ion to the
_aliptes_ of Rome. It is unnecessary to add that the
gynaecological massage introduced in recent years by the Swedish
teacher of gymnastics, Thure-Brandt, as involving prolonged
rubbing and kneading of the pelvic regions, "_pression glissante
du vagin_" etc. (_Massage Gynecologique_, by G. de Frumerie,
1897), whatever its therapeutic value, cannot fail in a large
proportion of cases to stimulate the sexual emotions. (Eulenburg
remarks that for sexual anaesthesia in women the Thure-Brandt
system of massage may "naturally" be recommended, _Sexuale
Neuropathie_, p. 78.) I have been informed that in London and
elsewhere massage establishments are sometimes visited by women
who seek sexual gratification by massage of the genital regions
by the _masseuse_.

FOOTNOTES:

[21] "_Dicens munditiam corporis atque vestitus animae esse
immunditiam_"--St. Jerome, _Ad Eustochium Virginem_.

[22] With regard to the physiological mechanism by which bathing produces
its tonic and stimulating effects Woods Hutchinson has an interesting
discussion (Chapter VII) in his _Studies in Human and Comparative
Pathology_.

[23] Thus among the young women admitted to the Chicago Normal School to
be trained as teachers, Miss Lura Sanborn, the director of physical
training, states (_Doctor's Magazine_, December, 1900) that a bath once a
fortnight is found to be not unusual.

V.

Summary--Fundamental Importance of Touch--The Skin the Mother of All the
Other Senses.

The sense of touch is so universally diffused over the whole skin, and in
so many various degrees and modifications, and it is, moreover, so truly
the Alpha and the Omega of affection, that a broken and fragmentary
treatment of the subject has been inevitable.

The skin is the archaeological field of human and prehuman experience, the
foundation on which all forms of sensory perception have grown up, and as
sexual sensibility is among the most ancient of all forms of sensibility,
the sexual instinct is necessarily, in the main, a comparatively slightly
modified form of general touch sensibility. This primitive character of
the great region of tactile sensation, its vagueness and diffusion, the
comparatively unintellectual as well as unaesthetic nature of the mental
conceptions which arise on the tactile basis make it difficult to deal
precisely with the psychology of touch. The very same qualities, however,