e respiration is hurried, sometimes interrupted, and may be
suspended by the spasmodic contraction of the larynx, and the air, for a
time compressed, is at last emitted in broken and meaningless words. The
congested nervous centers only communicate confused sensations and
volitions; mobility and sensation show extreme disorder; the limbs are
seized by convulsions and sometimes by cramps, or are thrown wildly about
or become stiff like iron bars. The jaws, tightly pressed, grind the
teeth, and in some persons the delirium is carried so far that they bite
to bleeding the shoulders their companions have imprudently abandoned to
them. This frantic state of epilepsy lasts but a short time, but it
suffices to exhaust the forces of the organism, especially in man. It is,
I believe, Galen, who said: 'Omne animal post coitum triste praeter
mulierem gallumque.'"[107] Most of the elements that make up this typical
picture of the state of coitus are not absolutely essential to that state,
but they all come within the normal range of variation. There can be no
doubt that this range is considerable. There would appear to be not only
individual, but also racial, differences; there is a remarkable passage in
Vatsyayana's _Kama Sutra_ describing the varying behavior of the women of
different races in India under the stress of sexual excitement--Dravidian
women with difficulty attaining erethism, women of the Punjaub fond of
being caressed with the tongue, women of Oude with impetuous desire and
profuse flow of mucus, etc.--and it is highly probable, Ploss and Bartels
remark, that these characterizations are founded on exact
observations.[108]

The various phenomena included in Roubaud's description of the condition
during coitus may all be directly or indirectly reduced to two groups: the
first circulatory and respiratory, the second motor. It is necessary to
consider both these aspects of the process of detumescence in somewhat
greater detail, although while it is most convenient to discuss them
separately, it must be borne in mind that they are not really separable;
the circulatory phenomena are in large measure a by-product of the
involuntary motor process.

With the approach of detumescence the respiration becomes shallow, rapid,
and to some extent arrested. This characteristic of the breathing during
sexual excitement is well recognized; so that in, for instance, the
_Arabian Nights_, it is commonly noted of women when gazing at be