess considers that it is certainly incorrect to assert that the menstrual process is arrested during pregnancy, and he refers to the frequency of monthly epistaxis and other nasal symptoms throughout this period (W. Fliess, Beziehungen zwischen Nase und Geschlechts-Organen, pp. 44 et seq.). Beard, who attaches importance to the persistence of a cyclical period in gestation, calls it the muffled striking of the clock. Harry Campbell (Causation of Disease, p. 54) has found post-climacteric menstrual rhythm in a fair sprinkling of cases up to the age of sixty.

It is somewhat remarkable that, so far as I have observed, none of these authors refer to the possibility of any heightening of the sexual appetite at the monthly crisis which they believe to exist in men. This omission indicates that, as is suggested by the absence of definite statements on the matter of increase of sexual desire at menstruation, it was an ignored or unknown fact. Of recent years, however, many writers, especially alienists, have stated their conviction that sexual desire in men tends to be heightened at approximately monthly intervals, though they have not always been able to give definite evidence in support of their statements.

Clouston, for instance, has frequently asserted this monthly periodic sexual heightening in men. In the article, "Developmental Insanity," in Tuke's Psychological Dictionary, he refers to the periodic physiological heightening of the reproductive nisus; and, again, in an article on "Alternation, Periodicity, and Relapse in Mental Diseases" (Edinburgh Medical Journal, July, 1882), he records the case of "an insane gentleman, aged 49, who, for the past twenty-six years, has been subject to the most regularly occurring brain-exaltation every four weeks, almost to a day. It sometimes passes off without becoming acutely maniacal, or even showing itself in outward acts; at other times it becomes so, and lasts for periods of from one to four weeks. It is always preceded by an uncomfortable feeling in the head, and pain in the back, mental hebetude, and slight depression. The nisus generativus is greatly increased, and he says that, if in that condition, he has full and free seminal emissions during sleep, the excitement passes off; if not, it goes on. A full dose of bromide or iodide of potassium often, but not always, has the effect of stopping the excitement, and a very long walk sometimes does the same. When the excitement gets to a height, it is always followed by about a week of stupid depression." In the same article Clouston remarks: "I have for a long time been impressed with the relationship of the mental and bodily alternations and periodicities in insanity to the great physiological alternations and periodicities, and I have generally been led to the conclusion that they are the same in all essential respects, and only differ in degree of intensity or duration. By far the majority of the cases in women follow the law of the menstrual and sexual periodicity; the majority of the cases in men follow the law of the more irregular periodicities of the nisus generativus in that sex. Many of the cases in both sexes follow the seasonal periodicity which perhaps in man is merely a reversion to the seasonal generative activities of the majority of the lower animals." He found that among 338 cases of insanity, chiefly mania and melancholia, 46 per cent, of females and 40 per cent, of males showed periodicity,—diurnal, monthly, seasonal, or annual, and more marked in women than in men, and in mania than in melancholia,—and adds: "I found that the younger the patient, the greater is the tendency to periodic remission and relapse. The phenomenon finds its acme in the cases of pubescent and adolescent insanity."

Conolly Norman, in the article "Mania, Hysterical" (Tuke's Psychological Dictionary), states that "the activity of the sexual organs is probably in both sexes fundamentally periodic."

Krafft-Ebing records the case of a neurasthenic Russian, aged 24, who experienced sexual desires of urologinic character, with fair regularity, every four weeks (Psychopathia Sexualis), and Näcke mentions the case of a man who had nocturnal emissions at intervals of four weeks (Archiv für Kriminal-Anthropologie, 1908, p. 363), while Moll (Libido Sexualis, Bd. I, pp. 621-623) recorded the case of a man, otherwise normal, who had attacks of homosexual feeling every four weeks, and Rohleder (Zeitschrift für Sexualwissenschaft, Nov., 1908) gives the case of an unmarried slightly neuropathic physician who for several days every three to five weeks has attacks of almost satyriacal sexual excitement.

Féré, whose attention was called to this point, from time to time noted the existence of sexual periodicity. Thus, in a case of general paralysis, attacks of continuous sexual excitement, with sleeplessness, occurred every twenty-eight days; at other times, the patient, a man of 42, in the stage of dementia, slept well, and showed no signs of sexual excitation (Société de Biologie, October 6, 1900). In another case, of a man of sound heredity and good health till middle life, periodic sexual manifestations began from puberty, with localized genital congestion, erotic ideas, and copious urination, lasting for two or three days. These manifestations became menstrual, with a period of intermenstrual excitement appearing regularly, but never became intense. Between the age of 36 and 42, the intermenstrual crises gradually ceased; at about 45, the menstrual crises ceased; the periodic crises continued, however, with the sole manifestation of increased frequency of urination (Société de Biologie, July 23, 1904). In a third case, of sexual neurasthenia, Féré found that from puberty, onwards to middle life, there appeared, every twenty-five to twenty-eight days, tenderness and swelling below the nipple, accompanied by slight sexual excitation and erotic dreams, lasting for one or two days (Revue de Médecine, March, 1905).

It is in the domain of disease that the most strenuous and, on the whole, the most successful efforts have been made to discover a menstrual cycle in men. Such a field seems promising at the outset, for many morbid exaggerations or defects of the nervous system might be expected to emphasize, or to free from inhibition, fundamental rhythmical processes of the organism which in health, and under the varying conditions of social existence, are overlaid by the higher mental activities and the pressure of external stimuli. In the eighteenth century Erasmus Darwin wrote a remarkable and interesting chapter on "The Periods of Disease," dealing with solar and lunar influence on biological processes.[121] Since then, many writers have brought forward evidence, especially in the domain of nervous and mental disease, which seems to justify a belief that, under pathological conditions, a tendency to a male menstrual rhythm may be clearly laid bare.

We should expect an organ so primitive in character as the heart, and with so powerful a rhythm already stamped upon its nervous organization, to be peculiarly apt to display a menstrual rhythm under the stress of abnormal conditions. This expectation might be strengthened by the menstrual rhythm which Mr. Perry-Coste has found reason to suspect in pulse-frequency during health. I am able to present a case in which such a periodicity seems to be indicated. It is that of a gentleman who suffered severely for some years before his death from valvular disease of the heart, with a tendency to pulmonary congestion, and attacks of "cardiac asthma." His wife, a lady of great intelligence, kept notes of her husband's condition,[122] and at last observed that there was a certain periodicity in the occurrence of the exacerbations. The periods were not quite regular, but show a curious tendency to recur at about thirty days' interval, a few days before the end of every month; it was during one of these attacks that he finally died. There was also a tendency to minor attacks about ten days after the major attacks. It is noteworthy that the subject showed a tendency to periodicity when in health, and once remarked laughingly before his illness: "I am just like a woman, always most excitable at a particular time of the month."

Periodicity has been noted in various disorders of nervous character. Periodic insanity has long been known and studied (see, e.g., Pilcz, Die periodischen Geistesstörungen, 1901); it is much commoner in women than in men. Periodicity has been observed in stammering (a six-weekly period in one case), and notably in hemicrania or migraine, by Harry Campbell, Osler, etc. (The periodicity of a case of hemicrania has been studied in detail by D. Fraser Harris, Edinburgh Medical Journal, July, 1902.) But the cycle in these cases is not always, or even usually, of a menstrual type.

It is now possible to turn to an investigation which, although of very limited extent, serves to place the question of a male menstrual cycle for the first time on a sound basis. If there is such a cycle analogous to menstruation in women, it must be a recurring period of nervous erethism, and it must be demonstrably accompanied by greater sexual activity. In the American Journal of Psychology for 1888, Mr. Julius Nelson, afterward Professor of Biology at the Rutgers College of Agriculture, New Brunswick, published a study of dreams in which he recorded the results of detailed observations of his dreams, and also of seminal emissions during sleep (by him termed "gonekbole" or "ecbole"), during a period of something over two years. Mr. Nelson found that both dreams and ecboles fell into a physiological cycle of 28 days. The climax of maximum dreaming (as determined by the number of words in the dream record) and the climax of maximum ecbole fell at the same point of the cycle, the ecbolic climax being more distinctly marked than the dream climax.

The question of cyclic physiological changes is considerably complicated by our uncertainty regarding the precise length of the cycle we may expect to find. Nelson finds a 28-day cycle satisfactory. Perry-Coste, as we shall see, accepts a strictly lunar cycle of 29½ days. Fliess has argued that in both women and men, many physiological facts fall into a cycle of 23 days, which he calls male, the 28-day cycle being female. (W. Fliess, Die Beziehungen zwischen Nase und weiblichen Geschlechts-Organen, 1897, pp. 113 et seq.) Although Fliess brings forward a number of minutely-observed cases, I cannot say that I am yet convinced of the reality of this 23-day cycle. It is somewhat curious, however, that at the same time as Fliess, though in apparent independence, and from a different point of view, another worker also suggested that there is a 23-day physiological cycle (John Beard, The Span of Gestation and the Cause of Birth, Jena, 1897). Beard approaches the question from the embryological standpoint, and argues that there is what he terms an "ovulation unit" of about 23½ days, in the interval from the end of one menstruation to the beginning of the next. Two "ovulation units" make up one "critical unit," and the length of pregnancy, according to Beard, is always a multiple of the "critical unit;" in man, the gestation period amounts to six critical units. These attempts to prove a new physiological cycle deserve careful study and further investigation. The possibility of such a cycle should be borne in mind, but at present we are scarcely entitled to accept it.

So far as I am aware, Professor Nelson's very interesting series of observations, which, for the first time, placed the question of a menstrual rhythm in men on a sound and workable basis, have not directly led to any further observations. I am, however, in possession of a much more extended series of ecbolic observations completed before Nelson's paper was published, although the results have only been calculated at a comparatively-recent date. I now propose to present a summary of these observations, and consider how far they confirm Nelson's conclusions. These observations cover no less a period than twelve years, between the ages of 17 and 29, the subject, W. K., being a student, and afterward schoolmaster, leading, on the whole, a chaste life. The records were faithfully made throughout the whole of this long period. Here, if anywhere, should be material for the construction of a menstrual rhythm on an ecbolic basis. While the results are in many respects instructive, it can scarcely, perhaps, be said that they absolutely demonstrate a monthly cycle. When summated in a somewhat similar manner to that adopted by Nelson in his ecbolic observations, it is not difficult to regard the maximum, which is reached on the 19th to 21st days of the summated physiological month, as a real menstrual ecbolic climax, for no other three consecutive days at all approach these in number of ecboles, while there is a marked depression occurring four days earlier, on the 16th day of the month. If, however, we split up the curve by dividing the period of twelve years into two nearly equal periods, the earlier of about seven years and the latter of about four years, and summate these separately, the two curves do not present any parallel as regards the menstrual cycle. It scarcely seems to me, therefore, that these curves present any convincing evidence in this case of a monthly ecbolic cycle (and, therefore, I refrain from reproducing them), although they seem to suggest such a cycle. Nor is there any reason to suppose that by adopting a different cycle of thirty days, or of twenty-three days, any more conclusive results would be obtained.

It seems, however, when we look at these curves more closely, that they are not wholly without significance. If I am justified in concluding that they scarcely demonstrate a monthly cycle, it may certainly be added that they show a rudimentary tendency for the ecboles to fall into a fortnightly rhythm, and a very marked and unmistakable tendency to a weekly rhythm. The fortnightly rhythm is shown in the curve for the earlier period, but is somewhat disguised in the curve for the total period, because the first climax is spread over two days, the 7th and 8th of the month. If we readjust the curve for the total period by presenting the days in pairs, the fortnightly tendency is more clearly brought out (Chart I).

A more pronounced tendency still is traceable to a weekly rhythm. This is, indeed, the most unquestionable fact brought out by these curves. All the maxima occur on Saturday or Sunday, with the minima on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, or Friday. This very pronounced weekly rhythm will serve to swamp more or less completely any monthly rhythm on a 28-day basis. Although here probably seen in an exaggerated form, it is almost certainly a characteristic of the ecbolic curve generally.[123] I have been told by several young men and women, especially those who work hard during the week, that Saturday, and especially Sunday afternoon, are periods when the thoughts spontaneously go in an erotic direction, and at this time there is a special tendency to masturbation or to spontaneous sexual excitement. It is on Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday, according to Guerry's tables,[124] that the fewest suicides are committed, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, with, however, a partial fall on Wednesday, those on which most suicides are committed, so that there would appear to be an antagonism between sexual activity and the desire to throw off life. It also appears (in the reports of the Bavarian factory inspectors) that accidents in factories have a tendency to occur chiefly at the beginning of the week, and toward the end rather than in the middle.[125] Even growth, as Fleischmann has shown in the case of children, tends to fall into weekly cycles. It is evident that the nervous system is profoundly affected by the social influences resulting from the weekly cycle.

The analysis of this series of ecbolic curves may thus be said to recall the suggestion of Laycock, that the menstrual cycle is really made up of four weekly cycles, the periodic unit, according to Laycock, being three and one-half days. I think it would, however, be more correct to say that the menstrual cycle, perhaps originally formed with reference to the influence of the moon on the sexual and social habits of men and other animals, tends to break up by a process of segmentation into fortnightly and weekly cycles. If we are justified in assuming that there is a male menstrual cycle, we must conclude that in such a case as that just analyzed, the weekly rhythm has become so marked as almost entirely to obliterate the larger monthly rhythm.

However constituted, there seems little doubt that a physiological weekly cycle really exists. This was, indeed, very clearly indicated many years ago by the observations of Edward Smith, who showed that there are weekly rhythms in pulse, respiration, temperature, carbonic acid evolution, urea, and body-weight, Sunday being the great day of repair and increase of weight.[126]

In an appendix to this volume I am able to present the results of another long series of observations of nocturnal ecbolic manifestations carried out by Mr. Perry-Coste, who has elaborately calculated the results, and has convinced himself that on the basis of a strictly lunar month, thus abolishing the disturbing influence of the weekly rhythm, which in his case also appears, a real menstrual rhythm may be traced.[127]

It does not appear to me, however, even yet, that a final answer to the question whether a menstrual sexual rhythm occurs in men can be decisively given in the affirmative. That such a cycle will be proved in many cases seems to me highly probable, but before this can be decisively affirmed it is necessary that a much larger number of persons should be induced to carry out on themselves the simple, but protracted, series of observations that are required.

Since the first edition of this volume appeared, numerous series of ecbolic records have reached me from different parts of the world. The most notable of these series comes from a professional man, of scientific training, who has for the past six years lived in different parts of India, where the record was kept. Though the record extends over nearly six years, there are two breaks in it, due to a visit to England, and to loss of interest. Both involuntary and voluntary discharges are included in the record. The involuntary discharges occurred during sleep, usually with an erotic dream, in which the subject invariably awaked and frequently made an effort to check the emission. The voluntary discharges in most cases commenced during sleep, or in the half-waking state; deliberate masturbation, when fully awake, was comparatively rare. The proportion of involuntary to more or less voluntary ecboles was about 3 to 1. A third kind of sexual manifestation (of frequency intermediate between the other two forms) is also included, in which a high degree of erethism is induced during the half waking state, culminating in an orgasm in which the power of preventing discharge has been artificially acquired. The subject, E. M., was 32 years of age when the record began. He belongs to a healthy family, and is himself physically sound, 5 feet 6 inches in height, but weight low, due to rickets in infancy. In early life he stammered badly; his temperament is emotional and self-conscious, while his work is unusually exacting, and he lives for most of the year in a very trying climate. As a boy he was very religious, and has always felt obliged to resist sexual vice to the utmost, though there have been occasional lapses.

As regards lunar periodicity, E. M., has summated his results in a curve, after the same manner as Mr. Perry-Coste, beginning with the new moon. The periods covered include 54 lunar months, and the total number of discharges is 176; the average frequency is about 3 per month of twenty-eight days. The curve, for the most part, zigzags between a frequency of 4 and 9, but on the twenty-fourth day it falls to 1, and then rises uninterruptedly to a height of 11 on the twenty-seventh day, falling to 2 on the next day. Whether a really menstrual rhythm is thus indicated I do not undertake to decide, but I am inclined to agree with E. M. himself that there is no definite evidence of it. "It looks to me," he writes, "as if the only real rhythm (putting aside the annual cycle) will be found to be the average period between the ecboles, varying in different persons, but in my case, about nine and one-eighth days. May not the ecbolic period in men be compared to the menstrual period in women, and be an example of the greater katabolic activity of men? There is the period of tumescence, and the ecbole constituting the detumescence. The week-end holiday would hasten the detumescence, but about every third week-end there would tend to be delay to enable the system to get back into its regulation nine or ten days' stride. This might possibly be the explanation of the curves. The recent emissions were nearly all involuntary during sleep. Age may have something to do with the change in character."

E. M.'s curves frequently show the influence of weekly periodicity, in the tendency to ecbole on Sunday, or sometimes on Saturday or Monday. In recent years there has been some tendency for this climax to be thrown towards the middle of the week, but, on the whole, Wednesday is the point of lowest frequency.

In another case, the subject, A. N., who has spent nearly all his life in the State of Indiana, has kept a record of sexual manifestations between the ages of 30 and 34. The data, which cover four years, have not been sent to me in a form which enables the possibility of a monthly curve to be estimated, but A. N., who has himself arranged the data on a lunar monthly basis, considers that a monthly curve is thus revealed. "My memoranda," he writes, "show that discharges occur most frequently on the first, second, and third days after new moon. There is also another period on the fourteenth and fifteenth, which might indicate a semi-lunar rhythm. The days of minimum discharge are the seventh, eighth, twenty-second, and twenty-third." It may be added that the yearly average of ecbolic manifestations, varying between 50 and 55, comes out as 52, or exactly one per week.

A weekly periodicity is very definitely shown by A. N.'s data. Sunday once more stands at the head of the week as regards frequency, in this case very decisively. The figures are as follows:—

In another case which has reached me from the United States, the data are slighter, but deserve note, as the subject is a trained psychologist, and I quote the case in his own words. Here, it will be seen, there appears to be a tendency for the ecbolic cycle to cover a period of about six weeks. In this case, also, there is a tendency for the climax to occur about Saturday or Sunday. "X. is 38 years old, unmarried, fair health, pretty good heredity; university trained, and engaged in academic pursuits. He thinks he may have completed puberty at about 13, though he has no proof that he was in the full possession of his sex-powers until he was 15 years 3 months old (when he had his first emission). His sex life has been normal. He masturbated somewhat when he slept with other boys (or men) during early manhood, but not to excess.

"During the autumn of 1889 (when 28 years of age) he observed that at certain times he had an itching feeling about the testicles; that he felt slightly irritable; that the penis erected with the slightest provocation, and that this peculiar feeling usually passed away with a nightly emission. Indeed, so regular was the matter that he usually wore a loin garment at these times, to prevent the semen getting on the bedding. This peculiar feeling ordinarily continued for two or three days. He recalls at these times that he felt that he would like to wrestle with some one, for there seemed to be a muscular tension. These states returned with apparent regularity, and the intervals seemed to be about six weeks, though no effort was made to measure the periods until 1893. The following notes are taken from the diaries of X.:—

"Thursday, December 29, 1892. The peculiar feeling.(This is the only entry.)"Thursday, February 9, 1893. The peculiar feeling.(The diary notes that X. awoke nights to find erections, andthat the feeling continued until Sunday night following, whenthere was an emission.)"Friday, March 27, 1893. The peculiar feeling.(The diary notes that there was an emission the next night,and that the feeling disappeared.)"Wednesday, May 3, 1893. The peculiar feeling.(The diary notes that it continued until Saturday night, whenX. had sexual relations, and that it then disappeared.)"Wednesday, June 14, 1893. The peculiar feeling.(The diary states that the next night X. had an emission,and the disappearance of the feeling.)"Thursday, July 27, 1893. The peculiar feeling.(The diary notes that it was apparent at about 3 o'clockthat afternoon. That night at 10 o'clock, X. had sexualintercourse, and the feeling was not noted the next day.)"Friday, September 8, 1893. The peculiar feeling.(Continued until Tuesday, the 11th, and then disappeared.No sexual intercourse, and no nightly emission.)"Wednesday, October 25, 1893. The peculiar feeling.(Continued until Saturday night, when there was a nightlyemission.)"Saturday, December 9, 1893. The peculiar feeling.(Continued until Monday night, when there was sexualrelations.)

It will be noted that the intervals observed were of about six weeks' duration, excepting one, that from September to October, when it was nearly seven weeks.

"These observations were not recorded after 1893. X. thinks that in 1894 the intervals were longer, an opinion which is based on the fact that for a period of six months he had no sexual intercourse and no nightly emissions. The times during this six months when he had the 'peculiar feeling,' the sensation was so slight as to be scarcely noted. In 1895, the feeling seemed more pronounced than ever before, and X. thinks that it may have recurred as often as once a month. In 1896, 1897, and 1898, the intervals, he thinks, lengthened—at times, he thought, wholly disappeared. During 1899, while they did not recur often, when they did come the sensation was pronounced, although the emission was less common. There was a peculiar 'heavy' feeling about the testicles, and a marked tendency towards erection of the penis, especially at night-time (while sleeping). X. often awoke to find a tense erection. Moreover, these feelings usually continued a week.

"1. In general, X. is of the opinion that as he grows older these intervals lengthen, though this inference is not based on recorded data.

"2. He notes that a discharge (through sexual intercourse or in sleep) invariably brings the peculiar feeling to a close for the time being.

"3. He notes that sexual intercourse at the time stops it; but, when there has been sexual intercourse within a week or ten days of the time (based upon the observations of 1893), that it had no tendency to check the feeling."

In another case, that of F. C., an Irish farmer, born in Waterford, the data are still more meagre, though the periodicity is stated to be very pronounced. He is chaste, steady, with occasional lapses from strict sobriety, healthy and mentally normal, living a regular open-air life, far from the artificial stimuli of towns. The observations refer to a period when he was from 20 to 27 years of age. During this period, nocturnal emissions occurred at regular intervals of exactly a month. They were ushered in by fits of irritability and depression, and usually occurred in dreamless sleep. The discharges were abundant and physically weakening, but they relieved the psychic symptoms, though they occasioned mental distress, since F. C. is scrupulous in a religious sense, and also apprehensive of bad constitutional effects, the result of reading alarmist quack pamphlets.

In another case known to me, a young man leading a chaste life, experienced crises of sexual excitement every ten to fourteen days, the crisis lasting for several days.

Finally, an interesting contribution to this subject, suggested by this Study, has been made and published (in the proceedings of the Amsterdam International Congress of Psychology, in 1907) by the well-known Amsterdam neurologist and psychologist, Dr. L. S. A. M. Von Römer under the title, "Ueber das Verhältniss zwischen Mondalter und Sexualität." Von Römer's data are made up not of nocturnal involuntary emissions, but of the voluntary acts of sexual intercourse of an unmarried man, during a period of four years. Von Römer believes that these, to a much greater extent than those of a married man, would be liable to periodic influence, if such exist. On making a curve of exact lunar length (similarly to Perry-Coste), he finds that there are, every month, two maxima and two minima, in a way that approximately resemble Perry-Coste's curve. The main point in Von Römer's results is, however, the correspondence that he finds with the actual lunar phases; the chief maximum occurs at the time of the full moon, and the secondary maximum at the time of the new moon, the minima being at the first and fourth quarters. He hazards no theory in explanation of this coincidence, but insists on the need for further observations. It will be seen that A. N.'s results (ante p. 117) seem in the main to correspond to Von Römer's.

[117]

Even counting the pulse is a comparatively recent method of physiological examination. It was not until 1450 that Nicolas of Cusa advocated counting the pulse-beats. (Binz, Deutsche medizinische Wochenschrift, October 6, 1898.)

[118]

I leave this statement as it stands, though since the first publication of this book it has ceased to be strictly accurate.

[119]

Sanctorius, Medicina Statica, Sect. I, aph. lxv.

[120]

American Journal of Obstetrics, xiv, 1882.

[121]

Zoönomia, Section XXXVI.

[122]

I reproduced these notes in full in earlier editions of this volume.

[123]

Moll refers to the case of a man whose erotic dreams occurred every fortnight, and always on Friday night (Libido Sexualis, Band I, p. 136). One is inclined to suspect an element of autosuggestion in such a case; still, the coincidence is noteworthy.

[124]

See Durkheim, Le Suicide, p. 101.

[125]

We must, of course, see here the results of the disorganization produced by holidays, and the exhaustion produced by the week's labor; but such influences are still the social effects of the cosmic week.

[126]

E. Smith, Health and Disease, Chapter III. I may remark that, according to Kemsoes (Deutsche medizinische Wochenschrift, January 20, 1908, and British Medical Journal, January 29, 1898), school-children work best on Monday and Tuesday.

See Appendix B.

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