xual
excitement.

Fere, 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 (_Societe 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 (_Societe de Biologie_, July
23, 1904). In a third case, of sexual neurasthenia, Fere 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 Medecine_, 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 a