asure and work."

Various parts of the skin surface appear to have special sexual
sensitiveness, peculiarly marked in many individuals, especially
women; so that, as Fere remarks (_L'Instinct Sexuel_, second
edition, 1902, p. 130), contact stimulation of the lips, lobe of
ear, nape of neck, little finger, knee, etc., may suffice even to
produce the orgasm. Some sexually hyperaesthetic women, as has
already been noted, experience this when shaking hands with a man
who is attractive to them. In some neurotic persons this
sensibility, as Fere shows, may exist in so morbid a degree that
even the contact of the sensitive spot with unattractive persons
or inanimate objects may produce the orgasm. In this connection
reference may be made to the well-known fact that in some
hysterical subjects there are so-called "erogenous zones" simple
pressure on which suffices to evoke the complete orgasm. There
is, perhaps, some significance, from our present point of view,
in the fact that, as emphasized by Savill ("Hysterical Skin
Symptoms," _Lancet_, January 30, 1904), the skin is one of the
very best places to study hysteria.

The intimate connection between the skin and the sexual sphere is
also shown in pathological conditions of the skin, especially in
acne as well as simple pimples on the face. The sexual
development of puberty involves a development of hair in various
regions of the body which previously were hairless. As, however,
the sebaceous glands on the face and elsewhere are the vestiges
of former hairs and survive from a period when the whole body was
hairy, they also tend to experience in an abortive manner this
same impulse. Thus, we may say that, with the development of the
sexual organs at puberty, there is correlated excitement of the
whole pilo-sebaceous apparatus. In the regions where this
apparatus is vestigial, and notably in the face, this abortive
attempt of the hair-follicles and their sebaceous appendages to
produce hairs tends only to disorganization, and simple
_comedones_ or pustular acne pimples are liable to occur. As a
rule, acne appears about puberty and dies out slowly during
adolescence. While fairly common in young women, it is usually
much less severe, but tends to be exacerbated at the menstrual
periods; it is also apt to appear at the change of life.