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

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

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

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

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

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

Clouston, for instance, has frequently asserted this monthly
periodic sexual heightening in men. In the article,
"Developmental Insanity," in Tuke's _Psychological Dictionary_,
he refers to the periodic physiological heightening of the
reproductive _nisus_; and, again, in an article on "Alternation,
Periodicity, and Relapse in Mental Diseases" (_Edinburgh Medical
Journal_, July, 1882), he records the case of "an insane
gentleman, aged 49, who, for the past twenty-six years, has been
subject to the most regularly occurring brain-exaltation every
four weeks, almost to a day. It sometimes passes off without
becoming acutely maniacal, or even showing itself in outward
acts; at other times it becomes so, and lasts for periods of from
one to four weeks. It is always preceded by an uncomfortable
feeling in the head, and pain in the back, mental hebetude, and
slight depression. The _nisus generativus_ is greatly increased,
and he says that, if in that condition, he has full and free
seminal emissions during sleep, the excitement passes off; if
not, it goes on. A full dose of bromide or iodide of potassium
often, but not always, has the effect of stopping the excitement,
and a very long walk sometimes does the same. When the
excitement gets to a height, it is always followed by about a
week of stupid depression." In the same article Clouston remarks:
"I have for a long time been impressed with the relationship of
the mental and bodily alternations and periodicities in insanity
to the great physiological alternations and periodicities, and I
have generally been led to the conclusion that they are the same
in all essential respects, and only differ in degree of intensity
or duration. By far the majority of the cases in women follow the
law of the menstrual and sexual periodicity; the majority of the
cases in men follow the law of the more irregular periodicities
of the _nisus generativus_ in that sex. Many of the cases in both
sexes follow the seasonal periodicity which perhaps in man is
merely a reversion to the seasonal generative activities of the
majority of the lower animals." He found that among 338 cases of
insanity, chiefly mania and melancholia, 46 per cent, of females
and 40 per cent, of males showed periodicity,--diurnal, monthly,
seasonal, or annual, and more marked in women than in men, and in
mania than in melancholia,--and adds: "I found that the younger
the patient, the greater is the tendency to periodic remission
and relapse. The phenomenon finds its acme in the cases of
pubescent and adolescent insanity."

Conolly Norman, in the article "Mania, Hysterical" (Tuke's
_Psychological Dictionary_), states that "the activity of the
sexual organs is probably in both sexes fundamentally periodic."

Krafft-Ebing records the case of a neurasthenic Russian, aged 24,
who experienced sexual desires of urologinic character, with fair
regularity, every four weeks (_Psychopathia Sexualis_), and Näcke
mentions the case of a man who had nocturnal emissions at
intervals of four weeks (_Archiv für Kriminal-Anthropologie_,
1908, p. 363), while Moll (_Libido Sexualis_, Bd. I, pp. 621-623)
recorded the case of a man, otherwise normal, who had attacks of
homosexual feeling every four weeks, and Rohleder (_Zeitschrift
für Sexualwissenschaft_, Nov., 1908) gives the case of an
unmarried slightly neuropathic physician who for several days
every three to five weeks has attacks of almost satyriacal sexual
excitement.

Féré, whose attention was called to this point, from time to time
noted the existence of sexual periodicity. Thus, in a case of
general paralysis, attacks of continuous sexual excitement, with
sleeplessness, occurred every twenty-eight days; at other times,
the patient, a man of 42, in the stage of dementia, slept well,
and showed no signs of sexual excitation (_Société de Biologie_,
October 6, 1900). In another case, of a man of sound heredity and
good health till middle life, periodic sexual manifestations
began from puberty, with localized genital congestion, erotic
ideas, and copious urination, lasting for two or three days.
These manifestations became menstrual, with a period of
intermenstrual excitement appearing regularly, but never became
intense. Between the age of 36 and 42, the intermenstrual crises
gradually ceased; at about 45, the menstrual crises ceased; the
periodic crises continued, however, with the sole manifestation
of increased frequency of urination (_Société de Biologie_, July
23, 1904). In a third case, of sexual neurasthenia, Féré found
that from puberty, onwards to middle life, there appeared, every
twenty-five to twenty-eight days, tenderness and swelling below
the nipple, accompanied by slight sexual excitation and erotic
dreams, lasting for one or two days (_Revue de Médecine_, March,
1905).

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

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

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

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

The question of cyclic physiological changes is considerably
complicated by our uncertainty regarding the precise length of
the cycle we may expect to find. Nelson finds a 28-day cycle
satisfactory. Perry-Coste, as we shall see, accepts a strictly
lunar cycle of 29½ days. Fliess has argued that in both women and
men, many physiological facts fall into a cycle of 23 days, which
he calls male, the 28-day cycle being female. (W. Fliess, _Die
Beziehungen zwischen Nase und weiblichen Geschlechts-Organen_,
1897, pp. 113 et seq.) Although Fliess brings forward a number of
minutely-observed cases, I cannot say that I am yet convinced of
the reality of this 23-day cycle. It is somewhat curious,
however, that at the same time as Fliess, though in apparent
independence, and from a different point of view, another worker
also suggested that there is a 23-day physiological cycle (John
Beard, _The Span of Gestation and the Cause of Birth_, Jena,
1897). Beard approaches the question from the embryological
standpoint, and argues that there is what he terms an "ovulation
unit" of about 23½ days, in the interval from the end of one
menstruation to the beginning of the next. Two "ovulation units"
make up one "critical unit," and the length of pregnancy,
according to Beard, is always a multiple of the "critical unit;"
in man, the gestation period amounts to six critical units. These
attempts to prove a new physiological cycle deserve careful study
and further investigation. The possibility of such a cycle should
be borne in mind, but at present we are scarcely entitled to
accept it.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


FOOTNOTES:

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

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

[119] Sanctorius, _Medicina Statica_, Sect. I, aph. lxv.

[120] _American Journal of Obstetrics_, xiv, 1882.

[121] _Zoönomia_, Section XXXVI.

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

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

[124] See Durkheim, _Le Suicide_, p. 101.

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

[126] E. Smith, _Health and Disease_, Chapter III. I may remark that,
according to Kemsoes (_Deutsche medizinische Wochenschrift_, January 20,
1908, and _British Medical Journal_, January 29, 1898), school-children
work best on Monday and Tuesday.

[127] See Appendix B.




III.

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


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

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

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

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

Wiltshire, who made various interesting observations regarding