The majority of authorities admit a heightening of sexual emotion before or after the menstrual crisis. See e.g., Krafft-Ebing, who places it at the post-menstrual period (Psychopathia Sexualis, Eng. translation of tenth edition, p. 27). Adler states that sexual feeling is increased before, during and after menstruation (Die Mangelhafte Geschlechtsempfindung des Weibes, 1904, p. 88). Kossmann (Senator and Kaminer, Health and Disease in Relation to Marriage, I, 249), advises intercourse just after menstruation, or even during the latter days of the flow, as the period when it is most needed. Guyot says that the eight days after menstruation are the period of sexual desire in women (Breviaire de l'Amour Experimentale, p. 144). Harry Campbell investigated the periodicity of sexual desire in healthy women of the working classes, in a series of cases, by inquiries made of their husbands who were patients at a London hospital. People of this class are not always skilful in observation, and the method adopted would permit many facts to pass unrecorded; it is, therefore, noteworthy that only in one-third of the cases had no connection between menstruation and sexual feeling been observed; in the other two-thirds, sexual feeling was increased, either before, after, or during the flow, or at all of these times; the proportion of cases in which sexual feeling was increased before the flow, to those in which it was increased after, was as three to two. (H. Campbell, Nervous Organization of Men and Women, p. 203.)

Even this elementary fact of the sexual life has, however, been denied, and, strange to say, by two women doctors. Dr. Mary Putnam Jacobi, of New York, who furnished valuable contributions to the physiology of menstruation, wrote some years ago, in a paper on "The Theory of Menstruation," in reference to the question of the connection between oestrus and menstruation: "Neither can any such rhythmical alternation of sexual instinct be demonstrated in women as would lead to the inference that the menstrual crisis was an expression of this," i.e., of oestrus. Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell, again, in her book on The Human Element in Sex, asserts that the menstrual flow itself affords complete relief for the sexual feelings in women (like sexual emissions during sleep in men), and thus practically denies the prevalence of sexual desire in the immediately post-menstrual period, when, on such a theory, sexual feeling should be at its minimum. It is fair to add that Dr. Blackwell's opinion is merely the survival of a view which was widely held a century ago, when various writers (Bordeu, Roussel, Duffieux, J. Arnould, etc.), as Icard has pointed out, regarded menstruation as a device of Providence for safeguarding the virginity of women.

FOOTNOTES:

[75] Thaddeus L. Bolton, "Rhythm," American Journal of Psychology, January, 1894.

[76] It is scarcely necessary to warn the reader that this statement does not prejudge the question of the inheritance of acquired characters, although it fits in with Semon's Mnemic theory. We can, however, very well suppose that the organism became adjusted to the rhythms of its environment by a series of congenital variations. Or it might be held, on the basis of Weismann's doctrine, that the germ-plasm has been directly modified by the environment.

[77] Thus, the Papuans, in some districts, believe that the first menstruation is due to an actual connection, during sleep, with the moon in the shape of a man, the girl dreaming that a real man is embracing her. (Reports Cambridge Expedition to Torres Straits, vol. v, p. 206.)

[78] Darwin, Descent of Man, p. 164.

[79] While in the majority of women the menstrual cycle is regular for the individual, and corresponds to the lunar month of 28 days, it must be added that in a considerable minority it is rather longer, or, more usually, shorter than this, and in many individuals is not constant. Osterloh found a regular type of menstruation in 68 per cent, healthy women, four weeks being the most usual length of the cycle; in 21 per cent, the cycle was always irregular. See Naecke, "Die Menstruation und ihr Einfluss bei chronischen Psychosen," Archiv fuer Psychiatrie, 1896, Bd, 28, Heft 1.

[80] Among the Duala and allied negro peoples of Bantu stock dances of markedly erotic character take place at full moon. Gason describes the dances and sexual festivals of the South Australian blacks, generally followed by promiscuous intercourse, as taking place at full moon. (Journal of the Anthropological Institute, November, 1894, p. 174.) In all parts of the world, indeed, including Christendom, festivals are frequently regulated by the phases of the moon.

[81] It has often been held that the course of insanity is influenced by the moon. Of comparatively recent years, this thesis has been maintained by Koster (Ueber die Gesetze des periodischen Irreseins und verwandter Nervenzustaende, Bonn, 1882), who argues in detail that periodic insanity tends to fall into periods of seven days or multiples of seven.

[82] Ed. Hahn, Demeter und Baubo, p. 23.

[83] E. Seler, Zeitschrift fuer Ethnologie, 1907, Heft I, p. 39. And as regards the primitive importance of the moon, see also Frazer, Adonis, Attis, Osiris, Ch. VIII.

[84] Jastrow, Religion of Babylonia, 1898, pp. 68, 75-79, 461.

[85] Even in England, Barnes has known women of feeble sexual constitution who menstruated only in summer (R. Barnes, Diseases of Women, 1878, p. 192).

[86] A.B. Holder, "Gynecic Notes among American Indians," American Journal of Obstetrics, No. 6, 1892.

[87] In the male, the phenomenon is termed rut, and is most familiar in the stag. I quote from Marshall and Jolly some remarks on the infrequency of rut: "'The male wild Cat,' Mr. Cocks informs us, (like the stag), 'has a rutting season, calls loudly, almost day and night, making far more noise than the female.' This information is of interest, inasmuch as the males of most carnivores, although they undoubtedly show signs of increased sexual activity at some times more than at others, are not known to have anything of the nature of a regularly recurrent rutting season. Nothing of the kind is known in the Dog, nor, so far as we are aware, in the males of the domestic Cat, or the Ferret, all of which seem to be capable of copulation at any time of the year. On the other hand, the males of Seals appear to have a rutting season at the same time as the sexual season of the female." (Marshall and Jolly, "Contributions to the Physiology of Mammalian Reproduction," Philosophical Transactions, 1905, B. 198.)

[88] A. Wiltshire, British Medical Journal, March, 1883. The best account of heat known to me is contained in Ellenberger's Vergleichende Physiologie der Haussauegethiere, 1892, Band 4, Theil 2, pp. 276-284.

[89] Schurig (Parthenologia, 1729, p. 125), gives numerous references and quotations.

[90] Quoted by Icard, La Femme, etc., p. 63.

[91] Bland Sutton, Surgical Diseases of the Ovaries, and British Gynecological Journal, vol. ii.

[92] W. Heape, "The Menstruation of Semnopithecus Entellus," Philosophical Transactions, 1894; "Menstruation and Ovulation of Macacus Rhesus," Philosophical Transactions, 1897.

[93] W.L. Distant, "Notes on the Chacma Baboon," Zooelogist, January, 1897, p, 29.

[94] Nature, March 23, 1899.

[95] W. Heape, "The Menstruation of Semnopithecus Entellus," Philosophical Transactions, 1894, p. 483; Bland Sutton, Surgical Diseases of the Ovaries, 1896.

[96] T. Bryce and J. Teacher (Contributions to the Study of the Early Development of the Human Ovum, 1908), putting the matter somewhat differently, regard menstruation as a cyclical process, providing for the maintenance of the endometrium in a suitable condition of immaturity for the production of the decidua of pregnancy, which they believe may take place at any time of the month, though most favorably shortly before or after a menstrual period which has been accompanied by ovulation.

[97] Robinson, American Gynecological and Obstetrical Journal, August, 1905.

[98] Bossi, Annali di Ostetrica e Ginecologia, September, 1896; summarized in the British Medical Journal, October 31, 1896. As regards the more normal influence of the ovaries over the uterus, see e.g. Carmichael and F.H.A. Marshall, "Correlation of the Ovarian and Uterine Functions," Proceedings Royal Society, vol. 79, Series B, 1907.

[99] Beuttner, Centralblatt fuer Gynaekologie, No. 49, 1893; summarized in British Medical Journal, December, 1893. Many cases show that pregnancy may occur in the absence of menstruation. See, e.g., Nouvelles Archives d'Obstetrique et de Gynecologie, 25 Janvier, 1894, supplement, p. 9.

[100] It is still possible, and even probable, that the primordial cause of both phenomena is the same. Heape (Transactions Obstetrical Society of London, 1898, vol. xl, p. 161) argues that both menstruation and ovulation are closely connected with and influenced by congestion, and that in the primitive condition they are largely due to the same cause. This primary cause he is inclined to regard as a ferment, due to a change in the constitution of the blood brought about by climatic influences and food, which he proposes to call gonadin. (W. Heape, Proceedings of Royal Society, 1905, vol. B. 76, p. 266.) Marshall, who has found that in the ferret and other animals, ovulation may be dependent upon copulation, also considers that ovulation and menstruation, though connected and able to react on each other, may both be dependent upon a common cause; he finds that in bitches and rats heat can be produced by injection of extract from ovaries in the oestrous state (F.H.A. Marshall, Philosophical Transactions, 1903, vol. B. 196; also Marshall and Jolly, id., 1905, B. 198). Cf. C.J. Bond, "An Inquiry Into Some Points in Uterine and Ovarian Physiology and Pathology in Rabbits," British Medical Journal, July 21, 1906.

[101] Pouchet, Theorie de l'Ovulation Spontanee, 1847. As Blair Bell and Pontland Hick remark ("Menstruation," British Medical Journal, March 6, 1909), the repeated oestrus of unimpregnated animals (once a fortnight in rabbits) is surely comparable to menstruation.

[102] Tait, Provincial Medical Journal, May, 1891; J. Beard, The Span of Gestation, 1897, p. 69. Lawson Tait is reduced to the assertion that ovulation and menstruation are identical.

[103] As Moll points out, even the secondary sexual characters have undergone a somewhat similar change. The beard was once an important sexual attraction, but men can now afford to dispense with it without fear of loss in attractiveness. (Libido Sexualis, Band I, p. 387.) These points are discussed at greater length in the fourth volume of these Studies, "Sexual Selection in Man."

[104] It is not absolutely established that in menstruating animals the period of menstruation is always a period of sexual congress; probably not, the influence of menstruation being diminished by the more fundamental influence of breeding seasons, which affect the male also; monkeys have a breeding season, though they menstruate regularly all the year round.

[105] See Appendix A.

[106] Bland Sutton, loc. cit., p. 896.

[107] See H. Ellis, Man and Woman, Chapter XI.

[108] This is by no means true of European women only. Thus, we read in an Arabic book, The Perfumed Garden, that women have an aversion to coitus during menstruation. On the other hand, the old Hindoo physician, Susruta, appears to have stated that a tendency to run after men is one of the signs of menstruation.

[109] The actual period of the menstrual flow corresponds, in Heape's terminology, to the congestive stage, or pro-oestrum, in female animals; the oestrus, or period of sexual desire, immediately follows the pro-oestrum, and is the direct result of it. See Heape, "The 'Sexual Season' of Mammals," Quarterly Journal of Microscopical Science, 1900, vol. xliv, Part I.

[110] It may be noted that (as Barnes, Oliver, and others have pointed out) there is heightened blood-pressure during menstruation. Haig remarks that he has found a tendency for high pressure to be accompanied by increased sexual appetite (Uric Acid, 6th edition, p. 155).

[111] Sir W.F. Wade, however, remarked, some years ago, in his Ingleby Lectures (Lancet, June 5, 1886): "It is far from exceptional to find that there is an extreme enhancement of concupiscence in the immediate precatamenial period," and adds, "I am satisfied that evidence is obtainable that in some instances, ardor is at its maximum during the actual period, and suspect that cases occur in which it is almost, if not entirely, limited to that time." Long ago, however, the genius of Haller had noted the same fact. More recently, Icard (La Femme, Chapter VI and elsewhere, e.g., p. 125) has brought forward much evidence in confirmation of this view. It may be added that there is considerable significance in the fact that the erotic hallucinations, which are not infrequently experienced by women under the influence of nitrous oxide gas, are more likely to appear at the monthly period than at any other time. (D.W. Buxton, Anesthetics, 1892, p. 61.)

[112] Gehrung considers that in healthy young girls amorous sensations are normal during menstruation, and in some women persist, during this period, throughout life. More usually, however, as menstrual period after menstrual period recurs, without the natural interruption of pregnancy, the feeling abates, and gives place to sensations of discomfort or pain. He ascribes this to the vital tissues being sapped of more blood than can be replaced in the intervals. "The vital powers, being thus kept in abeyance, the amative sensations are either not developed, or destroyed. This, superadded by the usual moral and religious teachings, is amply sufficient, by degrees, to extinguish or prevent such feelings with the great majority. The sequestration as 'unclean,' of women during their catamenial period, as practiced in olden times, had the same tendency." (E.C. Gehrung, "The Status of Menstruation," Transactions American Gynecology Society, 1901, p. 48.)

[113] It is possible there may be an element of truth in this belief. Diday, of Lyons, found that chronic urethorrhoea is an occasional result of intercourse during menstruation. Raciborski (Traite de la Menstruation, 1868, p. 12), who also paid attention to this point, while confirming Diday, came to the conclusion that some special conditions must be present on one or both sides.

[114] See, e.g., Ballantyne, "Teratogenesis," Transactions of the Edinburgh Obstetrical Society, 1896, vol. xxi, pp. 324-25.

[115] As quoted by Icard, La Femme, etc., p. 194. I have not been able to see Negrier's work.

[116] I deal with the question of sexual anaesthesia in women in the third volume of these Studies: "The Sexual Impulse in Women."



II.

The Question of a Monthly Sexual Cycle in Men—The Earliest Suggestions of a General Physiological Cycle in Men—Periodicity in Disease—Insanity, Heart Disease, etc.—The Alleged Twenty-three Days' Cycle—The Physiological Periodicity of Seminal Emissions during Sleep—Original Observations—Fortnightly and Weekly Rhythms.

For some centuries, at least, inquisitive observers here and there have thought they found reason to believe that men, as well as women, present various signs of a menstrual physiological cycle. It would be possible to collect a number of opinions in favor of such a monthly physiological periodicity in men. Precise evidence, however, is, for the most part, lacking. Men have expended infinite ingenuity in establishing the remote rhythms of the solar system and the periodicity of comets. They have disdained to trouble about the simpler task of proving or disproving the cycles of their own organisms.[117] It is over half a century since Laycock wrote that "the scientific observation and treatment of disease are impossible without a knowledge of the mysterious revolutions continually taking place in the system"; yet the task of summarizing the whole of our knowledge regarding these "mysterious revolutions" is even to-day no heavy one. As to the existence of a monthly cycle in the sexual instincts of men, with a single exception, I am not aware that any attempt has been made to bring forward definite evidence.[118] A certain interest and novelty attaches, therefore, to the evidence I am able to produce, although that evidence will not suffice to settle the question finally.

The great Italian physician, Sanctorius, who was in so many ways the precursor of our modern methods of physiological research by the means of instruments of precision, was the first, so far as I am aware, to suggest a monthly cycle of the organism in men. He had carefully studied the weight of the body with reference to the amount of excretions, and believed that a monthly increase in weight to the amount of one or two pounds occurred in men, followed by a critical discharge of urine, this crisis being preceded by feelings of heaviness and lassitude.[119] Gall, another great initiator of modern views, likewise asserted a monthly cycle in men. He insisted that there is a monthly critical period, more marked in nervous people than in others, and that at this time the complexion becomes dull, the breath stronger, digestion more laborious, while there is sometimes disturbance of the urine, together with general malaise, in which the temper takes part; ideas are formed with more difficulty, and there is a tendency to melancholy, with unusual irascibility and mental inertia, lasting a few days. More recently Stephenson, who established the cyclical wave-theory of menstruation, argued that it exists in men also, and is really "a general law of vital energy."[120]

Sanctorius does not appear to have published the data on which his belief was founded. Keill, an English, follower of Sanctorius, in his Medicina Statica Britannica (1718), published a series of daily (morning and evening) body-weights for the year, without referring to the question of a monthly cycle. A period of maximum weight is shown usually, by Keill's figures, to occur about once a month, but it is generally irregular, and cannot usually be shown to occur at definite intervals. Monthly discharges of blood from the sexual organs and other parts of the body in men have been recorded in ancient and modern times, and were treated of by the older medical writers as an affliction peculiar to men with a feminine system. (Laycock, Nervous Diseases of Women, p. 79.) A summary of such cases will be found in Gould and Pyle (Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine, 1897, pp. 27-28). Laycock (Lancet, 1842-43, vols. i and ii) brought forward cases of monthly and fortnightly cycles in disease, and asserted "the general principle that there are greater and less cycles of movements going on in the system, involving each other, and closely connected with the organization of the individual." He was inclined to accept lunar influence, and believed that the physiological cycle is made up of definite fractions and multiples of a period of seven days, especially a unit of three and a half days. Albrecht, a somewhat erratic zooelogist, put forth the view a few years ago that there are menstrual periods in men, giving the following reasons: (1) males are rudimentary females, (2) in all males of mammals, a rudimentary masculine uterus (Mueller's ducts) still persists, (3) totally hypospadic male individuals menstruate; and believed that he had shown that in man there is a rudimentary menstruation consisting in an almost monthly periodic appearance, lasting for three or four days, of white corpuscles in the urine (Anomalo, February, 1890). Dr. Campbell Clark, some years since, made observations on asylum attendants in regard to the temperature, during five weeks, which tended to show that the normal male temperature varies considerably within certain limits, and that "so far as I have been able to observe, there is one marked and prolonged rise every month or five weeks, averaging three days, occasional lesser rises appearing irregularly and of shorter duration. These observations are only made in three cases, and I have no proof that they refer to the sexual appetite" (Campbell Clark, "The Sexual Reproductive Functions," Psychological Section, British Medical Association, Glasgow, 1888; also, private letters). Hammond (Treatise on Insanity, p. 114) says: "I have certainly noted in some of my friends, the tendency to some monthly periodic abnormal manifestations. This may be in the form of a headache, or a nasal haemorrhage, or diarrhoea, or abundant discharge of uric acid, or some other unusual occurrence. I think," he adds, "this is much more common than is ordinarily supposed, and a careful examination or inquiry will generally, if not invariably, establish the existence of a periodicity of the character referred to."

Dr. Harry Campbell, in his book on Differences in the Nervous Organization of Men and Women, deals fully with the monthly rhythm (pp. 270 et seq.), and devotes a short chapter to the question, "Is the Menstrual Rhythm peculiar to the Female Sex?" He brings forward a few pathological cases indicating such a rhythm, but although he had written a letter to the Lancet, asking medical men to supply him with evidence bearing on this question, it can scarcely be said that he has brought forward much evidence of a convincing kind, and such as he has brought forward is purely pathological. He believes, however, that we may accept a monthly cycle in men. "We may," he concludes, "regard the human being—both male and female—as the subject of a monthly pulsation which begins with the beginning of life, and continues till death," menstruation being regarded as a function accidentally ingrafted upon this primordial rhythm.

It is not unreasonable to argue that the possibility of such a menstrual cycle is increased, if we can believe that in women, also, the menstrual cycle persists even when its outward manifestations no longer occur. Aetius said that menstrual changes take place during gestation; in more modern times, Buffon was of the same opinion. Laycock also maintained that menstrual changes take place during pregnancy (Nervous Diseases of Women, p. 47). Fliess considers that it is certainly incorrect to assert that the menstrual process is arrested during pregnancy, and he refers to the frequency of monthly epistaxis and other nasal symptoms throughout this period (W. Fliess, Beziehungen zwischen Nase und Geschlechts-Organen, pp. 44 et seq.). Beard, who attaches importance to the persistence of a cyclical period in gestation, calls it the muffled striking of the clock. Harry Campbell (Causation of Disease, p. 54) has found post-climacteric menstrual rhythm in a fair sprinkling of cases up to the age of sixty.

It is somewhat remarkable that, so far as I have observed, none of these authors refer to the possibility of any heightening of the sexual appetite at the monthly crisis which they believe to exist in men. This omission indicates that, as is suggested by the absence of definite statements on the matter of increase of sexual desire at menstruation, it was an ignored or unknown fact. Of recent years, however, many writers, especially alienists, have stated their conviction that sexual desire in men tends to be heightened at approximately monthly intervals, though they have not always been able to give definite evidence in support of their statements.

Clouston, for instance, has frequently asserted this monthly periodic sexual heightening in men. In the article, "Developmental Insanity," in Tuke's Psychological Dictionary, he refers to the periodic physiological heightening of the reproductive nisus; and, again, in an article on "Alternation, Periodicity, and Relapse in Mental Diseases" (Edinburgh Medical Journal, July, 1882), he records the case of "an insane gentleman, aged 49, who, for the past twenty-six years, has been subject to the most regularly occurring brain-exaltation every four weeks, almost to a day. It sometimes passes off without becoming acutely maniacal, or even showing itself in outward acts; at other times it becomes so, and lasts for periods of from one to four weeks. It is always preceded by an uncomfortable feeling in the head, and pain in the back, mental hebetude, and slight depression. The nisus generativus is greatly increased, and he says that, if in that condition, he has full and free seminal emissions during sleep, the excitement passes off; if not, it goes on. A full dose of bromide or iodide of potassium often, but not always, has the effect of stopping the excitement, and a very long walk sometimes does the same. When the excitement gets to a height, it is always followed by about a week of stupid depression." In the same article Clouston remarks: "I have for a long time been impressed with the relationship of the mental and bodily alternations and periodicities in insanity to the great physiological alternations and periodicities, and I have generally been led to the conclusion that they are the same in all essential respects, and only differ in degree of intensity or duration. By far the majority of the cases in women follow the law of the menstrual and sexual periodicity; the majority of the cases in men follow the law of the more irregular periodicities of the nisus generativus in that sex. Many of the cases in both sexes follow the seasonal periodicity which perhaps in man is merely a reversion to the seasonal generative activities of the majority of the lower animals." He found that among 338 cases of 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 Naecke mentions the case of a man who had nocturnal emissions at intervals of four weeks (Archiv fuer 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 fuer 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.

Fere, 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 (Societe 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 (Societe de Biologie, July 23, 1904). In a third case, of sexual neurasthenia, Fere 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 Medecine, March, 1905).

It is in the domain of disease that the most strenuous and, on the whole, the most successful efforts have been made to discover a menstrual cycle in men. Such a field seems promising at the outset, for many morbid exaggerations or defects of the nervous system might be expected to emphasize, or to free from inhibition, fundamental rhythmical processes of the organism which in health, and under the varying conditions of social existence, are overlaid by the higher mental activities and the pressure of external stimuli. In the eighteenth century Erasmus Darwin wrote a remarkable and interesting chapter on "The Periods of Disease," dealing with solar and lunar influence on biological processes.[121] Since then, many writers have brought forward evidence, especially in the domain of nervous and mental disease, which seems to justify a belief that, under pathological conditions, a tendency to a male menstrual rhythm may be clearly laid bare.

We should expect an organ so primitive in character as the heart, and with so powerful a rhythm already stamped upon its nervous organization, to be peculiarly apt to display a menstrual rhythm under the stress of abnormal conditions. This expectation might be strengthened by the menstrual rhythm which Mr. Perry-Coste has found reason to suspect in pulse-frequency during health. I am able to present a case in which such a periodicity seems to be indicated. It is that of a gentleman who suffered severely for some years before his death from valvular disease of the heart, with a tendency to pulmonary congestion, and attacks of "cardiac asthma." His wife, a lady of great intelligence, kept notes of her husband's condition,[122] and at last observed that there was a certain periodicity in the occurrence of the exacerbations. The periods were not quite regular, but show a curious tendency to recur at about thirty days' interval, a few days before the end of every month; it was during one of these attacks that he finally died. There was also a tendency to minor attacks about ten days after the major attacks. It is noteworthy that the subject showed a tendency to periodicity when in health, and once remarked laughingly before his illness: "I am just like a woman, always most excitable at a particular time of the month."

Periodicity has been noted in various disorders of nervous character. Periodic insanity has long been known and studied (see, e.g., Pilcz, Die periodischen Geistesstoerungen, 1901); it is much commoner in women than in men. Periodicity has been observed in stammering (a six-weekly period in one case), and notably in hemicrania or migraine, by Harry Campbell, Osler, etc. (The periodicity of a case of hemicrania has been studied in detail by D. Fraser Harris, Edinburgh Medical Journal, July, 1902.) But the cycle in these cases is not always, or even usually, of a menstrual type.

It is now possible to turn to an investigation which, although of very limited extent, serves to place the question of a male menstrual cycle for the first time on a sound basis. If there is such a cycle analogous to menstruation in women, it must be a recurring period of nervous erethism, and it must be demonstrably accompanied by greater sexual activity. In the American Journal of Psychology for 1888, Mr. Julius Nelson, afterward Professor of Biology at the Rutgers College of Agriculture, New Brunswick, published a study of dreams in which he recorded the results of detailed observations of his dreams, and also of seminal emissions during sleep (by him termed "gonekbole" or "ecbole"), during a period of something over two years. Mr. Nelson found that both dreams and ecboles fell into a physiological cycle of 28 days. The climax of maximum dreaming (as determined by the number of words in the dream record) and the climax of maximum ecbole fell at the same point of the cycle, the ecbolic climax being more distinctly marked than the dream climax.

The question of cyclic physiological changes is considerably complicated by our uncertainty regarding the precise length of the cycle we may expect to find. Nelson finds a 28-day cycle satisfactory. Perry-Coste, as we shall see, accepts a strictly lunar cycle of 291/2 days. Fliess has argued that in both women and men, many physiological facts fall into a cycle of 23 days, which he calls male, the 28-day cycle being female. (W. Fliess, Die Beziehungen zwischen Nase und weiblichen Geschlechts-Organen, 1897, pp. 113 et seq.) Although Fliess brings forward a number of minutely-observed cases, I cannot say that I am yet convinced of the reality of this 23-day cycle. It is somewhat curious, however, that at the same time as Fliess, though in apparent independence, and from a different point of view, another worker also suggested that there is a 23-day physiological cycle (John Beard, The Span of Gestation and the Cause of Birth, Jena, 1897). Beard approaches the question from the embryological standpoint, and argues that there is what he terms an "ovulation unit" of about 231/2 days, in the interval from the end of one menstruation to the beginning of the next. Two "ovulation units" make up one "critical unit," and the length of pregnancy, according to Beard, is always a multiple of the "critical unit;" in man, the gestation period amounts to six critical units. These attempts to prove a new physiological cycle deserve careful study and further investigation. The possibility of such a cycle should be borne in mind, but at present we are scarcely entitled to accept it.

So far as I am aware, Professor Nelson's very interesting series of observations, which, for the first time, placed the question of a menstrual rhythm in men on a sound and workable basis, have not directly led to any further observations. I am, however, in possession of a much more extended series of ecbolic observations completed before Nelson's paper was published, although the results have only been calculated at a comparatively-recent date. I now propose to present a summary of these observations, and consider how far they confirm Nelson's conclusions. These observations cover no less a period than twelve years, between the ages of 17 and 29, the subject, W.K., being a student, and afterward schoolmaster, leading, on the whole, a chaste life. The records were faithfully made throughout the whole of this long period. Here, if anywhere, should be material for the construction of a menstrual rhythm on an ecbolic basis. While the results are in many respects instructive, it can scarcely, perhaps, be said that they absolutely demonstrate a monthly cycle. When summated in a somewhat similar manner to that adopted by Nelson in his ecbolic observations, it is not difficult to regard the maximum, which is reached on the 19th to 21st days of the summated physiological month, as a real menstrual ecbolic climax, for no other three consecutive days at all approach these in number of ecboles, while there is a marked depression occurring four days earlier, on the 16th day of the month. If, however, we split up the curve by dividing the period of twelve years into two nearly equal periods, the earlier of about seven years and the latter of about four years, and summate these separately, the two curves do not present any parallel as regards the menstrual cycle. It scarcely seems to me, therefore, that these curves present any convincing evidence in this case of a monthly ecbolic cycle (and, therefore, I refrain from reproducing them), although they seem to suggest such a cycle. Nor is there any reason to suppose that by adopting a different cycle of thirty days, or of twenty-three days, any more conclusive results would be obtained.

It seems, however, when we look at these curves more closely, that they are not wholly without significance. If I am justified in concluding that they scarcely demonstrate a monthly cycle, it may certainly be added that they show a rudimentary tendency for the ecboles to fall into a fortnightly rhythm, and a very marked and unmistakable tendency to a weekly rhythm. The fortnightly rhythm is shown in the curve for the earlier period, but is somewhat disguised in the curve for the total period, because the first climax is spread over two days, the 7th and 8th of the month. If we readjust the curve for the total period by presenting the days in pairs, the fortnightly tendency is more clearly brought out (Chart I).

A more pronounced tendency still is traceable to a weekly rhythm. This is, indeed, the most unquestionable fact brought out by these curves. All the maxima occur on Saturday or Sunday, with the minima on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, or Friday. This very pronounced weekly rhythm will serve to swamp more or less completely any monthly rhythm on a 28-day basis. Although here probably seen in an exaggerated form, it is almost certainly a characteristic of the ecbolic curve generally.[123] I have been told by several young men and women, especially those who work hard during the week, that Saturday, and especially Sunday afternoon, are periods when the thoughts spontaneously go in an erotic direction, and at this time there is a special tendency to masturbation or to spontaneous sexual excitement. It is on Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday, according to Guerry's tables,[124] that the fewest suicides are committed, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, with, however, a partial fall on Wednesday, those on which most suicides are committed, so that there would appear to be an antagonism between sexual activity and the desire to throw off life. It also appears (in the reports of the Bavarian factory inspectors) that accidents in factories have a tendency to occur chiefly at the beginning of the week, and toward the end rather than in the middle.[125] Even growth, as Fleischmann has shown in the case of children, tends to fall into weekly cycles. It is evident that the nervous system is profoundly affected by the social influences resulting from the weekly cycle.

The analysis of this series of ecbolic curves may thus be said to recall the suggestion of Laycock, that the menstrual cycle is really made up of four weekly cycles, the periodic unit, according to Laycock, being three and one-half days. I think it would, however, be more correct to say that the menstrual cycle, perhaps originally formed with reference to the influence of the moon on the sexual and social habits of men and other animals, tends to break up by a process of segmentation into fortnightly and weekly cycles. If we are justified in assuming that there is a male menstrual cycle, we must conclude that in such a case as that just analyzed, the weekly rhythm has become so marked as almost entirely to obliterate the larger monthly rhythm.

However constituted, there seems little doubt that a physiological weekly cycle really exists. This was, indeed, very clearly indicated many years ago by the observations of Edward Smith, who showed that there are weekly rhythms in pulse, respiration, temperature, carbonic acid evolution, urea, and body-weight, Sunday being the great day of repair and increase of weight.[126]

In an appendix to this volume I am able to present the results of another long series of observations of nocturnal ecbolic manifestations carried out by Mr. Perry-Coste, who has elaborately calculated the results, and has convinced himself that on the basis of a strictly lunar month, thus abolishing the disturbing influence of the weekly rhythm, which in his case also appears, a real menstrual rhythm may be traced.[127]

It does not appear to me, however, even yet, that a final answer to the question whether a menstrual sexual rhythm occurs in men can be decisively given in the affirmative. That such a cycle will be proved in many cases seems to me highly probable, but before this can be decisively affirmed it is necessary that a much larger number of persons should be induced to carry out on themselves the simple, but protracted, series of observations that are required.

Since the first edition of this volume appeared, numerous series of ecbolic records have reached me from different parts of the world. The most notable of these series comes from a professional man, of scientific training, who has for the past six years lived in different parts of India, where the record was kept. Though the record extends over nearly six years, there are two breaks in it, due to a visit to England, and to loss of interest. Both involuntary and voluntary discharges are included in the record. The involuntary discharges occurred during sleep, usually with an erotic dream, in which the subject invariably awaked and frequently made an effort to check the emission. The voluntary discharges in most cases commenced during sleep, or in the half-waking state; deliberate masturbation, when fully awake, was comparatively rare. The proportion of involuntary to more or less voluntary ecboles was about 3 to 1. A third kind of sexual manifestation (of frequency intermediate between the other two forms) is also included, in which a high degree of erethism is induced during the half waking state, culminating in an orgasm in which the power of preventing discharge has been artificially acquired. The subject, E.M., was 32 years of age when the record began. He belongs to a healthy family, and is himself physically sound, 5 feet 6 inches in height, but weight low, due to rickets in infancy. In early life he stammered badly; his temperament is emotional and self-conscious, while his work is unusually exacting, and he lives for most of the year in a very trying climate. As a boy he was very religious, and has always felt obliged to resist sexual vice to the utmost, though there have been occasional lapses.

As regards lunar periodicity, E.M., has summated his results in a curve, after the same manner as Mr. Perry-Coste, beginning with the new moon. The periods covered include 54 lunar months, and the total number of discharges is 176; the average frequency is about 3 per month of twenty-eight days. The curve, for the most part, zigzags between a frequency of 4 and 9, but on the twenty-fourth day it falls to 1, and then rises uninterruptedly to a height of 11 on the twenty-seventh day, falling to 2 on the next day. Whether a really menstrual rhythm is thus indicated I do not undertake to decide, but I am inclined to agree with E.M. himself that there is no definite evidence of it. "It looks to me," he writes, "as if the only real rhythm (putting aside the annual cycle) will be found to be the average period between the ecboles, varying in different persons, but in my case, about nine and one-eighth days. May not the ecbolic period in men be compared to the menstrual period in women, and be an example of the greater katabolic activity of men? There is the period of tumescence, and the ecbole constituting the detumescence. The week-end holiday would hasten the detumescence, but about every third week-end there would tend to be delay to enable the system to get back into its regulation nine or ten days' stride. This might possibly be the explanation of the curves. The recent emissions were nearly all involuntary during sleep. Age may have something to do with the change in character."

E.M.'s curves frequently show the influence of weekly periodicity, in the tendency to ecbole on Sunday, or sometimes on Saturday or Monday. In recent years there has been some tendency for this climax to be thrown towards the middle of the week, but, on the whole, Wednesday is the point of lowest frequency.

In another case, the subject, A.N., who has spent nearly all his life in the State of Indiana, has kept a record of sexual manifestations between the ages of 30 and 34. The data, which cover four years, have not been sent to me in a form which enables the possibility of a monthly curve to be estimated, but A.N., who has himself arranged the data on a lunar monthly basis, considers that a monthly curve is thus revealed. "My memoranda," he writes, "show that discharges occur most frequently on the first, second, and third days after new moon. There is also another period on the fourteenth and fifteenth, which might indicate a semi-lunar rhythm. The days of minimum discharge are the seventh, eighth, twenty-second, and twenty-third." It may be added that the yearly average of ecbolic manifestations, varying between 50 and 55, comes out as 52, or exactly one per week.

A weekly periodicity is very definitely shown by A.N.'s data. Sunday once more stands at the head of the week as regards frequency, in this case very decisively. The figures are as follows:—

Sun. Mon. Tues. Wed. Thurs. Fri. Sat. 48 21 24 35 28 26 27

In another case which has reached me from the United States, the data are slighter, but deserve note, as the subject is a trained psychologist, and I quote the case in his own words. Here, it will be seen, there appears to be a tendency for the ecbolic cycle to cover a period of about six weeks. In this case, also, there is a tendency for the climax to occur about Saturday or Sunday. "X. is 38 years old, unmarried, fair health, pretty good heredity; university trained, and engaged in academic pursuits. He thinks he may have completed puberty at about 13, though he has no proof that he was in the full possession of his sex-powers until he was 15 years 3 months old (when he had his first emission). His sex life has been normal. He masturbated somewhat when he slept with other boys (or men) during early manhood, but not to excess.

"During the autumn of 1889 (when 28 years of age) he observed that at certain times he had an itching feeling about the testicles; that he felt slightly irritable; that the penis erected with the slightest provocation, and that this peculiar feeling usually passed away with a nightly emission. Indeed, so regular was the matter that he usually wore a loin garment at these times, to prevent the semen getting on the bedding. This peculiar feeling ordinarily continued for two or three days. He recalls at these times that he felt that he would like to wrestle with some one, for there seemed to be a muscular tension. These states returned with apparent regularity, and the intervals seemed to be about six weeks, though no effort was made to measure the periods until 1893. The following notes are taken from the diaries of X.:—

"Thursday, December 29, 1892. The peculiar feeling. (This is the only entry.)

"Thursday, February 9, 1893. The peculiar feeling. (The diary notes that X. awoke nights to find erections, and that the feeling continued until Sunday night following, when there was an emission.)

"Friday, March 27, 1893. The peculiar feeling. (The diary notes that there was an emission the next night, and that the feeling disappeared.)

"Wednesday, May 3, 1893. The peculiar feeling. (The diary notes that it continued until Saturday night, when X. had sexual relations, and that it then disappeared.)

"Wednesday, June 14, 1893. The peculiar feeling. (The diary states that the next night X. had an emission, and the disappearance of the feeling.)

"Thursday, July 27, 1893. The peculiar feeling. (The diary notes that it was apparent at about 3 o'clock that afternoon. That night at 10 o'clock, X. had sexual intercourse, and the feeling was not noted the next day.)

"Friday, September 8, 1893. The peculiar feeling. (Continued until Tuesday, the 11th, and then disappeared. No sexual intercourse, and no nightly emission.)

"Wednesday, October 25, 1893. The peculiar feeling. (Continued until Saturday night, when there was a nightly emission.)

"Saturday, December 9, 1893. The peculiar feeling. (Continued until Monday night, when there was sexual relations.)

"It will be noted that the intervals observed were of about six weeks' duration, excepting one, that from September to October, when it was nearly seven weeks.

"These observations were not recorded after 1893. X. thinks that in 1894 the intervals were longer, an opinion which is based on the fact that for a period of six months he had no sexual intercourse and no nightly emissions. The times during this six months when he had the 'peculiar feeling,' the sensation was so slight as to be scarcely noted. In 1895, the feeling seemed more pronounced than ever before, and X. thinks that it may have recurred as often as once a month. In 1896, 1897, and 1898, the intervals, he thinks, lengthened—at times, he thought, wholly disappeared. During 1899, while they did not recur often, when they did come the sensation was pronounced, although the emission was less common. There was a peculiar 'heavy' feeling about the testicles, and a marked tendency towards erection of the penis, especially at night-time (while sleeping). X. often awoke to find a tense erection. Moreover, these feelings usually continued a week.

"1. In general, X. is of the opinion that as he grows older these intervals lengthen, though this inference is not based on recorded data.

"2. He notes that a discharge (through sexual intercourse or in sleep) invariably brings the peculiar feeling to a close for the time being.

"3. He notes that sexual intercourse at the time stops it; but, when there has been sexual intercourse within a week or ten days of the time (based upon the observations of 1893), that it had no tendency to check the feeling."

In another case, that of F.C., an Irish farmer, born in Waterford, the data are still more meagre, though the periodicity is stated to be very pronounced. He is chaste, steady, with occasional lapses from strict sobriety, healthy and mentally normal, living a regular open-air life, far from the artificial stimuli of towns. The observations refer to a period when he was from 20 to 27 years of age. During this period, nocturnal emissions occurred at regular intervals of exactly a month. They were ushered in by fits of irritability and depression, and usually occurred in dreamless sleep. The discharges were abundant and physically weakening, but they relieved the psychic symptoms, though they occasioned mental distress, since F.C. is scrupulous in a religious sense, and also apprehensive of bad constitutional effects, the result of reading alarmist quack pamphlets.

In another case known to me, a young man leading a chaste life, experienced crises of sexual excitement every ten to fourteen days, the crisis lasting for several days.

Finally, an interesting contribution to this subject, suggested by this Study, has been made and published (in the proceedings of the Amsterdam International Congress of Psychology, in 1907) by the well-known Amsterdam neurologist and psychologist, Dr. L.S.A.M. Von Roemer under the title, "Ueber das Verhaeltniss zwischen Mondalter und Sexualitaet." Von Roemer's data are made up not of nocturnal involuntary emissions, but of the voluntary acts of sexual intercourse of an unmarried man, during a period of four years. Von Roemer believes that these, to a much greater extent than those of a married man, would be liable to periodic influence, if such exist. On making a curve of exact lunar length (similarly to Perry-Coste), he finds that there are, every month, two maxima and two minima, in a way that approximately resemble Perry-Coste's curve. The main point in Von Roemer's results is, however, the correspondence that he finds with the actual lunar phases; the chief maximum occurs at the time of the full moon, and the secondary maximum at the time of the new moon, the minima being at the first and fourth quarters. He hazards no theory in explanation of this coincidence, but insists on the need for further observations. It will be seen that A.N.'s results (ante p. 117) seem in the main to correspond to Von Roemer's.

FOOTNOTES:

[117] Even counting the pulse is a comparatively recent method of physiological examination. It was not until 1450 that Nicolas of Cusa advocated counting the pulse-beats. (Binz, Deutsche medizinische Wochenschrift, October 6, 1898.)

[118] I leave this statement as it stands, though since the first publication of this book it has ceased to be strictly accurate.

[119] Sanctorius, Medicina Statica, Sect. I, aph. lxv.

[120] American Journal of Obstetrics, xiv, 1882.

[121] Zooenomia, Section XXXVI.

[122] I reproduced these notes in full in earlier editions of this volume.

[123] Moll refers to the case of a man whose erotic dreams occurred every fortnight, and always on Friday night (Libido Sexualis, Band I, p. 136). One is inclined to suspect an element of autosuggestion in such a case; still, the coincidence is noteworthy.

[124] See Durkheim, Le Suicide, p. 101.

[125] We must, of course, see here the results of the disorganization produced by holidays, and the exhaustion produced by the week's labor; but such influences are still the social effects of the cosmic week.

[126] E. Smith, Health and Disease, Chapter III. I may remark that, according to Kemsoes (Deutsche medizinische Wochenschrift, January 20, 1908, and British Medical Journal, January 29, 1898), school-children work best on Monday and Tuesday.

[127] See Appendix B.



III.

The Annual Sexual Rhythm—In Animals—In Man—Tendency of the Sexual Impulse to become Heightened in Spring and Autumn—The Prevalence of Seasonal Erotic Festivals—The Feast of Fools—The Easter and Midsummer Bonfires—The Seasonal Variations in Birthrate—The Causes of those Variations—The Typical Conception-rate Curve for Europe—The Seasonal Periodicity of Seminal Emissions During Sleep—Original Observations—Spring and Autumn the Chief Periods of Involuntary Sexual Excitement—The Seasonal Periodicity of Rapes—Of Outbreaks among Prisoners—The Seasonal Curves of Insanity and Suicide—The Growth of Children According to Season—The Annual Curve of Bread-consumption in Prisons—Seasonal Periodicity of Scarlet Fever—The Underlying Causes of these Seasonal Phenomena.

That there are annual seasonal changes in the human organism, especially connected with the sexual function, is a statement that has been made by physiologists and others from time to time, and the statement has even reached the poets, who have frequently declared that spring is the season of love.

Thus, sixty years ago, Laycock, an acute pioneer in the investigation of the working of the human organism, brought together (in a chapter on "The Periodic Movements in the Reproductive Organs of Woman," in his Nervous Diseases of Women, 1840, pp. 61-70) much interesting evidence to show that the system undergoes changes about the vernal and autumnal equinoxes, and that these changes are largely sexual.

Edward Smith, also a notable pioneer in this field of human periodicity, and, indeed, the first to make definite observations on a number of points bearing on it, sums up, in his remarkable book, Health and Disease as Influenced by Daily, Seasonal, and Other Cyclical Changes in the Human System (1861), to the effect that season is a more powerful influence on the system than temperature or atmospheric pressure; "in the early and middle parts of spring every function of the body is in its highest degree of efficiency," while autumn is "essentially a period of change from the minimum toward the maximum of vital conditions." He found that in April and May most carbonic acid is evolved, there being then a progressive diminution to September, and then a progressive increase; the respiratory rate also fell from a maximum in April to a minimum maintained at exactly the same level throughout August, September, October, and November; spring was found to be the season of maximum, autumn of minimum, muscular power; sensibility to tactile and temperature impressions was also greater in spring.

Kulischer, studying the sexual customs of various human races, concluded that in primitive times, only at two special seasons—at spring and in harvest-time—did pairing take place; and that, when pairing ceased to be strictly confined to these periods, its symbolical representation was still so confined, even among the civilized nations of Europe. He further argued that the physiological impulse was only felt at these periods. (Kulischer, "Die geschlechtliche Zuchtwahl bei den Menschen in der Urzeit," Zeitschrift fuer Ethnologie, 1876, pp. 152 and 157.) Cohnstein ("Ueber Praedilectionszeiten bei Schwangerschaft," Archiv fuer Gynaekologie, 1879) also suggested that women sometimes only conceive at certain periods of the year.

Wiltshire, who made various interesting observations regarding the physiology of menstruation, wrote: "Many years ago, I concluded that every women had a law peculiar to herself, which governed the times of her bringing forth (and conceiving); that she was more prone to bring forth at certain epochs than at others; and subsequent researches have established the accuracy of the forecast." He further stated his belief in a "primordial seasonal aptitude for procreation, the impress of which still remains, and, to some extent, governs the breeding-times of humanity." (A. Wiltshire, "Lectures on the Comparative Physiology of Menstruation," British Medical Journal, March, 1883, pp. 502, etc.)

Westermarck, in a chapter of his History of Human Marriage, dealing with the question of "A Human Pairing Season in Primitive Times," brings forward evidence showing that spring, or, rather, early summer, is the time for increase of the sexual instinct, and argues that this is a survival of an ancient pairing season; spring, he points out, is a season of want, rather than abundance, for a frugivorous species, but when men took to herbs, roots, and animal food, spring became a time of abundance, and suitable for the birth of children. He thus considers that in man, as in lower animals, the times of conception are governed by the times most suitable for birth.

Rosenstadt, as we shall see later, also believes that men to-day have inherited a physiological custom of procreating at a certain epoch, and he thus accounts for the seasonal changes in the birthrate.

Heape, who also believes that "at one period of its existence the human species had a special breeding season," follows Wiltshire in suggesting that "there is some reason to believe that the human female is not always in a condition to breed." (W. Heape, "Menstruation and Ovulation of Macacus rhesus," Philosophical Transactions, 1897; id. "The Sexual Season of Mammals," Quarterly Journal Microscopical Science, 1900.)

Except, however, in one important respect, with which we shall presently have to deal, few attempts have been made to demonstrate any annual organic sexual rhythm. The supposition of such annual cycle is usually little more than a deduction from the existence of the well-marked seasonal sexual rhythm in animals. Most of the higher animals breed only once or twice a year, and at such a period that the young are born when food is most plentiful. At other periods the female is incapable of breeding, and without sexual desires, while the male is either in the same condition or in a condition of latent sexuality. Under the influence of domestication, animals tend to lose the strict periodicity of the wild condition, and become apt for breeding at more frequent intervals. Thus among dogs in the wild state the bitch only experiences heat once a year, in the spring. Among domesticated dogs, there is not only the spring period of heat, early in the year, but also an autumn period, about six months later; the primitive period, however, remains the most important one, and the best litters of pups are said to be produced in the spring. The mare is in season in spring and summer; sheep take the ram in autumn.[128] Many of the menstruating monkeys also, whether or not sexual desire is present throughout the year, only conceive in spring and in autumn. Almost any time of the year may be an animal's pairing season, this season being apparently in part determined by the economic conditions which will prevail at birth. While it is essential that animals should be born during the season of greatest abundance, it is equally essential that pairing, which involves great expenditure of energy, should also take place at a season of maximum physical vigor.

As an example of the sexual history of an animal through the year, I may quote the following description, by Dr. A.W. Johnstone, of the habits of the American deer: "Our common American deer, in winter-time, is half-starved for lack of vegetation in the woods; the low temperature, snow, and ice, make his conditions of life harder for lack of the proper amount of food, whereby he becomes an easier prey to carnivorous animals. He has difficulty even in preserving life. In spring he sheds his winter coat, and is provided with a suit of lighter hair, and while this is going on the male grows antlers for defence. The female about this time is far along in pregnancy, and when the antlers are fully grown she drops the fawn. When the fawns are dropped vegetation is plentiful and lactation sets in. During this time the male is kept fully employed in getting food and guarding his more or less helpless family. As the season advances the vegetation increases and the fawn begins to eat grass. When the summer heat commences the little streams begin to dry up, and the animal once more has difficulty in supporting life because of the enervating heat, the effect of drought on the vegetation, and the distance which has to be traveled to get water; therefore, fully ten months in each year the deer has all he can do to live without extra exertion incident to rutting. Soon after the autumn rains commence vegetation becomes more luxurious, the antlers of the male and new suits of hair for both are fully grown, heat of the summer is gone, food and drink are plentiful everywhere, the fawns are weaned, and both sexes are in the very finest condition. Then, and then only, in the whole year, comes the rut, which, to them as to most other animals, means an unwonted amount of physical exercise besides the everyday runs for life from their natural enemies, and an unusual amount of energy is used up. If a doe dislikes the attention of a special buck, miles of racing result. If jealous males meet, furious battles take place. The strain on both sexes could not possibly be endured at any other season of the year. With approach of cold weather, climatic deprivations and winter dangers commence and rut closes. In all wild animals, rut occurs only when the climatic and other conditions favor the highest physical development. This law holds good in all wild birds, for it is then only that they can stand the strain incident to love-making. The common American crow is a very good study. In the winter he travels around the ricefields of the South, leading a tramp's existence in a country foreign to him, and to which he goes only to escape the rigors of the northern climate. For several weeks in the spring he goes about the fields, gathering up the worms and grubs. After his long flight from the South he experiences several weeks of an almost ideal existence, his food is plentiful, he becomes strong and hearty, and then he turns to thoughts of love. In the pairing season he does more work than at any other time in the year: fantastic dances, racing and chasing after the females, and savage fights with rivals. He endures more than would be possible in his ordinary physical state. Then come the care of the young and the long flights for water and food during the drought of the summer. After the molt, autumn finds him once more in flock, and with the first frosts he is off again to the South. In the wild state, rut is the capstone of perfect physical condition." (A.W. Johnstone, "The Relation of Menstruation to the other Reproductive Functions," American Journal of Obstetrics, vol. xxxii, 1895.)

Wiltshire ("Lectures on the Comparative Physiology of Menstruation," British Medical Journal, March, 1888) and Westermarck (History of Human Marriage, Chapter II) enumerate the pairing season of a number of different animals.

With regard to the breeding seasons of monkeys, little seems to be positively known. Heape made special inquiries with reference to the two species whose sexual life he investigated. He was informed that Semnopithecus entellus breeds twice a year, in April and in October. He accepts Aitcheson's statement that the Macacus rhesus, in Simla, copulates in October, and adds that in the very different climate of the plains it appears to copulate in May. He concludes that the breeding season varies greatly in dependence on climate, but believes that the breeding season is always preserved, and that it affects the sexual aptitude of the male. He could not make his monkeys copulate during February or March, but is unable to say whether or not sexual intercourse is generally admitted outside the breeding season. He quotes the observation of Breschet that monkeys copulate during pregnancy.

In primitive human races we very frequently trace precisely the same influence of the seasonal impulse as may be witnessed in the higher animals, although among human races it does not always result that the children are born at the time of the greatest plenty, and on account of the development of human skill such a result is not necessary. Thus Dr. Cook found among the Eskimo that during the long winter nights the secretions are diminished, muscular power is weak, and the passions are depressed. Soon after the sun appears a kind of rut affects the young population. They tremble with the intensity of sexual passion, and for several weeks much of the time is taken up with courtship and love. Hence, the majority of the children are born nine months later, when the four months of perpetual night are beginning. A marked seasonal periodicity of this kind is not confined to the Arctic regions. We may also find it in the tropics. In Cambodia, Mondiere has found that twice a year, in April and September, men seem to experience a "veritable rut," and will sometimes even kill women who resist them.[129]

These two periods, spring and autumn—the season for greeting the appearance of life and the season for reveling in its final fruition—seem to be everywhere throughout the world the most usual seasons for erotic festivals. In classical Greece and Rome, in India, among the Indians of North and South America, spring is the most usual season, while in Africa the yam harvest of autumn is the season chiefly selected. There are, of course, numerous exceptions to this rule, and it is common to find both seasons observed. Taking, indeed, a broad view of festivals throughout the world, we may say that there are four seasons when they are held: the winter solstice, when the days begin to lengthen and primitive man rejoices in the lengthening and seeks to assist it;[130] the vernal equinox, the period of germination and the return of life; the summer solstice, when the sun reaches its height; and autumn, the period of fruition, of thankfulness, and of repose. But it is rarely that we find a people seriously celebrating more than two of these festival seasons.

In Australia, according to Mueller as quoted by Ploss and Bartels, marriage and conception take place during the warm season, when there is greatest abundance of food, and to some extent is even confined to that period. Oldfield and others state that the Australian erotic festivals take place only in spring. Among some tribes, Mueller adds, such as the Watschandis, conception is inaugurated by a festival called kaaro, which takes place in the warm season at the first new moon after the yams are ripe. The leading feature of this festival is a moonlight dance, representing the sexual act symbolically. With their spears, regarded as the symbols of the male organ, the men attack bushes, which represent the female organs. They thus work themselves up to a state of extreme sexual excitement.[131] Among the Papuans of New Guinea, also, according to Miklucho-Macleay, conceptions chiefly occur at the end of harvest, and Guise describes the great annual festival of the year which takes place at the time of the yam and banana harvest, when the girls undergo a ceremony of initiation and marriages are effected.[132] In Central Africa, says Sir H.H. Johnston, in his Central Africa, sexual orgies are seriously entered into at certain seasons of the year, but he neglects to mention what these seasons are. The people of New Britain, according to Weisser (as quoted by Ploss and Bartels), carefully guard their young girls from the young men. At certain times, however, a loud trumpet is blown in the evening, and the girls are then allowed to go away into the bush to mix freely with the young men. In ancient Peru (according to an account derived from a pastoral letter of Archbishop Villagomez of Lima), in December, when the fruit of the paltay is ripe, a festival was held, preceded by a five days' fast. During the festival, which lasted six days and six nights, men and women met together in a state of complete nudity at a certain spot among the gardens, and all raced toward a certain hill. Every man who caught up with a woman in the race was bound at once to have intercourse with her.

Very instructive, from our present point of view, is the account given by Dalton, of the festivals of the various Bengal races. Thus the Hos (a Kolarian tribe), of Bengal, are a purely agricultural people, and the chief festival of the year with them is the magh parah. It is held in the month of January, "when the granaries are full of grain, and the people, to use their own expression, full of devilry." It is the festival of the harvest-home, the termination of the year's toil, and is always held at full moon. The festival is a saturnalia, when all rules of duty and decorum are forgotten, and the utmost liberty is allowed to women and girls, who become like bacchantes. The people believe that at this time both men and women become overcharged with vitality, and that a safety valve is absolutely necessary. The festival begins with a religious sacrifice made by the village priest or elders, and with prayers for the departed and for the vouchsafing of seasonable rain and good crops. The religious ceremonies over, the people give themselves up to feasting and to drinking the home-made beer, the preparation of which from fermented rice is one of a girl's chief accomplishments. "The Ho population," wrote Dalton, "are at other seasons quiet and reserved in manner, and in their demeanor toward women gentle and decorous; even in their flirtations they never transcend the bounds of decency. The girls, though full of spirits and somewhat saucy, have innate notions of propriety that make them modest in demeanor, though devoid of all prudery, and of the obscene abuse, so frequently heard from the lips of common women in Bengal, they appear to have no knowledge. They are delicately sensitive under harsh language of any kind, and never use it to others; and since their adoption of clothing they are careful to drape themselves decently, as well as gracefully; but they throw all this aside during the magh feast. Their nature appears to undergo a temporary change. Sons and daughters revile their parents in gross language, and parents their children; men and women become almost like animals in the indulgence of their amorous propensities. They enact all that was ever portrayed by prurient artists in a bacchanalian festival or pandean orgy; and as the light of the sun they adore, and the presence of numerous spectators, seems to be no restraint on their indulgence, it cannot be expected that chastity is preserved when the shades of night fall on such a scene of licentiousness and debauchery." While, however, thus representing the festival as a mere debauch, Dalton adds that relationships formed at this time generally end in marriage. There is also a flower festival in April and May, of religious nature, but the dances at this festival are quieter in character.[133]

In Burmah the great festival of the year is the full moon of October, following the Buddhist Lent season (which is also the wet season), during which there is no sexual intercourse. The other great festival is the New Year in March.[134]

In classical times the great festivals were held at the same time as in northern and modern Europe. The brumalia took place in midwinter, when the days were shortest, and the rosalia, according to early custom in May or June, and at a later time about Easter. After the establishment of Christianity the Church made constant efforts to suppress this latter festival, and it was referred to by an eighth century council as "a wicked and reprehensible holiday-making." These festivals appear to be intimately associated with Dionysus worship, and the flower-festival of Dionysus, as well as the Roman Liberales in honor of Bacchus, was celebrated in March with worship of Priapus. The festivals of the Delian Apollo and of Artemis, both took place during the first week in May and the Roman Bacchanales in October.[135]

The mediaeval Feast of Fools was to a large extent a seasonal orgy licensed by the Church. It may be traced directly back through the barbatories of the lower empire to the Roman saturnalia, and at Sens, the ancient ecclesiastical metropolis of France, it was held at about the same time as the saturnalia, on the Feast of the Circumcision, i.e., New Year's Day. It was not, however, always held at this time; thus at Evreux it took place on the 1st of May.[136]

The Easter bonfires of northern-central Europe, the Midsummer (St. John's Eve) fires of southern-central Europe, still bear witness to the ancient festivals.[137] There is certainly a connection between these bonfires and erotic festivals; it is noteworthy that they occur chiefly at the period of spring and early summer, which, on other grounds, is widely regarded as the time for the increase of the sexual instinct, while the less frequent period for the bonfires is that of the minor sexual climax. Mannhardt was perhaps the first to show how intimately these spring and early summer festivals—held with bonfires and dances and the music of violin—have been associated with love-making and the choice of a mate.[138] In spring, the first Monday in Lent (Quadrigesima) and Easter Eve were frequent days for such bonfires. In May, among the Franks of the Main, the unmarried women, naked and adorned with flowers, danced on the Blocksberg before the men, as described by Herbels in the tenth century.[139] In the central highlands of Scotland the Beltane fires were kindled on the 1st of May. Bonfires sometimes took place on Halloween (October 31st) and Christmas. But the great season all over Europe for these bonfires, then often held with erotic ceremonial, is the summer solstice, the 23d of June, the eve of Midsummer, or St. John's Day.[140]

The Bohemians and other Slavonic races formerly had meetings with sexual license. This was so up to the beginning of the sixteenth century on the banks of rivers near Novgorod. The meetings took place, as a rule, the day before the Festival of John the Baptist, which, in pagan times, was that of a divinity known by the name of Jarilo (equivalent to Priapus). Half a century later, a new ecclesiastical code sought to abolish every vestige of the early festivals held on Christmas Day, on the Day of the Baptism, of Our Lord, and on John the Baptist's Day. A general feature of all these festivals (says Kowalewsky) was the prevalence of the promiscuous intercourse of the sexes. Among the Ehstonians, at the end of the eighteenth century, thousands of persons would gather around an old ruined church (in the Fellinschen) on the Eve of St. John, light a bonfire, and throw sacrificial gifts into it. Sterile women danced naked among the ruins; much eating and drinking went on, while the young men and maidens disappeared into the woods to do what they would. Festivals of this character still take place at the end of June in some districts. Young unmarried couples jump barefoot over large fires, usually near rivers or ponds. Licentiousness is rare.[141] But in many parts of Russia the peasants still attach little value to virginity, and even prefer women who have been mothers. The population of the Grisons in the sixteenth century held regular meetings not less licentious than those of the Cossacks. These were abolished by law. Kowalewsky regards all such customs as a survival of early forms of promiscuity.[142]

Frazer (Golden Bough, 2d ed., 1900, vol. iii, pp. 236-350) fully describes and discusses the dances, bonfires and festivals of spring and summer, of Halloween (October 31), and Christmas. He also explains the sexual character of these festivals. "There are clear indications," he observes (p. 305), "that even human fecundity is supposed to be promoted by the genial heat of the fires. It is an Irish belief that a girl who jumps thrice over the midsummer bonfire will soon marry and become the mother of many children; and in various parts of France they think that if a girl dances round nine fires she will be sure to marry within a year. On the other hand, in Lechrain, people say that if a young man and woman, leaping over the midsummer fire together, escape unsmirched, the young woman will not become a mother within twelve months—the flames have not touched and fertilized her. The rule observed in some parts of France and Belgium, that the bonfires on the first Sunday in Lent should be kindled by the person who was last married, seems to belong to the same class of ideas, whether it be that such a person is supposed to receive from, or impart to, the fire a generative and fertilizing influence. The common practice of lovers leaping over the fires hand-in-hand may very well have originated in a notion that thereby their marriage would be more likely to be blessed with offspring. And the scenes of profligacy which appear to have marked the midsummer celebration among the Ehstonians, as they once marked the celebration of May Day among ourselves, may have sprung, not from the mere license of holiday-makers, but from a crude notion that such orgies were justified, if not required, by some mysterious bond which linked the life of man, to the courses of the heavens at the turning-point of the year."

As regards these primitive festivals, although the evidence is scattered and sometimes obscure, certain main conclusions clearly emerge. In early Europe there were, according to Grimm, only two seasons, sometimes regarded as spring and winter, sometimes as spring and autumn, and for mythical purposes these seasons were alone available.[143] The appearance of each of these two seasons was inaugurated by festivals which were religious and often erotic in character. The Slavonic year began in March, at which time there was formerly, it is believed, a great festival, not only in Slavonic but also in Teutonic countries. In Northern Germany there were Easter bonfires always associated with mountains or hills. The Celtic bonfires were held at the beginning of May, while the Teutonic May-day, or Walpurgisnacht, is a very ancient sacred festival, associated with erotic ceremonial, and regarded by Grimm as having a common origin with the Roman floralia and the Greek dionysia. Thus, in Europe, Grimm concludes: "there are four different ways of welcoming summer. In Sweden and Gothland a battle of winter and summer, a triumphal entry of the latter. In Schonen, Denmark, Lower Saxony, and England, simply May-riding, or fetching of the May-wagon. On the Rhine merely a battle of winter and summer, without immersion, without the pomp of an entry. In Franconia, Thuringia, Meissen, Silesia, and Bohemia only the carrying out of wintry death; no battle, no formal introduction of summer. Of these festivals the first and second fall in May, the third and fourth in March. In the first two, the whole population take part with unabated enthusiasm; in the last two only the lower poorer class.... Everything goes to prove that the approach of summer was to our forefathers a holy tide, welcomed by sacrifice, feast, and dance, and largely governing and brightening the people's life."[144] The early spring festival of March, the festival of Ostara, the goddess of spring, has become identified with the Christian festival of Resurrection (just as the summer solstice festival has been placed beneath the patronage of St. John the Baptist); but there has been only an amalgamation of closely-allied rites, for the Christian festival also may be traced back to a similar origin. Among the early Arabians the great ragab feast, identified by Ewald and Robertson Smith with the Jewish paschal feast, fell in the spring or early summer, when the camels and other domestic animals brought forth their young and the shepherds offered their sacrifices.[145] Babylonia, the supreme early centre of religious and cosmological culture, presents a more decisive example of the sex festival. The festival of Tammuz is precisely analogous to the European festival of St. John's Day. Tammuz was the solar god of spring vegetation, and closely associated with Ishtar, also an agricultural deity of fertility. The Tammuz festival was, in the earliest times, held toward the summer solstice, at the time of the first wheat and barley harvest. In Babylonia, as in primitive Europe, there were only two seasons; the festival of Tammuz, coming at the end of winter and the beginning of summer, was a fast followed by a feast, a time of mourning for winter, of rejoicing for summer. It is part of the primitive function of sacred ritual to be symbolical of natural processes, a mysterious representation of natural processes with the object of bringing them about.[146] The Tammuz festival was an appeal to the powers of Nature to exhibit their generative functions; its erotic character is indicated not only by the well-known fact that the priestesses of Ishtar (the Kadishtu, or "holy ones") were prostitutes, but by the statements in Babylonian legends concerning the state of the earth during Ishtar's winter absence, when the bull, the ass, and man ceased to reproduce. It is evident that the return of spring, coincident with the Tammuz festival, was regarded as the period for the return of the reproductive instinct even in man.[147] So that along this line also we are led back to a great procreative festival.

Thus the great spring festivals were held between March and June, frequently culminating in a great orgy on Midsummer's Eve. The next great season of festivals in Europe was in autumn. The beginning of August was a great festival in Celtic lands, and the echoes of it, Rhys remarks, have not yet died out in Wales.[148] The beginning of November, both in Celtic and Teutonic countries, was a period of bonfires.[149] In Germanic countries especially there was a great festival at the time. The Germanic year began at Martinmas (November 11th), and the great festival of the year was then held. It is the oldest Germanic festival on record, and retained its importance even in the Middle Ages. There was feasting all night, and the cattle that were to be killed were devoted to the gods; the goose was associated with this festival.[150] These autumn festivals culminated in the great festival of the winter solstice which we have perpetuated in the celebrations of Christmas and New Year. Thus, while the two great primitive culminating festivals of spring and autumn correspond exactly (as we shall see) with the seasons of maximum fecundation, even in the Europe of to-day, the earlier spring (March) and—though less closely—autumn (November) festivals correspond with the periods of maximum spontaneous sexual disturbance, as far as I have been able to obtain precise evidence of such disturbance. That the maximum of physiological sexual excitement should tend to appear earlier than the maximum of fecundation is a result that might be expected.

The considerations so far brought forward clearly indicate that among primitive races there are frequently one or two seasons in the year—especially spring and autumn—during which sexual intercourse is chiefly or even exclusively carried on, and they further indicate that these primitive customs persist to some extent even in Europe to-day. It would still remain, to determine whether any such influence affects the whole mass of the civilized population and determines the times at which intercourse, or fecundation, most frequently takes place.

This question can be most conveniently answered by studying the seasonal variation in the birthrate, calculating back to the time of conception. Wargentin, in Sweden, first called attention to the periodicity of the birthrate in 1767.[151] The matter seems to have attracted little further attention until Quetelet, who instinctively scented unreclaimed fields of statistical investigation, showed that in Belgium and Holland there is a maximum of births in February, and, consequently, of conceptions in May, and a minimum of births about July, with consequent minimum of conceptions in October. Quetelet considered that the spring maximum of conceptions corresponded to an increase of vitality after the winter cold. He pointed out that this sexual climax was better marked in the country than in towns, and accounted for this by the consideration that in the country the winter cold is more keenly felt. Later, Wappaeus investigated the matter in various parts of northern and southern Europe as well as in Chile, and found that there was a maximum of conceptions in May and June attributable to season, and in Catholic countries strengthened by customs connected with ecclesiastical seasons. This maximum was, he found, followed by a minimum in September, October, and November, due to gradually increasing exhaustion, and the influence of epidemic diseases, as well as the strain of harvest-work. The minimum is reached in the south earlier than in the north. About November conceptions again become more frequent, and reach the second maximum at about Christmas and New Year. This second maximum is very slightly marked in southern countries, but strongly marked in northern countries (in Sweden the absolute maximum of conceptions is reached in December), and is due, in the opinion of Wappaeus, solely to social causes. Villerme reached somewhat similar results. Founding his study on 17,000,000 births, he showed that in France it was in April, May, and June, or from the spring equinox to the summer solstice, and nearer to the solstice than the equinox, that the maximum of fecundations takes place; while the minimum of births is normally in July, but is retarded by a wet and cold summer in such a manner that in August there are scarcely more births than in July, and, on the other hand, a very hot summer, accelerating the minimum of births, causes it to fall in June instead of in July.[152] He also showed that in Buenos Ayres, where the seasons are reversed, the conception-rate follows the reversed seasons, and is also raised by epochs of repose, of plentiful food, and of increased social life. Sormani studied the periodicity of conception in Italy, and found that the spring maximum in the southern provinces occurs in May, and gradually falls later as one proceeds northward, until, in the extreme north of the peninsula, it occurs in July. In southern Italy there is only one maximum and one minimum; in the north there are two. The minimum which follows the spring or summer maximum increases as we approach the south, while the minimum associated with the winter cold increases as we approach the north.[153] Beukemann, who studied the matter in various parts of Germany, found that seasonal influence was specially marked in the case of illegitimate births. The maximum of conceptions of illegitimate children takes place in the spring and summer of Europe generally; in Russia it takes place in the autumn and winter, when the harvest-working months for the population are over, and the period of rest, and also of minimum deathrate (September, October, and November), comes round. In Russia the general conception-rate has been studied by various investigators. Here the maximum number of conceptions is in winter, the minimum varying among different elements of the population. Looked at more closely, there are maxima of conceptions in Russia in January and in April. (In Russian towns, however, the maximum number of conceptions occurs in the autumn.) The special characteristics of the Russian conception-rate are held to be due to the prevalence of marriages in autumn and winter,[154] to the severely observed fasts of spring, and to the exhausting harvest-work of summer.