love lasted, there would be no human strength capable of supporting them, unless our actual condition were changed."

A kind of natural safeguard is provided against the nervous exhaustion consequent on the excitement of coitus, by the rapid diminution of the sensation during successive acts. Indeed, in persons who repeat coitus frequently during the same night, the pleasurable sensation will diminish so rapidly that the act at last will not be attended with any.

This pleasure, in fact, seems, in its own way to be subject to the same laws which apply to our other gratifications. As Carpenter says "Feelings of pleasure or pain are connected with particular sensations which cannot (for the most part, at least) be explained upon any other principle than that of the necessary association of those feelings by an original law of our nature with the sensations in question. As a general rule, it may be be stated that the violent excitement of any sensation is disagreeable, even when the same sensation in a moderate degree may be a source of extreme pleasure.

By this merciful provision nature herself dictates that excesses must not be committed. The frequent complaint heard from persons who have committed excesses, that they experience no more pleasure in the act, is the best evidence we can have that nature's laws have been infringed.

The physiological explanation of the pleasure attendant on the sexual act is, perhaps, as follows:-"Accumulation of blood," says Köbelt," causes, whenever it occurs in the body, a gradual augmentation of sensibility; but in this case the glans penis, in passing from a non-erect state to the condition of complete turgescence, becomes the seat of a completely new and specific sensi bility, up to this moment dormant. All the attendant phenomena react on the nervous centres. From this it appears that, in addition to the nerves of general sensibility, which fulfill their functions in a state of repose and also during erection, although in a different manner, there must be in the glans penis special nerves of pleasure, the particular action of which does not take place except under the indispensable condition of a state of orgasm of the glans. Moreover, the orgasm once over, the nerves return to their former state of inaction, and remain unaffected under all ulterior excitement.

"They are, then, in the same condition as the rest of the generative apparatus; their irritability ceases with the consummation of the act, and, together with this irritability, the venereal appetite ceases also to be repeated, and to bring about the same series of phenomena at each new excitation."-Köbalt, "Die männlichen und weiblichen Wollust-Organe des Menschen und einiger Säugethiere," p. 35.

Many foreign writers maintain, what the above observations would seem to corroborate, viz., that the chief source of sexual pleasure resides in the glans penis. That it has a considerable share in the sensations experienced is very true, but from certain cases that have come under my notice, I cannot help thinking that it has less to do with them than is generally supposed. Some time ago I attended an officer on his return from India who had lost the whole of the glans penis. This patient completely recovered his health, the parts healed, and a considerable portion of the body of the penis was left. I found, to my surprise, that the sexual act was not only possible, but that th same amount of pleasure as formerly was still experienced. He assured me, indeed, that the sexual act differed in no respect (as far as he could detect) from what it had been before the mutilation.

Duration of the Act.—It is probably well, as has been noticed, that in the human being the act should last but a short timesome few minutes.

In animals the greatest differences in this particular take place.

Thus I read in the "Description of the Preparation of the College of Surgeons," that "the coitus in the kangaroo, and probably in other marsupials, is of long duration, and the scrotum during that act disappears, and seems to be partially inverted during the forcible retraction of the testes against the marsupial bones."-No. 2477, Physiological Catalogue, by Owen.

The act of copulation as I have observed it in the moth of the silk-worm is very prolonged. The male is the smaller and darker of the two, and as soon as he leaves the grub state he is ready for the act. He then vibrates his wings with a very sin

gular humming noise, and goes round and round the female. The tails are then approximated, copulation takes place, and lasts for days. As soon as the sexes separate, the same process is repeated, and sexual congress again occurs. It would almost appear as if the short life of these insects was passed in copulation. The female moths died first in all the cases I witnessed, but the males, although surviving the females, were dull and could hardly move, being apparently thoroughly exhausted with their reproductive duties.

In the chapter on erection we shall notice the long copulation of the dog. In some other classes of animals it takes place with wonderful celerity. Among deer for instance, it was at one time stated that coitus had never been observed even by the oldest keepers. Professor Owen tells me, however, that it may be witnessed in Richmond Park, somewhat in the following way :-The buck will be seen to scrape hollows two or three feet deep in certain portions of the park; to these places he leads the does. One by one, they place themselves in these hollows; the buck drives away all other bucks from the neighborhood, then, with a rush, mounts the doe; in an instant the act is accomplished, and the female retires, to be replaced by another. Professor Owen says he cannot explain why these hollows should be made in the ground, as there is nothing in the conformation of the doe to require that she should be placed on a level lower than that which the buck leaps from. However, though the act itself is instantaneous, the premonitory excitement is of long duration. It is possible, therefore, that erection lasts but for an instant, and hence the convenience of this preparation and position.

Mr. Thompson, the late superintendent at the Zoological Gardens, told me that he has seen copulation take place in the stags both in the wild state and in confinement. He thinks that a peculiar place is not necessary for the act. He agrees that it is effected in a few moments, and that in the case of the giraffe, also, no particular position is necessary.

The Effect of the Act.-The immediate effect of the act on the male deserves some few remarks. Even in the healthiest and strongest person a feeling of fatigue immediately follows.

This nervous orgasm is very powerfully exhibited in some animals. The buck rabbit, for instance, after each sexual act, falls on his side, the whites of his eyes turn up, and his hind legs are spasmodically agitated. The cause of this, and the corresponding phenomena in other animals, is the nervous shock which particularly affects the spinal cord.

The way in which this shock affects a healthy man is, generally, to make him languid and drowsy for a time.

This temporary depression has not escaped the observation of the ancients, who have remarked

and again—

"Læta venire Venus tristis abire solet;"

"Post coitum omne animal triste, nisi gallus qui cantat."

So serious, indeed, is the paroxysm of the nervous system produced by the sexual spasm, that its immediate effect is not always unattended with danger, and men with weak hearts have died in the act. Every now and then we learn that men are found dead on the night of their wedding, and it is not very uncommon to hear of inquests being held on men discovered in houses of illfame, without any marks of ill-usage or poison. The cause has been, doubtless, the sudden nervous shock overpowering a feeble or diseased frame.

However exceptional these cases are, they are warnings, and should serve to show that an act which may destroy the weak should not be tampered with even by the strong.

Lallemand well describes the test which every married man should apply in his own case:- "When connection is followed by a joyous feeling, a bien être général, as well as fresh vigour; when the head feels more free and easy, the body more elastic and lighter; when a greater disposition to exercise or intellectual labor arises, and the genital organs evince an increase of vigor and activity, we may infer that an imperious want has been satisfied within the limits necessary for health. The happy influence which all the organs experience is similar to that which follows the accomplishment of every function necessary to the economy." How serious-how vital an act, so to speak, that of copulation

is, appears from the marked changes which accompany its performance in some animals. It is a well accredited fact that in the rutting season buck venison is strong, lean, and ill-flavored. At this time, we are told, the flesh becomes soft and flabby, the hair looks "unkind;" and in birds, the feathers, after the season of breeding, are in a ruffled state, and droop. The horns of stags (see Chapt. III.-The Emitted Semen) fall off, and the blood is occupied in supplying the consequent demand for new

Osseous matter.

It is before the spawning season has passed that we prefer the herring, and it is only while it is filled with roe that we care to eat the mackerel. A spent salmon is not fit food for man; and, at this period, as all fishermen are aware, the vivid colours of the trout disappear; and the fish retires exhausted and impoverished, until the vital forces are regained.

Repetition of the Act.-Whilst one individual will suffer for days after a single attempt, or even from an involuntary emission, another will not evince the least sign of depression, although the act is repeated several times in succession or on several consecutive nights. Still, as a general rule, the act is and ought to be repeated but rarely. In newly married people, of course, sexual intercourse takes place more frequently, and hence it happens that conception often fails during the first few months. of wedlock, depending probably upon the fact that the semen of the male contains but few perfect spermatozoa: in such cases it is only when the ardor of first love has abated, and the spermatozoa have been allowed the time requisite for their full development, that the female becomes impregnated.

I

This part of my subject will, however, occupy further attention when I come to speak (page 148) of marital excesses. may, however, here state that the monthly periods, of course, put a stop to the act, while nature provides a kind of check upon its too frequent repetition, in the effect which pregnancy produces on the female, and through her upon the male.

If the married female conceives every second year, we usually notice that during the nine months following conception she experiences no great sexual excitement. The consequence is that