To this I reply that some men are brutes. Even among husbands, pledged truly to love and cherish those who generally give far more real affection than they receive, there exist the veriest satyrs, eroto-maniacs, madmen. Knowing that they are endangering their wife’s life, that they are causing her health seriously to suffer, or to be ruined, they still persist in their demands for what at the best is but a momentary gratification, and when begrudged, becomes the most selfish and the basest of all pleasures; and this they do in the face of remonstrance, entreaties, tears. Many a married man has, as I have said, virtually committed a rape upon his wife: though the crime may be unrecognized as such by the law, it is none the less this in fact, the element of consent having been wholly wanting. There are others of our number, who, kind at heart and not so selfish, equally err through ignorance of the real nature of the case, or from inconsiderateness. It is only of late that even physicians are awakening to the importance of the manifold special diseases of women, and to the very existence of many of them. It is often asked if these diseases are not a new thing, if they have not indeed wholly sprung up during the present century. This may be true to a certain extent, in consequence of certain variations from the normal standard of living; but there is no doubt, on the other hand, that hosts of women used to die of disease, then undetected or wholly misunderstood, that is now readily cured. Among these diseases, all of which are enshrouded by the veil of a woman’s natural delicacy, but which, involving as they do the very existence of social life, come directly within the physician’s province, and that also of simple common sense,—among them there is a very large class, closely related to the subject of our present inquiry, those occasioned or aggravated by excessive sexual indulgence. I shall, of course, refrain from speaking more explicitly than I have now done, but will merely say that we may all of us be thankful that our development was carried to the positive extreme, and that we are not women. They are subject to an immense variety of disease, of which, from personal experience, we know nothing, and it is often attended by the most exquisite suffering. This they are prone to conceal; far from generally exaggerating it, they endeavor to undervalue it, and suffer, with a fortitude that we could but feebly emulate, in silence. There are exceptions to this statement, it is true, but they are still but exceptions, and so prove the rule. Even where such do exist, there is usually present great nervous excitement or exaltation, which is often much more difficult to endure than direct physical pain. Far from ridiculing or chiding these sufferers, they deserve and should receive our hearty sympathy, which is by no means sure, as it is so commonly supposed to do, of evoking a fresh accession of the malady. Many a heart is broken by the sneer of