[131] For a study of the semen and its constituents, see Florence, "Du Sperme," Archives d'Anthropologie Criminelle, 1895.

[132] J. Hunter, Essays and Observations, vol. i, p. 189.

[133] As regards one part of Australia, Walter Roth, Ethnological Studies Among the Queensland Aborigines, p. 174.

[134] Sir H.H. Johnston, British Central Africa, p. 438.

[135] Cap. VII, pp. 327-357, "De Spermaticis virilis usu Medico,"

[136] W.L. Howard, "Sexual Perversion," Alienist and Neurologist, January, 1896.

[137] Zentralblatt fuer Gynaekologie, 1894, No. 49.

[138] E. Toff, "Uber Impraegnierung," Zentralblatt fuer Gynaekologie, April, 1903. In a similar but somewhat more precise manner Dufougere has argued ("La Chlorose, ses rapports avec le marriage, son traitement par le liquide orchitique," These de Bordeaux, 1902) that semen when absorbed by the vagina stimulates the secretion of the ovaries and thus exerts an influence over the blood in anaemia; in this way he seeks to explain why it is that coitus is the best treatment for chlorosis.

[139] In this connection I may refer to an interesting and suggestive paper by Harry Campbell on "The Craving for Stimulants" (Lancet, October 21, 1899). No reference is made to coitus, but the author discusses stimulants as normal and beneficial products of the organism, and deals with the nature of the "physiological intoxication" they produce.

[140] Spermin was first discovered in the sperm by Schreiner in 1878; it has also been found in the thyroid, ovaries and various other glands. "The spermin secreting and elaborating organs," Howard Kelly remarks (British Medical Journal, January 29, 1898), "may be called the apothecaries' of the body, secreting many important medicaments, much more active and more accurately representing its true wants than artificially administered drugs."

[141] See, e.g., a summary of Buschan's comprehensive discussion of the subject of organotherapy (Eulenburg's Real-Encyclopaedie der Gesammten Heilkunde) in Journal of Mental Science, April, 1899, p. 355.

[142] "Observations Upon the Acquirement of Secondary Sexual Characters, Indicating the Formation of an Internal Secretion by the Testicles," Proceedings Royal Society, vol. lxxiii, p. 49.

[143] See, e.g., the experiments of Cecca and Zappi, summarized in British Medical Journal, July 2, 1904.



IV.

The Aptitude for Detumescence—Is There an Erotic Temperament?—The Available Standards of Comparison—Characteristics of the Castrated—Characteristics of Puberty—Characteristics of the State of Detumescence—Shortness of Stature—Development of the Secondary Sexual Characters—Deep Voice—Bright Eyes—Glandular Activity—Everted Lips—Pigmentation—Profuse Hair—Dubious Significance of Many of These Characters.

What, if any, are the indications which the body generally may furnish as to the individual's aptitude and vigor for the orgasm of detumescence? Is there an erotic temperament outwardly and visibly displayed? That is a question which has often occupied those who have sought to penetrate the more intimate mysteries of human nature, and since we are here concerned with human beings in their relationship to the process of detumescence, we cannot altogether pass over this question, difficult as it is to discuss it with precision.

The old physiognomists showed much confidence in dealing with the matter. Possibly they had more opportunities for observation than we have, since they often wrote in days when life was lived more nakedly than among ourselves, but their descriptions, while sometimes showing much insight, are inextricably mixed up with false science and superstition.

In the De Secretis Mulierum, wrongly attributed to Albertus Magnus, we find a chapter entitled "Signa mulieris calidae naturae et quae coit libenter," which may be summarized here. "The signs," we are told, "of a woman of warm temperament, and one who willingly cohabits are these: youth, an age of over 12, or younger, if she has been seduced, small, high breasts, full and hard, hair in the usual positions; she is bold of speech, with a delicate and high voice, haughty and even cruel of disposition, of good complexion, lean rather than stout, inclined to like drinking. Such a woman always desires coitus, and receives satisfaction in the act. The menstrual flow is not abundant nor always regular. If she becomes pregnant the milk is not abundant. Her perspiration is less odorous than that of the woman of opposite temperament; she is fond of singing, and of moving about, and delights in adornments if she has any."

Polemon, in his Sulla Physionomia, has given among the signs of libidinous impulse: knees turned inwards, abundance of hairs on the legs, squint, bright eyes, a high and strident voice, and in women length of leg below the knee. Aristotle had mentioned among the signs of wantonness: paleness, abundance of hair on the body, thick and black hair, hairs covering the temples, and thick eyelids.

In the seventeenth century Bouchet, in his Serees (Troisieme Seree), gave as the signs of virility which indicated that a man could have children: a great voice, a thick rough black beard, a large thick nose.

G. Tourdes (Art. "Aphrodisie," Dictionnaire Encyclopedique des Sciences Medicales) thus summarized the ancient beliefs on this subject: "The erotic temperament has been described as marked by a lean figure, white and well-ranged teeth, a developed hairy system, a characteristic voice, air, and expression, and even a special odor."

In approaching the question of the general physical indications of a special aptitude to the manifestation of vigorous detumescence, the most obvious preliminary would seem to be a study of the castrated. If we know the special peculiarities of those who by removal of the sexual glands at a very early age have been deprived of all ability to present the manifestations of detumescence, we shall probably be in possession of a type which is the reverse of that which we may expect in persons of a vigorously erotic temperament.

The most general characteristics of eunuchs would appear to be an unusual tendency to put on fat, a notably greater length of the legs, absence of hair in the sexual and secondary sexual regions, a less degree of pigmentation, as noted both in the castrated negro and the white man, a puerile larynx and puerile voice. In character they are usually described as gentle, conciliatory, and charitable.

There can be little doubt that castration in man tends to lead to lengthening of the legs (tibia and fibula) at puberty, from delayed ossification of the epiphyses. The hands and feet are also frequently longer and sometimes the forearms. At the same time the bones are more slender. The pelvis also is narrower. The eunuchs of Cairo are said to be easily seen in a crowd from their tall stature. (Collineau, quoting Lortet, Revue Mensuelle de l'Ecole d'Anthropologie, May, 1896.) The castrated Skoptzy show increased stature, and, it seems, large ears, with decreased chest and head (L. Pittard, Revue Scientifique, June 20, 1903.) Fere shows that in most of these respects the eunuch resembles beardless and infantile subjects. ("Les Proportions des Membres et les Caracteres Sexuels," Journal de l'Anatomie et de la Physiologie, November-December, 1897.) Similar phenomena are found in animals generally. Sellheim, carefully investigating castrated horses, swine, oxen and fowls, found retardation of ossification, long and slender extremities, long, broad, but low skull, relatively smaller pelvis and small thorax. ("Zur Lehre von den Sekundaeren Geschlechtscharakteren," Beitraege zur Geburtshuelfe und Gynaekologie, 1898, summarized in Centralblatt fuer Anthropologie, 1900, Heft IV.)

As regards the mental qualities and moral character of the castrated, Griffiths considers that there is an undue prejudice against eunuchs, and refers to Narses, who was not only one of the first generals of the Roman Empire, but a man of highly estimable character. (Lancet, March 30, 1895.) Matignon, who has carefully studied Chinese eunuchs, points out that they occupy positions of much responsibility, and, though regarded in many respects as social outcasts, possess very excellent and amiable moral qualities (Archives Cliniques de Bordeaux, May, 1896.) In America Everett Flood finds that epileptics and feeble-minded boys are mentally and morally benefited by castration. ("Notes on the Castration of Idiot Children," American Journal of Psychology, January, 1899.) It is often forgotten that the physical and psychic qualities associated with and largely dependent on the ability to experience the impulse of detumescence, while essential to the perfect man, involve many egoistic, aggressive and acquisitive characteristics which are of little intellectual value, and at the same time inimical to many moral virtues.

We have a further standard—positive this time rather than negative—to aid us in determining the erotic temperament: the phenomena of puberty. The efflorescence of puberty is essentially the manifestation of the ability to experience detumescence. It is therefore reasonable to suppose that the individuals in whom the special phenomena of puberty develop most markedly are those in whom detumescence is likely to be most vigorous. If such is the case we should expect to find the erotic temperament marked by developed larynx and deep voice, a considerable degree of pigmentary development in hair and skin, and a marked tendency to hairiness; while in women there should be a pronounced growth of the breasts and pelvis.[144]

There is yet another standard by which we may measure the individual's aptitude for detumescence: the presence of those activities which are most prominently brought into play during the process of detumescence. The individual, that is to say, who is organically most apt to manifest the physiological activities which mainly make up the process of detumescence, is most likely to be of pronounced erotic temperament.

"Erotic persons are of motor type," remark Vaschide and Vurpas, "and we may say generally that nearly all persons of motor type are erotic." The state of detumescence is one of motor and muscular energy and of great vascular activity, so that habitual energy of motor response and an active circulation may reasonably be taken to indicate an aptitude for the manifestation of detumescence.

These three types may be said, therefore, to furnish us valuable though somewhat general indications. The individual who is farthest removed from the castrated type, who presents in fullest degree the characters which begin to emerge at the period of puberty, and who reveals a physiological aptitude for the vigorous manifestation of those activities which are called into action during detumescence, is most likely to be of erotic temperament. The most cautious description of the characteristics of this temperament given by modern scientific writers, unlike the more detailed and hazardous descriptions of the early physiognomists, will be found to be fairly true to the standards thus presented to us.

The man of sexual type, according to Bierent (La Puberte, p. 148), is hairy, dark and deep-voiced.

"The men most liable to satyriasis," Bouchereau states (art. "Satyriasis," Dictionnaire Encyclopedique des Sciences Medicales), "are those with vigorous nervous system, developed muscles, abundant hair on body, dark complexion, and white teeth."

Mantegazza, in his Fisiologia del Piacere, thus describes the sexual temperament: "Individuals of nervous temperament, those with fine and brown skins, rounded forms, large lips and very prominent larynx enjoy in general much more than those with opposite characteristics. A universal tradition," he adds, "describes as lascivious humpbacks, dwarfs, and in general persons of short stature and with long noses."

In a case of nymphomania in a young woman, described by Alibert (and quoted by Laycock, Nervous Diseases of Women, p. 28) the hips, thighs and legs were remarkably plump, while the chest and arms were completely emaciated. In a somewhat similar case described by Marc in his De la Folie a peasant woman, who from an early age had experienced sexual hyperaesthesia, so that she felt spasmodic voluptuous feelings at the sight of a man, and was thus the victim of solitary excesses and of spasmodic movements which she could not repress, the upper part of the body was very thin, the hips, legs and thighs highly developed.

In his work on Uterine and Ovarian Inflammation (1862, p. 37) Tilt observes: "The restless, bashful eye, and changing complexion, in presence of a person of the opposite sex, and a nervous restlessness of body, ever on the move, turning and twisting on sofa or chair, are the best indications of sexual temperament."

An extremely sensual little girl of 8, who was constantly masturbating when not watched, although brought up by nuns, was described by Busdraghi (Archivio di Psichiatria, fas. i, 1888, p. 53) as having chestnut hair, bright black eyes, an elevated nose, small mouth, pleasant round face, full colored cheeks, and plump and healthy aspect.

A highly intelligent young Italian woman with strong and somewhat perverted sexual impulses is described as of attractive appearance, with olive complexion, small black almond-shaped eyes, dilated pupils, oblique thin eyebrows, very thick black hair, rather prominent cheek-bones, largely developed jaw, and with abundant down on lower part of cheeks and on upper lip. (Archivio di Psichiatria, 1899, fasc. v-vi.)

As the type of the sensual woman in word and act, led by her passions to commit various sexual offenses, Ottolenghi describes (Archivio di Psichiatria, vol. xii, fasc. v-vi, p. 496) a woman of 32 who attempted to kill her lover. The daughter of parents who were neurotic and themselves very erotic, she was a highly intelligent and vivacious woman, with a pleasing and open face, very thick dark chestnut hair, large cheek-bones, adipose buttocks almost resembling those of a Hottentot, and very thick pubic hair. She was very fond of salt things. Sexual inclination began at the age of 7.

Adler and Moll remark, very truly, that, so far at least as women are concerned, sexual anaesthesia or sexual proclivity cannot be unfailingly read on the features. Every woman desires to please, and coquetry is the sign of a cold, rather than of an erotic temperament.[145] It may be added that a considerable degree of congenital sexual anaesthesia by no means prevents a woman from being beautiful and attractive, though it must probably still always be said that, as Roubaud points out,[146] the woman of cold and intellectual temperament, the "femme de tete," however beautiful and skillful she may be, cannot compete in the struggle for love with the woman whose qualities are of the heart and of the emotions. But it seems sufficiently clear that the practical observations of skilled and experienced observers agree in attributing to persons of erotic type certain general characteristics which accord with those negative and positive standards we may frame on the basis of castration, of puberty, and of detumescence. It may be worth while to note a few of these characteristics briefly.

The abnormal lengthening of the long bones at the age of puberty in the castrated is, as we have seen, very pronounced. There is little tendency to associate length of limb with an erotic temperament, and a certain amount of data as well as of more vague opinion points in the opposite direction. The Arabs would appear to believe that it is short rather than tall people in whom the sexual instinct is strongly developed, and we read in the Perfumed Garden: "Under all circumstances little women love coitus more and evince a stronger affection for the virile member than women of a large size." In his elaborate investigation of criminals Marro found that prostitutes and women guilty of sexual offenses, as also male sexual offenders, tend to be short and thick set.[147] In European folk-lore the thick, bull neck is regarded as a sign of strong sexuality.[148] Mantegazza refers to a strong sexual temperament as being associated with arrest or disorder of bony development, and Marro suggests that the proverbial salacity of rachitic individuals may be due to an increased activity of the sexual organs.[149] It may be added that acromegaly, with its excessive bony growths, tends to be associated with premature sexual involution.

A further point which is frequently mentioned in the case of women is the development of the chief secondary sexual regions: the pelvis and the breasts. It is, indeed, almost inevitable that there should be some degree of correlation between the aptitude for bearing children and the aptitude for experiencing detumescence. The reality of such a connection is not only evidenced by medical observations, but receives further testimony in popular beliefs. In Italy women with large buttocks are considered wanton, and among the South Slavs they are regarded as especially fruitful.[150] Blumenbach asserted that precocious venery will enlarge the breasts, and believed that he had found evidence of this among young London prostitutes.[151]

The association of the aptitude for detumescence with a tendency to a deep rather than to a high voice, both in men and women, has frequently been noted and has seldom been denied. The onset of puberty always affects the voice; in general, Bierent states, the more bass the voice is the more marked is the development of the sexual apparatus; "a very robust man, with very developed sexual organs, and very dark and abundant hairy system, a man of strong puberty in a word, is nearly always a bass."[152] The influence of sexual excitement in deepening the voice is shown by the rules of sexual hygiene prescribed to tenors, while a bass has less need to observe similar precautions. In women every phase of sexual life—puberty, menstruation, coitus, pregnancy—tends to affect the voice and always by giving it a deeper character. The deepening of the voice by sexual intercourse was an ancient Greek observation, and Martial refers to a woman's good or bad singing as an index to her recent sexual habits. Prostitutes tend to have a deep voice. Venturi points out that married women preserve a fresh voice to a more advanced age than spinsters, this being due to the precocious senility in the latter of an unused function. Such a phenomenon indicates that the relationship of detumescence to the deepening of the voice is not quite simple. This is further indicated by the fact that in robust men abstinence still further deepens the voice (the monk of melodrama always has a bass voice), while excessive or precocious sexual indulgence tends to be associated with the same kind of puerile voice as is found in those persons in whom pubertal development has not been carried very far, or who are of what Griffiths terms eunuchoid type. Idiot boys, who are often sexually undeveloped, tend to have a high voice, while idiot girls (who often manifest marked sexual proclivities) not infrequently have a deep voice.[153]

Bright dilated eyes are among the phenomena of detumescence, and are very frequently noted in persons of a pronounced erotic temperament. This is, indeed, an ancient observation, and Burton says of people with a black, lively, and sparkling eye, "without question they are most amorous," drawing his illustrations mostly from classic literature.[154] Tardieu described the erotic woman as having bright eyes, and Heywood Smith states that the eyes of lascivious women resemble, though in a less degree, those of the insane.[155] Sexual excitement is one among many causes—intellectual excitement, pain, a loud noise, even any sensory irritation—which produce dilatation of the pupils and enlargement of the palpebral fissure, with some protrusion of the eyeball. The influence of the sexual system upon the eye appears to be far less potent in men than in women.[156] Sexual desire is, however, by no means the only irritant within the sexual sphere which may thus influence the eye; morbid irritations may produce the same effect. Milner Fothergill, in his book on Indigestion, vividly describes the appearance of the eyes sometimes seen in ovarian disorder: "The glittering flash which glances out from some female irides is the external indication of ovarian irritation, and 'the ovarian gleam' has features quite its own. The most marked instance which ever came under my notice was due to irritation in the ovaries, which had been forced down in front of the uterus and been fixed there by adhesions. Here there was little sexual proclivity, but the eyes were very remarkable. They flashed and glittered unceasingly, and at times perfect lightning bolts shot from them. Usually there is a bright glittering sheen in them which contrasts with the dead look in the irides of sexual excess or profuse uterine discharges."

The activity of the glandular secretions, and especially those of the skin, during detumescence, would lead us to expect that such secretory activity is an index to an aptitude for detumescence. As a matter of fact it is occasionally, though not frequently, noted by medical observers. It is stated that the erotic temperament is characterized by a special odor.[157] The activity of the sweat-glands is seldom referred to by medical observers in describing persons of erotic temperament, although the descriptions of novelists not infrequently contain allusions to this point, and the literature of an earlier age shows that the tendency to perspiration, especially the moist hand, was regarded as a sure sign of a sensual temperament. "The moist-handed Madonna Imperia, a most rare and divine creature," remarks Lazarillo in Middleton's comedy Blurt, Master-Constable, to quote one of many allusions to this point in the Elizabethan drama.

The lips are sometimes noted as red and everted, perhaps thick[158]; Tardieu remarked that the typically erotic woman has thick red lips. This corresponds with the characteristic type of the satyr in classic statues as in later paintings; his lips are always thick and everted. Fullness, redness, and eversion of the lips are correlated with good breathing, the absence of anaemia, laughter, a well-fleshed face.

This kind of mouth indicates, perhaps, not so much a congenitally erotic temperament, as an abandonment to impulse. The opposite type of mouth—with inverted, thin, and retracted lips—would appear to be found with especial frequency in persons who habitually repress their impulses on moral grounds. Any kind of effort to restrain involuntary muscular action may lead to retraction of the lips: the effort to overcome anger or fear, or even the resistance to a strong desire to urinate or defecate. In religious young men, however, it becomes habitual and fixed. I recall a small band of medical students, gathered together from a large medical school, who were accustomed to meet together for prayer and Bible-reading; the majority showed this type of mouth to a very marked degree: pale faces, with drawn, retracted lips. It may be termed the Christian or pious facies. It is much less frequently seen in religious women (unless of masculine type), doubtless because religion for women is in a much less degree than for men a moral discipline.

It may be added that an interesting form of this contraction of the lips, and one that is not purely repressive, is that which indicates the state of muscular tension associated with the impulse to guard and protect. In this form the contracted mouth is the index of tenderness, and is characteristic of the mother who is watching over the infant she is suckling at her breast. I have observed precisely the same expression in the face of a boy of 14 with a large congenital scrotal hernia; when the tumor was being examined his lower lip became retracted, well marked lines appearing from the angles downwards, though the upper lip retained its normal expression It was precisely the tender look we may see in the faces of mothers who are watching anxiously over their offspring, and the emotion is evidently the same in both cases: solicitude for a sensitive and tenderly guarded object.

The degree of pigmentation is clearly correlated with sexual vigor. "In general," Heusinger laid down, in 1823, "the quantity of pigment is proportional to the functional effectiveness of the genital organs." This connection is so profound that it may be traced very widely throughout the organic world.

The connection between pigmentation and sexual activity is very ancient. Even leaving out of account the wedding apparel of animals, nearly always gorgeous in scales and plumage and hair, the sexual orifice shows a more or less marked tendency to pigmentation during the breeding season from fishes upward, while in mammals the darker pigmentation of this region is a constant phenomenon in sexually mature individuals.[159]

In the human species both the negative standard of castration and the positive standard of puberty alike indicate a correlation of this kind. Those individuals in whom puberty never fully develops and who are consequently said to be affected by infantilism, reveal a relative absence of pigment in the sexual centers which are normally pigmented to a high degree.[160] Among those Asiatic races who extirpate the ovaries in young girls the skin remains white in the perineum, round the anus, and in the armpits.[161] Even in mature women who undergo ovariotomy, as Kepler found, the pigmentation of the nipples and areola disappears, as well as of the perineum and anus, the skin taking on a remarkable whiteness.

Normally the sexual centers, and in a high degree the genital orifice, represent the maximum of pigmentation, and under some circumstances this is clearly visible even in infancy. Thus babies of mixed black and white blood may show no traces of negro ancestry at birth, but there will always be increased pigmentation about the external genitalia.[162] The linea fusca, which reaches from the pubes to the navel and occasionally to the ensiform cartilage, is a line of sexual pigmentation sometimes regarded as characteristic of pregnancy, but as Andersen, of Copenhagen, has found by the examination of several hundred children of both sexes, it exists in a slight form in about 75 per cent. of young girls, and in almost as large a proportion of boys. But there is no doubt that it tends to increase with age as well as to become marked at pregnancy. At puberty there is a general tendency to changes in pigmentation; thus Godin found that in 28 per cent, adolescent changes occurred in the eyes and hair at this period, the hair becoming darker, though the eyes sometimes become lighter. Ammon, in his investigation of conscripts at the age of 20 (post, p. 196), discovered the significant fact that the eyes and hair darken pari passu with sexual development. In women, during menstruation, there is a general tendency to pigmentation; this is especially obvious around the eyes, and in some cases black rings of true pigment form in this position. Even the skin of the negro women of Loango sometimes becomes a few shades darker during menstruation.[163] During pregnancy this tendency to pigmentation reaches its climax. Pregnancy constantly gives rise to pigmentation of the face, the neck, the nipples, the abdomen, and this is especially marked in brunettes.

This association of pigmentation and sexual aptitudes has been recognized in the popular lore of some peoples. Thus the Sicilians, who admire brown skin and have no liking either for a fair skin or light hair, believe that a white woman is incapable of responding to love. It is the brown woman who feels love; as it is said in Sicilian dialect: "Fimmina scura, fimmina amurusa."[164]

The dependence of pigmentation upon the sexual system is shown by the fact that irritation of the genital organs by disease will frequently suffice to produce a high degree of pigmentation. This may the neck, the trunk, the hands. Simpson long since noted that uterine irritation apart from pregnancy may produce pigmentation of the areolae of the nipples (Obstetric Works, vol. i, p. 345). Engelmann discussed the subject and gave cases, "The Hystero-Neuroses," pp. 124-139, in Gynaecological Transactions, vol. xii, 1887; and a summary of a memoir by Fouquet on this subject in La Gynecologie, February, 1903, will be found in British Medical Journal, March 28, 1903,

Of all physical traits vigor of the hairy system has most frequently perhaps been regarded as the index of vigorous sexuality. In this matter modern medical observations are at one with popular belief and ancient physiognomical assertions.[165] The negative test of castration and the positive test of puberty point in the same direction.

It is at puberty that all the hair on the body, except that on the head, begins to develop; indeed, the very word "puberty" has reference to this growth as the most obvious sign of the whole process. When castration takes place at an early age all this development of pubescent hair is arrested. When the primary sexual organs are undeveloped the sexual hair is also undeveloped, as in a case, recorded by Plant,[166] of a girl with rudimentary uterus and ovaries who had little or no axillary and pubic hair, although the hair of the head was long and strong.[167]

The pseudo-Michael Scot among the Signa mulieris calidae naturae et quae coit libenter stated that her hair, both on the head and body, is thick and coarse and crisp, and Della Porta, the greatest of the physiognomists, said that thickness of hair in women meant wantonness. Venette, in his Generation de l'Homme, remarked that men who have much hair on the body are most amorous. At a more recent period Roubaud has said that pubic hair in its quantity, color and curliness is an index of genital energy. A poor pilous system, on the other hand, Roubaud regarded as a probable though not an irrefragable proof of sexual frigidity in women. "In the cold woman the pilous system is remarkable for the languor of its vitality; the hairs are fair, delicate, scarce and smooth, while in ardent natures there are little curly tufts about the temples." (Traite de l'Impuissance, pp. 124, 523.) Martineau declared (Lecons sur les Deformations Vulvaires, p. 40) that "the more developed the genital organs the more abundant the hair covering them; abundance of hair appears to be in relation to the perfect development of the organs." Tardieu described the typically erotic woman as very hairy.

Bergh found that among 2200 young Danish prostitutes those who showed an unusual extension and amount of pubic hair included several women who were believed to be libidinous in a very high degree. (Bergh, "Symbolae," etc., Hospitalstidende, August, 1894.) Moraglia, again, in Italy, in describing various women, mostly prostitutes, of unusually strong sexual proclivities, repeatedly notes very thick hair, with down on the face. (Archivio di Psichiatria, vol. xvi, fasc. iv-v.)

Marro, also, in Italy found that abundance of hair and down is especially marked in women who are guilty of infanticide (as also Pasini has found), though criminal women generally, in his experience, tend to have abnormally abundant hair. (Caratteri del Delinquenti, cap. XXII.) Lombroso finds that prostitutes generally tend to be hairy (Donna Delinquente, p. 320.)

A lad of 14, guilty of numerous crimes of violence having a sexual source, is described by Arthur Macdonald in America as having hair on the chest as well as all over the pubes. (A. Macdonald, Archives de L'Anthropologie Criminelle, January, 1893, p. 55.) The association of hairiness with abnormal sexuality in the weak-minded has been noted at Bicetre (Recherches Cliniques sur l'Epilepsie, vol. xix, pp. 69, 77.)

Hypertrichosis universalis, a general hairiness of body, has been described by Cascella in a woman with very strong sexual desires, who eventually became insane. (Revista Mensile di Psichiatria, 1903, p. 408.) Bucknill and Tuke give the case of a religiously minded girl, with very strong and repressed sexual desires, who became insane; the only abnormal feature in her physical development was the marked growth of hair over the body.

Brantome refers to a great lady known to him whose body was very hairy, and quotes a saying to the effect that hairy people are either rich or wanton; the lady in question, he adds, was both. (Brantome, Vie des Dames Galantes, Discours II.)

De Sade, whose writings are now regarded as a treasure house of true observations in the domain of sexual psychology, makes the Rodin of Justine dark, with much hair and thick eyebrows, while his very sexual sister is described as dark, thin and very hairy. (Duehren, Der Marquis de Sade, third edition, p. 440.)

A correspondent who has always taken a special interest in the condition as regards hairiness of the women to whom he has been attracted, has sent me notes concerning a series of 12 women. It may be gathered from these notes that 5 women were neither markedly sexual nor markedly hairy (either as regards head or pubes), 6 cases both hairy and sexual, 1 was sexual and not hairy, none were hairy and not sexual. My correspondent remarks: "There may be women with scanty pubic hair possessing very strong sexual emotions. My own experience is quite the opposite." He has also independently reached the conclusion, arrived at by many medical observers and clearly suggested by some of the facts here brought together, that profuse hair frequently denotes a neurotic temperament.

It may be added that Mirabeau, as we learn from an anecdote told by an eyewitness and recorded by Legouve, had a very hairy chest, while the same is recorded of Restif de la Bretonne.

It is a very ancient and popular belief that if a hairy man is not sensual he is strong: vir pilosus aut libidinosus aut fortis. The Greeks insisted on the hairy nates of Hercules, and Ninon de l'Enclos, when the great Conde shared her bed without touching her, remarked, on seeing his hairy body: "Ah, Monseigneur, que vous devez etre fort!" It may be doubted whether there is any exact parallelism between muscular strength and hairiness, for strength is largely a matter of training, but there can be no doubt that hairiness really tends to be associated with a generally vigorous development of the body.

Although the observations concerning hairiness of body as an index of vigor, whether sexual or only generally physical, are so ancient, until recent years no attempts have been made to demonstrate on a large scale whether there is actually a correlation between hairiness and sexual or general development of the body. Some importance, therefore, attaches to Ammon's careful observations of many thousand conscripts in Baden. These observations fully justify this ancient belief, since they show that on the one hand the size of the testicles, and on the other hand girth of chest and stature, are correlated with hairiness of body.

Ammon's observations were made on nearly 4000 conscripts of the age of 20. From the point of view of the hairy system he divided them, into four classes:—

I. To which 6.1 per cent, of the men belonged, with smooth bodies.

II. Including 25.3 per cent., only slight hairiness.

III. 53.8 per cent., more developed hairy system, but belly, breast and back smooth.

IV. 14.7 per cent., hair all over body.

V. 0.1 per cent., extreme cases of hairiness.

The beardless were 12.1 per cent., those with no axillary hair 9 per cent., those with no hair on pubis 0.4 per cent. This corresponds with the fact that hair appears first on the pubis and last on the chin.

In the first class 69 per cent, were beardless, 54 per cent, without any axillary hair and 6 per cent, without pubic hair. In the second class 24 per cent, were beardless, 17 per cent, without axillary hair. In the third class 3 per cent, were beardless and 3 per cent without axillary hair.

Below puberty the diameter of testicles is below 14 millimeters. There were 13 conscripts having a testicular diameter of less than 14 millimeters. These infantile individuals all belonged to the first three classes and mostly to the first. The average testicular diameter in the first class was nearly 24 millimeters, and progressively rose in the succeeding classes to over 26 millimeters in the fourth.

While there was not much difference in height, the first class was the shortest, the fourth the tallest. The fourth class also showed the greatest chest perimeter. The cephalic index of all classes was 84. (O. Ammon, "L'Infantilisme et le Feminisme au Conseil de Revision," L'Anthropologie, May-June, 1896.)

We thus see that it is quite justifiable to admit a type of person who possesses a more than average aptitude for detumescence. Such persons are more likely to be short than tall; they will show a full development of the secondary sexual characters; the voice will tend to be deep and the eyes bright; the glandular activity of the skin will probably be marked, the lips everted; there is a tendency to a more than average degree of pigmentation, and there is frequently an abnormal prevalence of hair on some parts of the body. While none of these signs, taken separately, can be said to have any necessary connection with the sexual impulse, taken altogether they indicate an organism that responds to the instinct of detumescence with special aptitude or with marked energy. In these respects observation, both scientific and popular, concords with the probabilities suggested by the three standards in this matter which have already been set forth.

No generalization, however, can here be set down in an absolute and unqualified manner. There are definite reasons why this should be so. There is, for instance, the highly important consideration that the sexual impulse of the individual may be conspicuous in two quite distinct ways. It may assume prominence because the individual possesses a highly vigorous and well-nourished organism, or its prominence may be due to mental irritation in a very morbid individual. In the latter case—although occasionally the two sets of conditions are combined—most of the signs we might expect in the former case may be absent. Indeed, the sexual impulses which proceed from a morbid psychic irritability do not in most cases indicate any special aptitude for detumescence at all; in that largely lies their morbid character.

Again, just in the same way that the exaggerated impulse itself may either be healthy or morbid, so the various characters which we have found to possess some value as signs of the impulse may themselves either be healthy or morbid. This is notably the case as regards an abnormal growth of hair on the body, more especially when it appears on regions where normally there is little or no hair. Such hypertrichosis is frequently degenerative in character, though still often associated with the sexual system. When, however, it is thus a degenerative character of sexual nature, having its origin in some abnormal foetal condition or later atrophy of the ovaries, it is no necessary indication of any aptitude for detumescence.

Idiots, more especially it would seem idiot girls, tend to show a highly developed hairy system. Thus Voisin, when investigating 150 idiot and imbecile girls, found the hair long and thick and tending to occupy a large surface; one girl had hair on the areolae of the mamma. (J. Voisin, "Conformation des organes genitaux chez les Idiots," Annales d'Hygiene Publique, June, 1894.) It should be said that in idiot boys puberty is late, and the sexual organs as well as the sexual instinct frequently undeveloped, while in idiot girls there is no delay in puberty, and the sexual organs and instinct are frequently fully and even abnormally developed.

Hegar has described an interesting case showing an association, of foetal origin, between sexual anomaly and abnormal hairness. In this case a girl of 16 had a uterus duplex, an infantile pelvis, very slight menstruation and undeveloped breasts. She was very hairy on the face, the anterior aspects of the chest and abdomen, the sexual regions, and the thighs, but not specially so on the rest of the body. The hairs were of lanugo-like character, but dark in color. (A. Hegar, Beitraege zur Geburtshuelfe und Gynaekologie, vol. i, p. III, 1898.) Sometimes hiruties of the face and abdomen begin to appear during pregnancy, apparently from disease or degeneration of the ovaries. (A case is noted in British Medical Journal, August 2 and 16, pp. 375 and 436, 1902.) Laycock many years ago referred to the popular belief that women who have hair on the upper lip seldom bear children, and regarded this opinion as "questionless founded on fact." (Laycock, Nervous Diseases of Women, p. 22.) When this is so, we may suppose that the abnormal hairy growth is associated with degeneration of the ovaries.

There is another factor which enters into this question and renders the definition of a physical sexual type less precise than it would otherwise be. The sexual instinct is common to all persons, and while it seems probable that there is a type of person in whom sexual energies are predominant, it would also appear that the people who otherwise show a very high level of energy in life usually exhibit a more than average degree of energy in matters of love. The predominantly sexual type, as we have seen, tends to be associated with a high degree of pigmentation; the person specially apt for detumescence inclines to belong to the dark rather than to the purely fair group of the population. On the other hand, the active, energetic, practical man, the man who is most apt for the achievement of success in life, tends to belong to the fair rather than to the dark type.[168] Thus we have a certain conflict of tendencies, and it becomes possible to assert that while persons with pronounced aptitude for sexual detumescence tend to be dark, persons whose pronounced energy in sexual matters tends to ensure success are most likely to be fair.

The tendency of the fair energetic type, the type of the northern European man, to sexuality may be connected with the fact that the violent and criminal man who commits sexual crimes tends to be fair even amid a dark population. Criminals on the whole would appear to tend to be dark rather than fair; but Marro found in Italy that the group of sexual offenders differed from all other groups of criminals in that their hair was predominantly fair. (Caratteri del Delinquenti, p. 374.) Ottolenghi, in the same way, in examining 100 sexual offenders, found that they showed 17 per cent., of fair hair, though criminals generally (on a basis of nearly 2000) showed only 6 per cent., and normal persons (nearly 1000) 9 per cent. Similarly while the normal persons showed only 20 per cent. of blue eyes and criminals generally 36 per cent., the sexual offenders showed 50 per cent. of blue eyes. (Ottolenghi, Archivio di Psichiatria, fasc. vi, 1888, p. 573.) Burton remarked (Anatomy of Melancholy, Part III, Section II, Mem. II, Subs. II) that in all ages most amorous young men have been yellow-haired, adding, "Synesius holds every effeminate fellow or adulterer is fair-haired." In folk-lore, it has been noted (Kryptadia, vol. ii, p. 258), red or yellow hair is sometimes regarded as a mark of sexuality.

In harmony with this fairness, sexual offenders would appear to be more dolichocephalic than other criminals. In Italy Marro found the foreheads of sexual offenders to be narrow, and in California Draehms found that while murderers had an average cephalic index of 83.5, and thieves of 80.5, that of sexual offenders was 79.

On the other hand, high cheek-bones and broad faces—a condition most usually found associated with brachycephaly—have sometimes been noted as associated with undue or violent sexuality. Marro noted the excess of prominent cheek-bones in sexual offenders, and in America it has been found that unchaste girls tend to have broad faces. (Pedagogical Seminary, December, 1896, pp. 231, 235.)

It will be seen that, when we take a comprehensive view of the facts and considerations involved, it is possible to obtain a more definite and coherent picture of the physical signs of a marked aptitude for detumescence than has hitherto been usually supposed possible. But we also see that while the ensemble of these signs is probably fairly reliable as an index of marked sexuality, the separate signs have no such definite significance, and under some circumstances their significance may even be reversed.

FOOTNOTES:

[144] See Bierent, La Puberte; Marro, La Puberta (and enlarged French translation, La Puberte), and portions of G.S. Hall's Adolescence; also Havelock Ellis, Man and Woman (fourth edition, revised and enlarged).

[145] Adler, Die Mangelhafte Geschlechtsempfindung des Weibes, p. 174; Moll, "Perverse Sexualempfindung, Psychische Impotenz und Ehe" (Section II), in Senator and Kaminer, Krankheiten und Ehe.

[146] Roubaud, Traite de l'Impuissance, p. 524.

[147] Marro, Caratteri del Delinquenti, p. 374.

[148] Kryptadia, vol. ii, p. 258.

[149] Marro, La Puberta, p. 196. In Italy, the sensuality of the lame is the subject of proverbs.

[150] Archivio di Psichiatria, 1896, p. 515; Kryptadia, vol. vi, p. 212.

[151] Blumenbach, Anthropological Treatises, p. 248.

[152] Bierent, La Puberte, p. 148.

[153] Venturi, Degenerazioni Psico-sessuali, pp. 408-410.

[154] Anatomy of Melancholy, Part III, Section II, Mem. II, Sub. II.

[155] British Gynaecological Journal, February, 1887, p. 505.

[156] Power, Lancet, November 26, 1887.

[157] With regard to the sexual relationships of personal odor, see the previous volume of these Studies, "Sexual Selection in Man," section on Smell.

[158] In European folk-lore thick lips in a woman are sometimes regarded as a sign of sensuality, Kryptadia, vol. ii, p, 258.

[159] The direct dependence of sexual pigmentation on the primary sexual glands is well illustrated by a true hermaphroditic adult finch exhibited at the Academy of Sciences of Amsterdam (May 31, 1890); this bird had a testis on the right side and an ovary on the left, and on the right side its plumage was of the male's colors, on the left of the female's color.

[160] See. e.g., Papillault, Bulletin Societe d'Anthropologie, 1899, p. 446.

[161] Guinard, Art. "Castration," Richet's Dictionnaire de Physiologie.

[162] J. Whitridge Williams, Obstetrics, 1903, p. 132.

[163] Zeitschrift fuer Ethnologie, 1878, p. 19.

[164] C. Pitre, Medicina Populare Siciliana, p. 47. In England, from notes sent to me by one correspondent, it would appear that the proportion of dark and sexually apt women to fair and sexually apt women is as 3 to 1. The experience of others would doubtless give varying results, and in any case the fallacies are numerous. See, in the previous volume of these Studies, "Sexual Selection in Man," Section IV.

[165] In Japan the same belief would appear to be held. In a nude figure representing the typical voluptuous woman by the Japanese painter Marugama Okio (reproduced in Ploss's Das Weib) the pubic and axillary hair is profuse, though usually sparse in Japan.

[166] Centralblatt fuer Gynaekologie, No. 9, 1896.

[167] It is important to remember that there is little correlation in this matter between the hair of the head and the sexual hair, if not a certain opposition. (See ante, p. 127.) According to one of the aphorisms of Hippocrates, repeated by Buffon, eunuchs do not become bald, and Aristotle seems to have believed that sexual intercourse is a cause of baldness in men. (Laycock, Nervous Diseases of Women, p. 23.)

[168] For some of the evidence on this point, see Havelock Ellis, "The Comparative Abilities of the Fair and the Dark," Monthly Review, August, 1901; cf. id., A Study of British Genius, Chapter X.



THE PSYCHIC STATE IN PREGNANCY.

The Relationship of Maternal and Sexual Emotion—Conception and Loss of Virginity—The Anciently Accepted Signs of This Condition—The Pervading Effects of Pregnancy on the Organism—Pigmentation—The Blood and Circulation—The Thyroid—Changes in the Nervous System—The Vomiting of Pregnancy—The Longings of Pregnant Women—Maternal Impressions—Evidence for and Against Their Validity—The Question Still Open—Imperfection of Our Knowledge—The Significance of Pregnancy.

In analyzing the sexual impulse I have so far deliberately kept out of view the maternal instinct. This is necessary, for the maternal instinct is specific and distinct; it is directed to an aim which, however intimately associated it may be with that of the sexual impulse proper, can by no means be confounded with it. Yet the emotion of love, as it has finally developed in the world, is not purely of sexual origin; it is partly sexual, but it is also partly parental.[169]

In so far as it is parental it is certainly mainly maternal. There is a drawing by Bronzino in the Louvre of a woman's head gazing tenderly down at some invisible object; is it her child or her lover? Doubtless her child, yet the expression is equally adequate to the emotion evoked by a lover. If we were here specifically dealing with the emotion of love as a complex whole, and not with the psychology of the sexual impulse, it would certainly be necessary to discuss the maternal instinct and its associated emotions. In any case it seems desirable to touch on the psychic state of pregnancy, for we are here concerned not only with emotions very closely connected with the sexual emotions in the narrower sense, but we here at last approach that state which it is the object of the whole sexual process to achieve.

In civilized life a period of weeks, months, even years, may elapse between the establishment of sexual relations and the occurrence of conception. Under primitive conditions the loss of the virginal condition practically involves the pregnant condition, so that under primitive conditions very little allowance is made for the state, so common among civilized peoples, of the woman who is no longer a virgin, yet not about to become a mother.

There is some interest in noting the signs of loss of virginity chiefly relied upon by ancient authors. In doing this it is convenient to follow mainly the full summary of authorities given by Schurig in his Barthenologia early in the eighteenth century. The ancient custom, known in classic times, of measuring the neck the day after marriage was frequently practiced to ascertain if a girl was or was not a virgin. There were various ways of doing this. One was to measure with a thread the circumference of the bride's neck before she went to bed on the bridal night. If in the morning the same thread would not go around her neck it was a sure sign that she had lost her virginity during the night; if not, she was still a virgin or had been deflowered at an earlier period. Catullus alluded to this custom, which still exists, or existed until lately, in the south of France. It is perfectly sound, for it rests on the intimate response by congestion of the thyroid gland to sexual excitement. (Parthenologia, p. 283; Bierent, La Puberte, p. 150; Havelock Ellis, Man and Woman, fourth edition, p. 267.)

Some say, Schurig tells us, that the voice, which in the virgin is shrill, becomes rougher and deeper after the first coitus. He quotes Riolan's statement that it is certain that the voice of those who indulge in venery is changed. On that account the ancients bound down the penis of their singers, and Martial said that those who wish to preserve their voices should avoid coitus. Democritus who one day had greeted a girl as "maiden" on the following day addressed her as "woman," while in the same way it is said that Albertus Magnus, observing from his study a girl going for wine for her master, knew that she had had sexual intercourse by the way because on her return her voice had become deeper. Here, again, the ancient belief has a solid basis, for the voice and the larynx are really affected by sexual conditions. (Parthenologia, p. 286; Marro, La Puberte, p. 303; Havelock Ellis, op. cit., pp. 271, 289.)

Others, again, Schurig proceeds, have judged that the goaty smell given out in the armpits during the venereal act is also no uncertain sign of defloration, such odor being perceptible in those who use much venery, and not seldom in harlots and the newly married, while, as Hippocrates said, it is not perceived in boys and girls. (Parthenologia, p. 286; cf. the previous volume of these Studies, "Sexual Selection in Man," p. 64.)

In virgins, Schurig remarks, the pubic hair is said to be long and not twisted, while in women accustomed to coitus it is crisper. But it is only after long and repeated coitus, some authors add, that the pubic hairs become crisp. Some recent observers, it may be remarked, have noted a connection between sexual excitation and the condition of the pubic hair in women. (Cf. the present volume, ante p. 127.)

A sign to which the old authors often attached much importance was furnished by the urinary stream. In the De Secretis Mulierum, wrongly attributed to Albertus Magnus, it is laid down that "the virgin urinates higher than the woman." Riolan, in his Anthropographia, discussing the ability of virgins to ejaculate urine to a height, states that Scaliger had observed women who were virgins emit urine in a high jet against a wall, but that married women could seldom do this. Bouaciolus also stated that the urine of virgins is emitted in a small stream to a distance with an acute hissing sound. (Parthenologia, p. 281.) A folk-lore belief in the reality of this influence is evidenced by the Picardy conte referred to already (ante, p. 53), "La Princesse qui pisse au dessus les Meules." There is no doubt a tendency for the various stresses of sexual life to produce an influence in this direction, though they act far too slowly and uncertainly to be a reliable index to the presence or the absence of virginity.

Another common ancient test of virginity by urination rests on a psychic basis, and appears in a variety of forms which are really all reducible to the same principle. Thus we are told in De Secretis Mulierum that to ascertain if a girl is seduced she should be given to eat of powdered crocus flowers, and if she has been seduced she immediately urinates. We are here concerned with auto-suggestion, and it may well be believed that with nervous and credulous girls this test often revealed the truth.

A further test of virginity discussed by Schurig is the presence of modesty of countenance. If a woman blushes her virtue is safe. In this way girls who have themselves had experience of the marriage bed are said to detect the virgin. The virgin's eyes are cast down and almost motionless, while she who has known a man has eyes that are bright and quick. But this sign is equivocal, says Schurig, for girls are different, and can simulate the modesty they do not feel. Yet this indication also rests on a fundamentally sound psychological basis. (See "The Evolution of Modesty," in the first volume of these Studies.)

In his Syllepsilogia (Section V, cap. I-II), published in 1731, Schurig discusses further the anciently recognized signs of pregnancy. The real or imaginary signs of pregnancy sought by various primitive peoples of the past and present are brought together by Ploss and Bartels, Das Weib, bd. i, Chapter XXVII.

Both physically and psychically the occurrence of pregnancy is, however, a distinct event. It marks the beginning of a continuous physical process, which cannot fail to manifest psychic reactions. A great center of vital activity—practically a new center, for only the germinal form of it in menstruation had previously existed—has appeared and affects the whole organism. "From the moment that the embryo takes possession of the woman," Robert Barnes puts it, "every drop of blood, every fiber, every organ, is affected."[170]

A woman artist once observed to Dr. Stratz, that as the final aim of a woman is to become a mother and pregnancy is thus her blossoming time, a beautiful woman ought to be most beautiful when she is pregnant. That is so, Stratz replied, if her moment of greatest physical perfection corresponds with the early months of pregnancy, for with the beginning of pregnancy metabolism is increased, the color of the skin becomes more lively and delicate, the breasts firmer.[171] Pregnancy may, indeed, often become visible soon after conception by the brighter eye, the livelier glance, resulting from greater vascular activity, though later, with the increase of strain, the face may tend to become somewhat thin and distorted. The hair, Barnes states, assumes a new vigor, even though it may have been falling out before. The temperature rises; the weight increases, even apart from the growth of the foetus. The efflorescence of pregnancy shows itself, as in the blossoming and fecundated flower, by increased pigmentation.[172] The nipples with their areolae, and the mid-line of the belly, become darker; brown flecks (lentigo) tend to appear on the forehead, neck, arms, and body; while striae—at first blue-red, then a brilliant white—appear on the belly and thighs, though these are scarcely normal, for they are not seen in women with very elastic skins and are rare among peasants and savages.[173] The whole carriage of the woman tends to become changed with the development of the mighty seed of man planted within her; it simulates the carriage of pride with the arched back and protruded abdomen.[174] The pregnant woman has been lifted above the level of ordinary humanity to become the casket of an inestimable jewel.

It is in the blood and the circulation that the earliest of the most prominent symptoms of pregnancy are to be found. The ever increasing development of this new focus of vascular activity involves an increased vascular activity in the whole organism. This activity is present almost from the first—a few days after the impregnation of the ovum—in the breasts, and quickly becomes obvious to inspection and palpation. Before a quite passive organ, the breast now rapidly increases in activity of circulation and in size, while certain characteristic changes begin to take place around the nipples.[175] As a result of the additional work imposed upon it the heart tends to become slightly hypertrophied in order to meet the additional strain; there may be some dilatation also.[176]

The recent investigations of Stengel and Stanton tend to show that the increase of the heart's work during pregnancy is less considerable than has generally been supposed, and that beyond some enlargement and dilatation of the right ventricle there is not usually any hypertrophy of the heart.

The total quantity of blood is raised. While increased in quantity, the blood appears on the whole to be somewhat depreciated in quality, though on this point there are considerable differences of opinion. Thus, as regards haemoglobin, some investigators have found that the old idea as to the poverty of haemoglobin in pregnancy is quite unfounded; a few have even found that the haemoglobin is increased. Most authorities have found the red cells diminished, though some only slightly, while the white cells, and also the fibrin, are increased. But toward the end of pregnancy there is a tendency, perhaps due to the establishment of compensation, for the blood to revert to the normal condition.[177]

It would appear probable, however, that the vascular phenomena of pregnancy are not altogether so simple as the above statement would imply. The activity of various glands at this time—well illustrated by the marked salivation which sometimes occurs—indicates that other modifying forces are at work, and it has been suggested that the changes in the maternal circulation during pregnancy may best be explained by the theory that there are two opposing kinds of secretion poured into the blood in unusual degree during pregnancy: one contracting the vessels, the other dilating them, one or the other sometimes gaining the upper hand. Suprarenal extract, when administered, has a vaso-constricting influence, and thyroid extract a vasodilating influence; it may be surmised that within the body these glands perform similar functions.[178]

The important part played by the thyroid gland is indicated by its marked activity at the very beginning of pregnancy. We may probably associate the general tendency to vasodilatation during early pregnancy with the tendency to goitre; Freund found an increase of the thyroid in 45 per cent. of 50 cases. The thyroid belongs to the same class of ductless glands as the ovary, and, as Bland Sutton and others have insisted, the analogies between the thyroid and the ovary are very numerous and significant. It may be added that in recent years Armand Gautier has noted the importance of the thyroid in elaborating nucleo-proteids containing arsenic and iodine, which are poured into the circulation during menstruation and pregnancy. The whole metabolism of the body is indeed affected, and during the latter part of pregnancy study of the ingesta and egesta has shown that a storage of nitrogen and even of water is taking place.[179] The woman, as Pinard puts it, forms the child out of her own flesh, not merely out of her food; the individual is being sacrificed to the species.

The changes in the nervous system of the pregnant woman correspond to those in the vascular system. There is the same increase of activity, a heightening of tension. Bruno Wolff, from experiments on bitches, concluded that the central nervous system in women is probably more easily excited in the pregnant than in the non-pregnant state, though he was not prepared to call this cerebral excitability "specific."[180] Direct observations on pregnant women have shown, without doubt, a heightened nervous irritability. Reflex action generally is increased. Neumann investigated the knee-jerk in 500 women during pregnancy, labor, and the puerperium, and in a large number found that there was a progressive exaggeration with the advance of pregnancy, little or no change being observed in the early months; sometimes when no change was observed during pregnancy the knee-jerk still increased during labor, reaching its maximum at the moment of the expulsion of the foetus; the return to the normal condition took place gradually during the puerperium. Tridandani found in pregnant women that though the superficial reflexes, with the exception of the abdominal, were diminished, the deep and tendon reflexes were markedly increased, especially that of the knee, these changes being more marked in primiparae than in multiparae, and more pronounced as pregnancy advanced, the normal condition returning with ten days after labor. Electrical excitability was sensibly diminished.[181]

One of the first signs of high nervous tension is vomiting. As is well known, this phenomenon commonly appears early in pregnancy, and it is by many considered entirely physiological. Barnes regards it as a kind of safety valve, a regulating function, letting off excessive tension and maintaining equilibrium.[182] Vomiting is, however, a convulsion, and is thus the simplest form of a kind of manifestation—to which the heightened nervous tension of pregnancy easily lends itself—that finds its extreme pathological form in eclampsia. In this connection it is of interest to point out that the pregnant woman here manifests in the highest degree a tendency which is marked in women generally, for the female sex, apart altogether from pregnancy, is specially liable to convulsive phenomena.[183]

There is some slight difference of opinion among authorities as to the precise nature and causation of the sickness of pregnancy. Barnes, Horrocks and others regard it as physiological; but many consider it pathological; this is, for instance, the opinion of Giles. Graily Hewitt attributed it to flexion of the gravid uterus, Kaltenbach to hysteria, and Zaborsky terms it a neurosis. Whitridge Williams considers that it may be (1) reflex, or (2) neurotic (when it is allied to hysteria and amenable to suggestion), or (3) toxaemic. It really appears to lie on the borderland between healthy and diseased manifestations. It is said to be unknown to farmers and veterinary surgeons. It appears to be little known among savages; it is comparatively infrequent among women of the lower social classes, and, as Giles has found, women who habitually menstruate in a painless and normal manner suffer comparatively little from the sickness of pregnancy.

We owe a valuable study of the sickness of pregnancy to Giles, who analyzed the records of 300 cases. He concluded that about one-third of the pregnant women were free from sickness throughout pregnancy, 45 per cent. were free during the first three months. When sickness occurred it began in 70 per cent. of cases in the first month, and was most frequent during the second month. The duration varied from a few days to all through. Between the ages of 20 and 25 sickness was least frequent, and there was less sickness in the third than in any other pregnancy. (This corresponds with the conclusion of Matthews Duncan that 25 is the most favorable age for pregnancy.) To some extent in agreement with Gueniot, Giles believes that the vomiting of pregnancy is "one form of manifestation of the high nervous irritability of pregnancy." This high nervous tension may overflow into other channels, into the vascular and excretory system, causing eclampsia; into the muscular system, causing chorea, or, expending itself in the brain, give rise to hysteria when mild or insanity when severe. But the vagi form a very ready channel for such overflow, and hence the frequency of sickness in pregnancy. There are thus three main factors in the causation of this phenomenon: (1) An increased nervous irritability; (2) a local source of irritation; (3) a ready efferent channel for nervous energy. (Arthur Giles, "Observations on the Etiology of the Sickness of Pregnancy," Transactions Obstetrical Society of London, vol. xxv, 1894.)

Martin, who regards the phenomenon as normal, points out that when nausea and vomiting are absent or suddenly cease there is often reason to suspect something wrong, especially the death of the embryo. He also remarks that women who suffer from large varicose veins are seldom troubled by the nausea of pregnancy. (J.M.H. Martin, "The Vomiting of Pregnancy," British Medical Journal, December 10, 1904.) These observations may be connected with those of Evans (American Gynaecological and Obstetrical Journal, January, 1900), who attributes primary importance to the undoubtedly active factor of the irritation set up by the uterus, more especially the rhythmic uterine contractions; stimulation of the breasts produces active uterine contractions, and Evans found that examination of the breasts sufficed to bring on a severe attack of vomiting, while on another occasion this was produced by a vaginal examination. Evans believes that the purpose of these contractions is to facilitate the circulation of the blood through the large venous sinuses, the surcharging of the relatively stagnant pools with effete blood producing the irritation which leads to rhythmic contractions.

It is on the basis of the increased vascular and glandular activity and the heightened nervous tension that the special psychic phenomena of pregnancy develop. The best known, and perhaps the most characteristic of these manifestations, is that known as "longings." By this term is meant more or less irresistible desires for some special food or drink, which may be digestible or indigestible, sometimes a substance which the woman ordinarily likes, such as fruit, and occasionally one which, under ordinary circumstances, she dislikes, as in one case known to me of a young country woman who, when bearing her child, was always longing for tobacco and never happy except when she could get a pipe to smoke, although under ordinary circumstances, like other young women of her class, she was without any desire to smoke. Occasionally the longings lead to actions which are more unscrupulous than is common in the case of the same person at other times; thus in one case known to me a young woman, pregnant with her first child, insisted to her sister's horror on entering a strawberry field and eating a quantity of fruit. These "longings" in their extreme form may properly be considered as neurasthenic obsessions, but in their simple and less pronounced forms they may well be normal and healthy.

The old medical authors abound in narratives describing the longings of pregnant women for natural and unnatural foods. This affection was commonly called pica, sometimes citra or malatia. Schurig, whose works are a comprehensive treasure house of ancient medical lore, devotes a long chapter (cap. II) of his Chylologia, published in 1725, to pica as manifested mainly, though not exclusively, in pregnant women. Some women, he tells us, have been compelled to eat all sorts of earthy substances, of which sand seems the most common, and one Italian woman when pregnant ate several pounds of sand with much satisfaction, following it up with a draught of her own urine. Lime, mud, chalk, charcoal, cinders, pitch are also the desired substances in other cases detailed. One pregnant woman must eat bread fresh from the oven in very large quantities, and a certain noble matron ate 140 sweet cakes in one day and night. Wheat and various kinds of corn as well as of vegetables were the foods desired by many longing women. One woman was responsible for 20 pounds of pepper, another ate ginger in large quantities, a third kept mace under her pillow; cinnamon, salt, emulsion of almonds, treacle, mushrooms were desired by others. Cherries were longed for by one, and another ate 30 or 40 lemons in one night. Various kinds of fish—mullet, oysters, crabs, live eels, etc.—are mentioned, while other women have found delectation in lizards, frogs, spiders and flies, even scorpions, lice and fleas. A pregnant woman, aged 33, of sanguine temperament, ate a live fowl completely with intense satisfaction. Skin, wool, cotton, thread, linen, blotting paper have been desired, as well as more repulsive substances, such as nasal mucus and feces (eaten with bread). Vinegar, ice, and snow occur in other cases. One woman stilled a desire for human flesh by biting the nates of children or the arms of men. Metals are also swallowed, such as iron, silver, etc. One pregnant woman wished to throw eggs in her husband's face, and another to have her husband throw eggs in her face.

In the next chapter of the same work Schurig describes cases of acute antipathy which may arise under the same circumstances (cap. III, "De Nausea seu Antipathia certorum ciborum"). The list includes bread, meat, fowls, fish, eels (a very common repulsion), crabs, milk, butter (very often), cheese (often), honey, sugar, salt, eggs, caviar, sulphur, apples (especially their odor), strawberries, mulberries, cinnamon, mace, capers, pepper, onions, mustard, beetroot, rice, mint, absinthe, roses (many pages are devoted to this antipathy), lilies, elder flowers, musk (which sometimes caused vomiting), amber, coffee, opiates, olive oil, vinegar, cats, frogs, spiders, wasps, swords.

More recently Gould and Pyle (Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine, p. 80) have briefly summarized some of the ancient and modern records concerning the longings of pregnant women.

Various theories are put forward concerning the causation of the longings of pregnant women, but none of these seems to furnish by itself a complete and adequate explanation of all cases. Thus it is said that the craving is the expression of a natural instinct, the system of the pregnant woman really requiring the food she longs for. It is quite probable that this is so in many cases, but it is obviously not so in the majority of cases, even when we confine ourselves to the longings for fairly natural foods, while we know so little of the special needs of the organism during pregnancy that the theory in any case is insusceptible of clear demonstration.

Allied to this theory is the explanation that the longings are for things that counteract the tendency to nausea and sickness. Giles, however, in his valuable statistical study of the longings of a series of 300 pregnant women, has shown that the percentage of women with longings is exactly the same (33 per cent.) among women who had suffered at some time during pregnancy from sickness as among the women who had not so suffered. Moreover, Giles found that the period of sickness frequently bore no relation to the time when there were cravings, and the patient often had cravings after the sickness had ceased.

According to another theory these longings are mainly a matter of auto-suggestion. The pregnant woman has received the tradition of such longings, persuades herself that she has such a longing, and then becomes convinced that, according to a popular belief, it will be bad for the child if the longing is not gratified. Giles considers that this process of auto-suggestion takes place "in a certain number, perhaps even in the majority of cases."[184]

The Duchess d'Abrantes, the wife of Marshal Junot, in her Memoires gives an amusing account of how in her first pregnancy a longing was apparently imposed upon her by the anxious solicitude of her own and her husband's relations. Though suffering from constant nausea and sickness, she had no longings. One day at dinner after the pregnancy had gone on for some months her mother suddenly put down her fork, exclaiming: "I have never asked you what longing you have!" She replied with truth that she had none, her days and her nights being occupied with suffering. "No envie!" said the mother, "such a thing was never heard of. I must speak to your mother-in-law." The two old ladies consulted anxiously and explained to the young mother how an unsatisfied longing might produce a monstrous child, and the husband also now began to ask her every day what she longed for. Her sister-in-law, moreover, brought her all sorts of stories of children born with appalling mother's marks due to this cause. She became frightened and began to wonder what she most wanted, but could think of nothing. At last, when eating a pastille flavored with pineapple, it occurred to her that pineapple is an excellent fruit, and one, moreover, which she had never seen, for at that time it was extremely rare. Thereupon she began to long for pineapple, and all the more when she was told that at that season they could not be obtained. She now began to feel that she must have pineapple or die, and her husband ran all over Paris, vainly offering twenty louis for a pineapple. At last he succeeded in obtaining one through the kindness of Mme. Bonaparte, and drove home furiously just as his wife, always talking of pineapples, had gone to bed. He entered the room with the pineapple, to the great satisfaction of the Duchess's mother. (In one of her own pregnancies, it appears, she longed in vain for cherries in January, and the child was born with a mark on her body resembling a cherry—in scientific terminology, a naevus.) The Duchess effusively thanked her husband and wished to eat of the fruit immediately, but her husband stopped her and said that Corvisart, the famous physician, had told him that she must on no account touch it at night, as it was extremely indigestible. She promised not to do so, and spent the night in caressing the pineapple. In the morning the husband came and cut up the fruit, presenting it to her in a porcelain bowl. Suddenly, however, there was a revulsion of feeling; she felt that she could not possibly eat pineapple; persuasion was useless; the fruit had to be taken away and the windows opened, for the very smell of it had become odious. The Duchess adds that henceforth, throughout her life, though still liking the flavor, she was only able to eat pineapple by doing a sort of violence to herself. (Memories de la Duchesse d'Abrantes, vol. iii, Chapter VIII.) It should be added that, in old age, the Duchess d'Abrantes appears to have become insane.

The influence of suggestion must certainly be accepted as, at all events, increasing and emphasizing the tendency to longings. It can scarcely, however, be regarded as a radical and adequate explanation of the phenomenon generally. If it is a matter of auto-suggestion due to a tradition, then we should expect to find longings most frequent and most pronounced in multiparous women, who are best acquainted with the tradition and best able to experience all that is expected of a pregnant woman. But, as a matter of fact, the women who have borne most children are precisely those who are least likely to be affected by the longings which tradition demands they should manifest. Giles has shown that longings occur much more frequently in the first than in any subsequent pregnancy; there is a regular decrease with the increase in number of pregnancies until in women with ten or more children the longings scarcely occur at all.

We must probably regard longings as based on a physiological and psychic tendency which is of universal extension and almost or quite normal. They are known throughout Europe and were known to the medical writers of antiquity. Old Indian as well as old Jewish physicians recognized them. They have been noted among many savage races to-day: among the Indians of North and South America, among the peoples of the Nile and the Soudan, in the Malay archipelago.[185] In Europe they are most common among the women of the people, living simple and natural lives.[186]

The true normal relationship of the longings of pregnancy is with the impulsive and often irresistible longings for food delicacies which are apt to overcome children, and in girls often persist or revive through adolescence and even beyond. Such sudden fits of greediness belong to those kind of normal psychic manifestations which are on the verge of the abnormal into which they occasionally pass. They may occur, however, in healthy, well-bred, and well-behaved children who, under the stress of the sudden craving, will, without compunction and apparently without reflection, steal the food they long for or even steal from their parents the money to buy it. The food thus seized by a well-nigh irresistible craving is nearly always a fruit. Fruit is usually doled out to children in small quantities as a luxury, but we are descended from primitive human peoples and still more remote ape-like ancestors, by whom fruit was in its season eaten copiously, and it is not surprising that when that season comes round the child, more sensitive than the adult to primitive influences, should sometimes experience the impulse of its ancestors with overwhelming intensity, all the more so if, as is probable, the craving is to some extent the expression of a physiological need.

Sanford Bell, who has investigated the food impulses of children in America, finds that girls have a greater number of likes and dislikes in foods than boys of the same age, though at the same time they have less dislikes to some foods than boys. The proclivity for sweets and fruits shows itself as soon as a child begins to eat solids. The chief fruits liked are oranges, bananas, apples, peaches, and pears. This strong preference for fruits lasts till the age of 13 or 14, though relatively weaker from 10 to 13. In girls, however, Bell notes the significant fact from our present point of view that at mid-adolescence there is a revived taste for sweets and fruits. He believes that the growth of children in taste in foods recapitulates the experience of the race. (S. Bell, "An Introductory Study of the Psychology of Foods." Pedagogical Seminary, March, 1904.)

The heightened nervous impressionability of pregnancy would appear to arouse into activity those primitive impulses which are liable to occur in childhood and in the unmarried girl continue to the nubile age. It is a significant fact that the longings of pregnant women are mainly for fruit, and notably for so wholesome a fruit as the apple, which may very well have a beneficial effect on the system of the pregnant woman. Giles, in his tabulation of the foods longed for by 300 pregnant women, found that the fruit group was by far the largest, furnishing 79 cases; apples were far away at the head, occurring in 34 cases out of the 99 who had longings, while oranges followed at a distance (with 13 cases), and in the vegetable group tomatoes came first (with 6 cases). Several women declared "I could have lived on apples," "I was eating apples all day," "I used to sit up in bed eating apples."[187] Pregnant women appear seldom to long for the possession of objects outside the edible class, and it seems doubtful whether they have any special tendency to kleptomania. Pinard has pointed out that neither Lasegue nor Lunier, in their studies of kleptomania, have mentioned a single shop robbery committed by a pregnant woman.[188] Brouardel has indeed found such cases, but the object stolen was usually a food.

A further significant fact connecting the longings of pregnant women with the longings of children is to be found in the fact that they occur mainly in young women. We have, indeed, no tabulation of the ages of pregnant women who have manifested longings, but Giles has clearly shown that these chiefly occur in primiparae, and steadily and rapidly decrease in each successive pregnancy. This fact, otherwise somewhat difficult of explanation, is natural if we look upon the longings of pregnancy as a revival of those of childhood. It certainly indicates also that we can by no means regard these longings as exclusively the expression of a physiological craving, for in that case they would be liable to occur in any pregnancy unless, indeed, it is argued that with each successive pregnancy the woman becomes less sensitive to her own physiological state.

There has been a frequent tendency, more especially among primitive peoples, to regard a pregnant woman's longings as something sacred and to be indulged, all the more, no doubt, as they are usually of a simple and harmless character. In the Black Forest, according to Ploss and Bartels, a pregnant woman may go freely into other people's gardens and take fruit, provided she eats it on the spot, and very similar privileges are accorded to her elsewhere. Old English opinion, as reflected, for instance, in Ben Jonson's plays (as Dr. Harriet C.B. Alexander has pointed out), regards the pregnant woman as not responsible for her longings, and Kiernan remarks ("Kleptomania and Collectivism," Alienist and Neurologist, November, 1902) that this is in "a most natural and just view." In France at the Revolution a law of the 28th Germinal, in the year III, to some extent admitted the irresponsibility of the pregnant woman generally,—following the classic precedent, by which a woman could not be brought before a court of justice so long as she was pregnant,—but the Napoleonic code, never tender to women, abrogated this. Pinard does not consider that the longings of pregnant women are irresistible, and, consequently, regards the pregnant woman as responsible. This is probably the view most widely held. In any case these longings seldom come up for medico-legal consideration.

The phenomena of the longings of pregnancy are linked to the much more obscure and dubious phenomena of the influence of maternal impressions on the child within the womb. It is true, indeed, that there is no real connection whatever between these two groups of manifestations, but they have been so widely and for so long closely associated in the popular mind that it is convenient to pass directly from one to the other. The same name is sometimes given to the two manifestations; thus in France a pregnant longing is an envie, while a mother's mark on the child is also called an envie, because it is supposed to be due to the mother's unsatisfied longing.

The conception of a "maternal impression" (the German Versehen) rests on the belief that a powerful mental influence working on the mother's mind may produce an impression, either general or definite, on the child she is carrying. It makes a great deal of difference whether the effect of the impression on the child is general, or definite and circumscribed. It is not difficult to believe that a general effect—even, as Sir Arthur Mitchell first gave good reason for believing, idiocy—may be produced on the child by strong and prolonged emotional influence working on the mother, because such general influence may be transmitted through a deteriorated blood-stream. But it is impossible at present to understand how a definite and limited influence working on the mother could produce a definite and limited effect on the child, for there are no channels of nervous communications for the passage of such influences. Our difficulty in conceiving of the process must, however, be put aside if the fact itself can be demonstrated by convincing evidence.

In order to illustrate the nature of maternal impressions, I will summarize a few cases which I have collected from the best medical periodical literature during the past fifteen years. I have exercised no selection and in no way guarantee the authenticity of the alleged facts or the alleged explanation. They are merely examples to illustrate a class of cases published from time to time by medical observers in medical journals of high repute.

Early in pregnancy a woman found her pet rabbit killed by a cat which had gnawed off the two forepaws, leaving ragged stumps; she was for a long time constantly thinking of this. Her child was born with deformed feet, one foot with only two toes, the other three, the os calcis in both feet being either absent or little developed. (G.B. Beale, Tottenham, Lancet, May 4, 1889).

Three months and a half before birth of the child the father, a glazier, fell through the roof of a hothouse, severely cutting his right arm, so that he was lying in the infirmary for a long time, and it was doubtful whether the hand could be saved. The child was healthy, but on the flexor surface of the radial side of the right forearm just above the wrist—the same spot as the father's injury—there was a naevus the size of a sixpence. (W. Russell, Paisley, Lancet, May 11, 1889.)

At the beginning of pregnancy a woman was greatly scared by being kicked over by a frightened cow she was milking; she hung on to the animal's teats, but thought she would be trampled to death, and was ill and nervous for weeks afterwards. The child was a monster, with a fleshy substance—seeming to be prolonged from the spinal cord and to represent the brain—projecting from the floor of the skull. Both doctor and nurse were struck by the resemblance to a cow's teats before they knew the woman's story, and this was told by the woman immediately after delivery and before she knew to what she had given birth. (A. Ross Paterson, Reversby, Lincolnshire, Lancet, September 29, 1889.)

During the second month of pregnancy the mother was terrified by a bullock as she was returning from market. The child reached full term and was a well-developed male, stillborn. Its head "exactly resembled a miniature cow's head;" the occipital bone was absent, the parietals only slightly developed, the eyes were placed at the top of the frontal bone, which was quite flat, with each of its superior angles twisted into a rudimentary horn. (J.T. Hislop, Tavistock, Devon, Lancet, November 1, 1890.)

When four months pregnant the mother, a multipara of 30, was startled by a black and white collie dog suddenly pushing against her and rushing out when she opened the door. This preyed on her mind, and she felt sure her child would be marked. The whole of the child's right thigh was encircled by a shining black mole, studded with white hairs; there was another mole on the spine of the left scapula. (C.F. Williamson, Horley, Surrey, Lancet, October 11, 1890.)

A lady in comfortable circumstances, aged 24, not markedly emotional, with one child, in all respects healthy, early in her pregnancy saw a man begging whose arms and legs were "all doubled up." This gave her a shock, but she hoped no ill effects would follow. The child was an encephalous monster, with the extremities rigidly flexed and the fingers clenched, the feet almost sole to sole. In the next pregnancy she frequently passed a man who was a partial cripple, but she was not unduly depressed; the child was a counterpart of the last, except that the head was normal. The next child was strong and well formed. (C.W. Chapman, London, Lancet, October 18, 1890.)

When the pregnant mother was working in a hayfield her husband threw at her a young hare he had found in the hay; it struck her on the cheek and neck. Her daughter has on the left cheek an oblong patch of soft dark hair, in color and character clearly resembling the fur of a very young hare. (A. Mackay, Port Appin, N.B., Lancet, December 19, 1891. The writer records also four other cases which have happened in his experience.)

When the mother was pregnant her husband had to attend to a sow who could not give birth to her pigs; he bled her freely, cutting a notch out of both ears. His wife insisted on seeing the sow. The helix of each ear of her child at birth was gone, for nearly or quite half an inch, as if cut purposely. (R.P. Roons, Medical World, 1894.)

A lady when pregnant was much interested in a story in which one of the characters had a supernumerary digit, and this often recurred to her mind. Her baby had a supernumerary digit on one hand. (J. Jenkyns, Aberdeen, British Medical Journal, March 2, 1895. The writer also records another case.)

When pregnant the mother saw in the forest a new-born fawn which was a double monstrosity. Her child was a similar double monstrosity (cephalothora copagus). (Hartmann, Muenchener Medicinisches Wochenschrift, No. 9, 1895.)

A well developed woman of 30, who had ten children in twelve years, in the third month of her tenth pregnancy saw a child run over by a street car, which crushed the upper and back part of its head. Her own child was anencephalic and acranial, with entire absence of vault of skull. (F.A. Stahl, American Journal of Obstetrics, April, 1896.)

A healthy woman with no skin blemish had during her third pregnancy a violent appetite for sunfish. During or after the fourth month her husband, as a surprise, brought her some sunfish alive, placing them in a pail of water in the porch. She stumbled against the pail and the shock caused the fish to flap over the pail and come in violent contact with her leg. The cold wriggling fish produced a nervous shock, but she attached no importance to this. The child (a girl) had at birth a mark of bronze pigment resembling a fish with the head uppermost (photograph given) on the corresponding part of the same leg. Daughter's health good; throughout life she has had a strong craving for sunfish, which she has sometimes eaten till she has vomited from repletion. (C.F. Gardiner, Colorado Springs, American Journal Obstetrics, February, 1898.)

The next case occurred in a bitch. A thoroughbred fox terrier bitch strayed and was discovered a day or two later with her right foreleg broken. The limb was set under chloroform with the help of Roentgen rays, and the dog made a good recovery. Several weeks later she gave birth to a puppy with a right foreleg that was ill-developed and minus the paw. (J. Booth, Cork, British Medical Journal, September 16, 1899.)

Four months before the birth of her child a woman with four healthy children and no history of deformity in the family fell and cut her left wrist severely against a broken bowl; she had a great fright and shock. Her child, otherwise perfect, was born without left hand and wrist, the stump of arm terminating at lower end of radius and ulna. (G. Ainslie Johnston, Ambleside, British Medical Journal, April 18, 1903.)