ery skin, whereon is the seed of copulation, shall be
washed with water and be unclean until the even." Leviticus, XV, v. 16-17.

[233] It should be added that the term _pollutio_ also covers voluntary
effusion of semen outside copulation. (Debreyne, _Moechialogie_,
p. 8; for a full discussion of the opinions of theologians concerning
nocturnal and diurnal pollutions, see the same author's _Essai sur la
Theologie Morale_, pp. 100-149.)

[234] _Memoirs_, translated by Bendyshe, p. 182.

[235] _Sexual Impotence_, p. 137.

[236] _L'Hygiene Sexuelle_, p. 169.

[237] _Sexualleben und Nervenleiden_, p. 164.

[238] I may here refer to the curious opinion expressed by Dr. Elizabeth
Blackwell, that, while the sexual impulse in man is usually relieved by
seminal emissions during sleep, in women it is relieved by the occurrence
of menstruation. This latter statement is flagrantly at variance with the
facts; but it may perhaps be quoted in support of the view expressed above
as to the comparative rarity of sexual excitement during sleep in young
girls.

[239] Loewenfeld has recently expressed the same opinion. Rohleder believes
that pollutions are physically impossible in a _real_ virgin, but that
opinion is too extreme.

[240] It may be added that in more or less neurotic women and girls,
erotic dreams may be very frequent and depressing. Thus, J.M. Fothergill
(_West-Riding Asylum Report_, 1876, vol. vi) remarks: "These dreams are
much more frequent than is ordinarily thought, and are the cause of a
great deal of nervous depression among women. Women of a highly-nervous
diathesis suffer much more from these drains than robust women. Not only
are these involuntary orgasms more frequent among such women, but they
cause more disturbance of the general health in them than in other women."

[241] I may remark here that a Russian correspondent considers that I have
greatly underestimated the frequency of erotic manifestations during sleep
in young girls. "All the women I have interrogated on this point," he
informs me, "say that they have had such pollutions from the time of
puberty, or even earlier, accompanied by erotic dreams. I have put the
question to some twenty or thirty women. It is true that they were of
southern race (Italian, Spanish, and French), and I believe that
Southerners are, in this matter, franker than northern women, who consider
the activity of the flesh as shameful, and seek to conceal it." My
correspond