I found the patient, Miss H., who was aged 18, fleshy (her weight was 150 pounds), had been a very healthy girl, of an excellent family, and rather pleasant in disposition. She had always been very modest and retiring; had rosy cheeks, black hair and eyes. She was then in a very delirious state, with pupils contracted, face flushed, no cramping, feet cold; head very hot, with occasional epileptiform movements of the eyes and mouth; biting the tongue and frothing at the mouth; twitching of the facial muscles and sphincters. I informed an old lady that I suspected some private trouble and invited her _only_, to remain in the room while I made an external inspection, which only gave me the satisfaction of knowing that nothing was the matter with her genitals, and that the young man had not deceived me and effected intromission, as the hymen was perfect. A large dose of chloral hydrate produced quietude for the night, and I ordered her to be taken home as soon as she was rested by sleep. I visited her the next morning at her own home. She was conscious, with pulse at 120; temperature, 102; pupils contracted, and face flushed; skin dry; tongue dry and red; asking for water often; head drawn back; throbbing of the carotids, with spasms of the dorsal and posterior cervical muscles. She had never been sick, and she had never been of a nervous habit; and such a condition was entirely unexpected. There was no epidemic of such a character, and no accountable cause except that given. Her case was of an inflammatory type and lasted twenty-one days. Treated by large doses of gelseminum, veratrum viride, and quinine when safe. The case was a sthenic one throughout, a meningitis without a doubt, and no cause but venereal shock. When she recovered I asked her if she remembered what occurred during the night of her falling sick, and she flushed, but finally confessed knowing when he put his hand upon her genitalia, when she thought she fainted; but casually remarked, “I don’t understand it, but I had no power to prevent him doing so.” The young man again informed me that his hand was upon the vulva, perhaps a minute, when he noticed a strange expression on her countenance. The shock did not occur at or near her menstrual period, and she menstruated during convalescence, which her mother informed me was a period six weeks from her previous time. She never entirely recovered her mental vigor, and remained single till three years ago, when she married, and all has gone well. The shock can only be attributed to that susceptibility to nervous impressions so common to the female reproductive organs in the stage of development. There is a strong probability that had this nervous shock been less impressive in character and more prolonged, a nymphomania might have occurred. CHAPTER VII.