It is thirty years since I published a work on the histological changes that occur in the ovaries during the climacteric period (Archiv. für Gynecologie, Vol. xii, Section 3); and ever since that time, the influence exerted upon the general health of women by the physiological and pathological processes occurring in their reproductive organs, has been to me a favourite subject for observation and experiment. The result of these studies is incorporated in my monographs, “The Climacteric Period in Women” (Erlangen, 1874), “Sterility in Women” (2nd Ed., Vienna, 1895), “The Uterus and the Heart” (Leipzig, 1898), and in various contributions to medical periodicals. I now have a welcome opportunity of drawing a general picture of sexual activity in women, and of illuminating this picture both by the light of my own experience and by numerous references to the works of other authors. In passing, I have devoted considerable attention to questions of education and personal hygiene, both of which are greatly influenced by the processes of the sexual life. Thus, I hope, the work will be rendered more interesting to the physician, and the general picture it is intended to convey will be more fully characterized by contemporary actuality. Natural divisions of the subject are, I consider, furnished by the three great landmarks of the sexual life of woman: the _onset_ of menstruation—the _menarche_: the _culmination_ of sexual activity—the _menacme_; and the _cessation_ of menstruation—the _menopause_. These several sexual epochs are differentiated by characteristic anatomical states of the reproductive organs, by the external configuration of the feminine body, by functional effects throughout the entire organism, and, finally, by pathological disturbances of the normal vital processes. Thus in separate chapters a description is given of sexual processes, a detailed exposition of which will be vainly sought in the textbooks of gynecology, yet which are none the less of far-reaching importance in relation to the physical, mental, and social well-being of women, and in relation also to the development of human society; such topics are, the sexual impulse, copulation, fertility, sterility, the employment of means for the prevention of conception, the determination of sex, sexual hygiene. To the topics of pregnancy, parturition, lying-in, and lactation, since these are adequately discussed in works on midwifery, but little space has here been allotted. It is my earnest hope that physicians and biologists may derive benefit from the book equal in amount to the pleasure I have gained in the work of writing it. E. HEINRICH KISCH. TABLE OF CONTENTS. PAGE THE SEXUAL LIFE OF WOMAN—Introduction 1 I. THE SEXUAL EPOCH OF THE MENARCHE 37