erections, immoderate desire for connection, and erotic delirium, has been given as the definition of Satyriasis.

I see, from time to time, patients who do vividly realize in their own persons the ancient fables concerning satyrs. One man, who exhibited the hideous symptoms of this condition in unusual force, made a deep impression on me. He was young and in good circumstances, but was habitually untidy about his head and hair, which is light-colored brown. His face was red, the cheeks and nose especially. His eyes were hollow, and had a haggard expression. The lips were thick and sensuous, the mouth wide. He was short and thick-set, and of a full habit of body. I never saw a case in which the animal was so markedly prominent, although he had not altogether neglected his intellectual qualifications. I learned that early in life he had masturbated himself, but had left off the practice only to commit excesses with women of a nature and extent that were shocking to hear of. It may be worth while to notice that this man-like others afflicted in the same way-showed no particular tendency to indulge in obscene talk, nor did his tastes lie in the direction of libidinous works or pictures. I believe such penchants are rather cultivated by nearly impotent or used-up debauchees. Refinement of vice is not the object of the victims of satyriasis: it is quantity rather than quality that they require.

The truth is, that the brain or medulla oblongata has received some injury from excessive indulgence that seems irreparable. A low animal organization, with a strong hereditary disposition to lust, has been overtaxed by the enormous license the victim has permitted himself, till some mysterious lesion has taken place, which puts the man at once beyond his own control, almost out of the category of rational or moral agents, and leaves him in a condition in which there seems, indeed, little hope of any restoration.

Though the condition of satyriasis depends for its commencement. upon uncontrolled lust, sometimes aided by local irritation existing in or about the generative organs, yet its ultimate and frightful extravagances seem always to depend on positive lesion of the nervous system. In many cases irritation of the cerebellum exists to a degree quite sufficient to account for the most painful and deplorable symptoms.

Mr. Dunn, in 1849, brought an interesting case before the Medical and Chirurgical Society, of death from apoplexy, attended

with a softened, pulpy state of the right hemisphere of the cerebellum, in the midst of which was an apoplectic clot of the size of a pullet's egg.

The patient's wife had observed that he had been subject to a constant desire for sexual intercourse.

In the discussion which followed, Dr. Carpenter referred to a case mentioned to him some years ago by Mr. Turley, of Worcester, in which a man advanced in life became the subject of satyriasis to such a degree that he would even practice masturbation in the presence of females, and after death, a tumor was found of the size of a split pea on the pons Varolii. (See Lancet, vol. i, 1849, p. 320.)

A physician in the west of London was recently called in to attend a powerful man, of between fifty and sixty, who exhibited every indication of approaching homicidal mania. He found, on inquiry, that the present fit had been preceded by an extravagant indulgence in connection with his wife. The proper remedies were used, and the patient somewhat calmed, and the wife was solemnly warned on no account to permit any renewal of intercourse at present. She was a weak woman, and from time to time yielded, each indulgence being followed by a fresh outbreak on the part of the patient. At last, after a fresh series of excesses, the homicidal fury broke out in full force, and, with considerable danger, he was secured and conveyed to a lunatic asylum, where he still remains a hopeless maniac.

CHAPT. II.--EMISSION..

Emission is the second of the requisites above specified to complete sexual intercourse.

PART I.

NORMAL FUNCTIONS, OR NATURE OF THE ACT.

It is thus described by Valentin: "The emission of semen is generally due to a reflex action. Friction of the glans (f, fig. 382) gives rise to reflex movements in the vasa deferentia (v, w, p, q),

and probably also in the seminal tubules of the epididymis (t) and testicles (8, 0). This effect may be artificially produced in recently killed animals. The semen reaches the inferior and glandular part of the vas deferens (r, fig. 382; f, g, fig. 383). It then traverses the urethra (z, a', b', d', fig. 382) to the orifice of the glans (g. fig. 382), whence it is ejaculated with a force which in vigorous men can expel it to a distance of many feet."- Valentin, translated by Brinton, p. 625.

The semen, however, as secreted in the testes, is not the semen as it is emitted. It may be said while in them, to be in little more than a rudimentary state. When ejaculated, it is a highly elaborated secretion. None, in fact, among the various secretions of the body seems to require so much time to mature. Not only have cells to be formed and thrown off, as in the case of other secretions, but, after they are liberated in the tubercles of the testis, nuclei have to divide, nucleoli to multiply, and each division of the nucleoli to become, through a gradual adolescence, an adult spermatozoon. When thus prepared, it is passed down the cords to the vesiculæ seminales. The vesiculæ, Pittard says, are never found empty, except when they are diminished during the periodic rụt in certain animals. They do, indeed, seem equally full at all times, but there is little doubt that this appearance is deceitful. They have the power of contracting and expanding, according to the volume of their contents, so that they are never flaccid, and always appear to be full. I have observed them exceedingly full and large in an animal just killed, and have watched them contracting under the stimulus of exposure to cold air, and when nearly the whole cf their contents have been expelled by contraction, thay have still appeared to be quite full. I should have considered them to be so if I had not actually seen them expel their contents. It is certain, nevertheless, that the whole contents of the vesiculæ are not emitted in one copulation. The possibility of the act of copulation, however, does not depend on the existence of matured semen in the vesiculæ.

Some authors, indeed, assert that emissions depend wholly on the presence of well-formed semen in the vesiculæ seminales. This, however, is incorrect, as Sir A. Cooper states that a patient of his, from whom he had removed both testes, was able, some time after ablation of the organs, to have connection, accompanied with the

feeling of ejaculation; and even, at a later period, erection of the penis took place, but without the sensation of emission. In the East the value of a eunuch is much enhanced by ablation of the penis, as removal of the testes alone does not suffice to prevent erection.

The matured semen lies in the vesiculæ until the ejaculatory act is excited. This action is performed principally by the involuntary muscles of those organs. Kölliker says: "In ejaculation the vasa deferentia, provided, as they are, with a colossal muscular apparatus, are chiefly operative; these organs, as Virchow and I found in an executed criminal, shorten and contract with remarkable energy when excited by galvanism, as also do the vesiculæ seminales, the highly muscular prostate, and, of course, the transversely muscular tissue of the urethra and penis." (P. 243.)

The fascia that invests the vesiculæ seminales in man contains a great proportion of involuntary muscular fiber, and there is also a large admixture of involuntary fiber in the proper parietes of the tube. In the elephant the vesiculæ seminales present, on the outer and anterior aspect, a peculiar muscle rising from the neck and middle part of the sac, and spreading out over the upper part, which can contract the cavity and expel the contents.

In animals that have a rutting season the vesiculæ seminales, as well as the testicles, prostate gland, &c., are exceedingly small during the period of impotence, and enlarge enormously and rapidly previously to the season of rut.

The semen, before it is ejaculated, is not only matured as has been described, but is mixed with the secretion of the vesiculæ seminales and with that of the prostate. The object of this dilution. seems to be to render it more fluid, and thus more capable of passing easily along its course. As soon as the thick mucus of the vesiculæ seminales is squeezed out and meets the semen, the mixture becomes much more fluid than either of its component parts. Indeed, if the mucus is exposed to the air before the semen is added, it becomes almost solid.

It is owing to these other secretions that ejaculation takes place after the removal of the testicles, as has been already noticed. A striking instance of this came under my notice a short time ago. On the 4th of January, 1859, Mr. Holthouse removed both testes from a man in consequence of his suffering from epilepsy. The

case created a good deal of discussion at the time; and as the patient entered another hospital for a different complaint, a medical friend, thinking I should like to know the result, sent him to me, and on the 26th of March, 1859,—that is, nearly three months after the castration,-I ascertained the following particulars:

Within the week following the removal of the testes this man had two emissions. Since then, three more emissions occurred, the last on the second of March; that is, two months after the operation. At the time I saw him, he appeared in no way distressed in mind, and I could note no symptoms betokening him a monomaniac. He complained of a frequent desire to make water. I tested the urine, but found it natural.

Sir Astley Cooper, in his observations on "Diseases of the Testes," p. 54, mentions having removed both testes from a man. Four days afterward, the patient had an emission, which appeared upon his linen.

"For nearly the first twelve months he stated that he had emissions in coitu, or that he had the sensations of emission. That then he had erections and coitus at distant intervals, but without the sensation of emission. After two years, he had erections very rarely and very imperfectly, and they generally immediately ceased upon the attempt at coitus. Ten years after the operation, he said he had during the past year been only once connected.

"Twenty-eight years after the operation, he stated that for years he had seldom any erection, and then that it was imperfect; that he had no emissions from the first year of the operation; that he had for many years only a few times attempted coitus, but unsuccessfully; that he had once or twice dreams of desire, and a sensation of emission but without the slightest appearance of it. The penis was shriveled and wasted. He was in the habit of shaving once a week, and sometimes twice. His voice, naturally rather feeble, remained as at the time of the operation.'

Of the persistence of sexual desires, and to a certain extent sexual power, we read in Juvenal:

Sunt quas eunuchi imbelles ac mollia semper

Oscula delectent ac desperatio barbæ

Et quod abortivo non est opus."

Kobelt imagines that excision of the glans penis would destroy all desire, as it is the rendezvous of the sensitive nerves which ex