, has a less depressing effect on women. There is
probably a real element of truth in this view, and both extremes
of heat and cold may be regarded as unfavorable to masculine
virility. It is highly probable that the well-recognized tendency
of piles to become troublesome in spring and in autumn, is due to
increased sexual activity. Piles are favored by congestion, and
sexual excitement is the most powerful cause of sudden congestion
in the genito-anal region. Erasmus Darwin called attention to the
tendency of piles to recur about the equinoxes (_Zooenomia_,
Section XXXVI), and since his days Gant, Bonavia, and Cullimore
have correlated this periodicity with sexual activity.

Laycock, quoting the opinions of some earlier authorities as to
the prevalence of sexual feeling in spring, stated that that
popular opinion "appears to be founded on fact" (_Nervous
Diseases of Women_, p. 69). I find that many people, and perhaps
especially women, confirm from their own experience, the
statement that sexual feeling is strongest in spring and summer.
Wichmann states that pollutions are most common in spring (being
perhaps the first to make that statement), and also nymphomania.
(In the eighteenth century, Schurig recorded a case of extreme
and life-long sexual desire in a woman whose salacity was always
at its height towards the festival of St. John, _Gynaecologia_, p.
16.) A correspondent in the Argentine Republic writes to me that
"on big estancias, where we have a good many shepherds, nearly
always married, or, rather, I should say, living with some woman
(for our standard of morality is not very high in these parts),
we always look out for trouble in springtime, as it is a very
common thing at this season for wives to leave their husbands and
go and live with some other man." A corresponding tendency has
been noted even among children. Thus, Sanford Bell ("The Emotion
of Love Between the Sexes," _American Journal Psychology_, July,
1902) remarks: "The season of the year seems to have its effect
upon the intensity of the emotion of sex-love among children. One
teacher, from Texas, who furnished me with seventy-six cases,
said that he had noticed that in the matter of love children
seemed 'fairly to break out in the springtime.' Many of the
others who reported, incidentally mentioned the