Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1: The Evolution of Modesty; The Phenomena of Sexual Periodicity; Auto-ErotismEllis, Havelock
Science
Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1: The Evolution of Modesty; The Phenomena of Sexual Periodicity; Auto-Erotism
Ellis, Havelock
Sex; Sex (Psychology)
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).
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