_Psychic impotence._—The mode of impotence known as psychic is a very frequent anomaly. It is the disease of the cultured classes. The action of the nervi erigentes is incomplete in psychic impotence, and the complete relaxation of the corpora cavernosa does not take place. Hence a sufficient quantity of blood can not enter the erectile tissue to exert pressure on the outgoing veins. The corpora cavernosa become smaller and harder at the critical moment and do not admit the entrance of the blood. The diameter of the penis becomes less than that of the glans. The penis feels cartilaginous, and the skin is found in transverse folds through the contraction of the corpora cavernosa. Hence erections are feeble or entirely wanting at the critical moment. When the patient is lying in bed alone he has, in distinction from atonic impotence, quite vigorous erections. Psychic impotence is transitorily found also in healthy individuals when they are in a state of agitation. The more agitated the patient is, the more the penis shrinks. In psychic impotence, if the wife is of an exceedingly passionate disposition, she will make advances and may often evoke powerful erections, whereas the wife’s indifference would cause impotence. In this way this form of impotence is often only relative. With one woman the inability injungendi is complete, while the virile power is exuberant in concarnatione with another. As a rule, the patient who has reached the critical age of fifty to sixty, does not succeed in his conjugal duties but is able commisceri meretricis auxilio. The indifference of the wife who, as a rule, is about forty to fifty years of age and has either passed or is very near the climacterium, accounts for the husband’s impotence in her company. Such men are able to perform the act only when the woman actively or at least cheerfully and willingly yields herself. The sullen, supine position of the frigid wife is not enough to hold a man’s love forever. Temporary psychic impotence of short duration is sometimes met with in newly married men through lack of confidence. When about to be married, the broodings over things to come overstimulate the inhibitory centres in the brain. As a result, at the critical moment, the penis gradually shrinks, grows smaller and moves in a worm-like manner in the course of its diminution. The following case may serve as an illustration for such cases: