The penis is at all times flaccid, if impotence be complete. Often partial impotence will reveal itself, deviating peculiarly in its character. Sometimes a man will, while entertaining erotic thoughts, have an erection of the penis which is perfect in all appearance, and when brought in contact with a female cannot sustain or even procure the erection, and yet the erotic desire be just as intense as if he be able to perform the act in a proper manner. These cases are practically impotent, but the disease has all to do with the mind; and as soon as the mind can be so corrected that self-control may be exercised as well as self-confidence, just so soon will the impotence disappear; and once the act is performed normally, the trouble will be at an end. But there is a condition in which all the powers of mind and body, exercised to control, will not impart either the power of erection or the erotic desire――only a longing for that once felt erotic desire exists. The condition often exists in which the patient cannot control the mental impressions, so as to effect that peculiar concentration of the nervous force which gives energy to the sexual organs; and yet there may be no disease of such nerves themselves. It is the same condition that will cause the mental operations to fail during any course of anxiety, or turbulence of the emotions. A speech-maker may fail in his efforts at first, even after he considered himself prepared for every emergency; but as soon as allowed to collect his scattered mental evolutions, he may compose himself. Inability to perform the sexual act while suffering from any mental derangement, or misunderstanding one’s own mental elaborations, is not impotence; but there must be impairment of the integrity of the nerve-substance that evolves the force that sustains the sexual organ in its erect attitude, and also supplies the so-called physiological irritation. If we attempt to name this peculiar disease from other stand-points, we shall become confused; as it would only demonstrate a function-disease, which is an impossibility and leads to confusion. I have seen cases of so-called impotence from intestinal worms: while impotence is not generally considered a symptom of worms, yet this is a case which recovered as soon as the worms were expelled. I have known two cases that supposed they were permanently impotent, both of which obtained relief after the expulsion of a tænia solium. These were cases of symptomatic impotence; which only means phenomena that may exist in remote structural disease, or by mechanical pressure, as from foreign bodies, lumbricoide, tapeworms, etc., pressing or directly or indirectly infringing upon the nervous track that conveys the force which supplies the erectile tissue of the penis. This is a paralysis of the vaso-motor variety, in which the impotence is only a symptom: the disease must be studied under nervous diseases.