I am indebted to a medical correspondent for the following communication: "Married women have told me that they find that after marriage they are not ticklish under the arms or on the breasts, though before marriage any tickling or touching in these regions, especially by a man, would make them jump or get hysterical or 'queer,' as they call it. Before coitus the sexual energy seems to be dissipated along all the nerve-channels and especially along the secondary sexual routes,--the breasts, nape of neck, eyebrows, lips, cheeks, armpits, and hair thereon, etc.,--but after marriage the surplus energy is diverted from these secondary channels, and response to tickling is diminished. I have often noted in insane cases, especially mania in adolescent girls, that they are excessively ticklish. Again, in ordinary routine practice I have observed that, though married women show no ticklishness during auscultation and percussion of the chest, this is by no means always so in young girls. Perhaps ticklishness in virgins is Nature's self-protection against rape and sexual advances, and the young girl instinctively wishing to hide the armpits, breasts, and other ticklish regions, tucks herself up to prevent these parts being touched. The married woman, being in love with a man, does not shut up these parts, as she reciprocates the advances that he makes; she no longer requires ticklishness as a protection against sexual aggression." FOOTNOTES: [5] Alrutz's views are summarized in _Psychological Review_, Sept., 1901. [6] _Die Spiele der Menschen_, 1899, p. 206. [7] L. Robinson, art. "Ticklishness," Tuke's _Dictionary of Psychological Medicine_. [8] Stanley Hall and Allin, "Tickling and Laughter," _American Journal of Psychology_, October, 1897. [9] H.M. Stanley, "Remarks on Tickling and Laughter," _American Journal of Psychology_, vol. ix, January, 1898. [10] Simpson, "On the Attitude of the Foetus in Utero," _Obstetric Memoirs_, 1856, vol. ii. [11] Erasmus Darwin, _Zoönomia_, Sect. XVII, 4. [12] Hyades and Deniker, _Mission Scientifique du Cap Horn_, vol. vii. p. 296. [13] Such an interpretation is supported by the arguments of W. McDougall ("The Theory of Laughter," _Nature_, February 5, 1903), who contends, without any reference to the sexual field, that one of the objects of laughter is automatically to "disperse our attention." [14] Even the structure of the vaginal mucous membrane, it may be noted, is analogous to that of the skin. D. Berry Hart, "Note on the Development of the Clitoris, Vagina, and Hymen," _Transactions of the Edinburgh Obstetrical Society_, vol. xxi, 1896. [15] W.H.B. Stoddart, "Anæsthesia in the Insane," _Journal of Mental Science_, October, 1899. [16] Gina Lombroso, "Sur les Réflexes Cutanés," International Congress of Criminal Anthropology, Amsterdam, _Comptes Rendus_, p. 295. III.