was in this subject habitually 65 millimeters, rose
to 150 and even 160, indicating a very high pressure, which rarely occurs;
at the same time Madame X looked very emotional and troubled.[112]

Some authorities are of opinion that irregularities in the
accomplishment of the sexual act are specially liable to cause
disturbances in the circulation. Thus Kisch, of Prague, refers to
the case of a couple practising coitus interruptus--the husband
withdrawing before ejaculation--in which the wife, a vigorous
woman, became liable after some years to attacks termed by Kisch
_neurasthenia cordis vasomotoria_, in which there was at daily or
longer intervals palpitation, with feelings of anxiety, headache,
dizziness, muscular weakness and tendency to faint. He regards
coitus as a cause of various heart troubles in women: (1) Attacks
of tachycardia in very excitable and sexually inclined women; (2)
attacks of tachycardia with dyspnoea in young women, with
vaginismus; (3) cardiac symptoms with lowered vascular tone in
women who for a long time have practised coitus interruptus
without complete sexual gratification (Kisch, "Herzbeschwerden
der Frauen verursacht durch den Cohabitationsact," _Muenchener
Medizinisches Wochenschrift_, 1897, p. 617). In this connection,
also, reference may probably be made to those attacks of anxiety
which Freud associates with psychic sexual lesions of an
emotional character.

Associated with this vascular activity in detumescence we find a general
tendency to glandular activity. Various secretions are formed abundantly.
Perspiration is copious, and the ancient relationship between the
cutaneous and sexual systems seems to evoke a general activity of the skin
and its odoriferous secretions. Salivation, which also occurs, is very
conspicuous in many lower animals, as for instance in the donkey, notably
the female, who just before coitus stands with mouth open, jaws moving,
and saliva dribbling. In men, corresponding to the more copious secretion
in women, there is, during the latter stages of tumescence, a slight
secretion of mucus--Fuerbringer's _urethrorrhoea ex libidine_--which
appears in drops at the urethral orifice. It comes from the small glands
of Littre and Cowper which open into the urethra. This phenomenon was well
known to the old theologians, who called it _distillatio_, and realized
its significance as at once