. The supposed prevalence among prostitutes would
not be evidence against the sexual relationships of hysteria; it has,
however, been denied, even by so great an authority as Parent-Duchatelet
who found it very rare, even in prostitutes in hospitals, when it was
often associated with masturbation; in prostitutes, however, who returned
to a respectable life, giving up their old habits, he found hysteria
common and severe.[270] The frequent absence of physical sexual feeling,
again, may quite reasonably be taken as evidence of a disorder of the
sexual emotions, while the undoubted fact that sexual intercourse usually
has little beneficial effect on pronounced hysteria, and that sexual
excitement during sleep and sexual hallucinations are often painful in
the same condition, is far from showing that injury or repression of the
sexual emotions had nothing to do with the production of the hysteria. It
would be as reasonable to argue that the evil effect of a heavy meal on a
starving man must be taken as evidence that he was not suffering from
starvation. The fact, indeed, on which Gilles de la Tourette and others
have remarked, that the hysterical often desire not so much sexual
intercourse as simple affection, would tend to show that there is here a
real analogy, and that starvation or lesion of the sexual emotions may
produce, like bodily starvation, a rejection of those satisfactions which
are demanded in health. Thus, even a mainly _a priori_ examination of the
matter may lead us to see that many arguments brought forward in favor of
Charcot's position on this point fall to the ground when we realize that
the sexual emotions may constitute a highly complex sphere, often hidden
from observation, sometimes not conscious at all, and liable to many
lesions besides that due to the non-satisfaction of sexual desire. At the
same time we are not thus enabled to overthrow any of the positive results
attained by Charcot and his school.

It may, however, be pointed out that Charcot's attitude toward hysteria
was the outcome of his own temperament. He was primarily a neurologist,
the bent of his genius was toward the investigation of facts that could be
objectively demonstrated. His first interest in hysteria, dating from as
far back as 1862, was in hystero-epileptic convulsive attacks, and to the
last he remained indifferent to all facts which could not be objectively
demonstrated. That was the secret of the advances he was enabled t