the sexual sensations is indicated by the fact
that, as Savage remarks, lactational insanity is often
accompanied by fancies regarding the reproductive organs.

When we have realized the special sensitivity of the orificial regions and
the peculiarly close relationships between the breasts and the sexual
organs we may easily understand the considerable part which they normally
play in the art of love. As one of the chief secondary sexual characters
in women, and one of her chief beauties, a woman's breasts offer
themselves to the lover's lips with a less intimate attraction than her
mouth only because the mouth is better able to respond. On her side, such
contact is often instinctively desired. Just as the sexual disturbance of
pregnancy is accompanied by a sympathetic disturbance in the breasts, so
the sexual excitement produced by the lover's proximity reacts on the
breasts; the nipple becomes turgid and erect in sympathy with the
clitoris; the woman craves to place her lover in the place of the child,
and experiences a sensation in which these two supreme objects of her
desire are deliciously mingled.

The powerful effect which stimulation of the nipple produces on
the sexual sphere has led to the breasts playing a prominent part
in the erotic art of those lands in which this art has been most
carefully cultivated. Thus in India, according to Vatsyayana,
many authors are of the opinion that in approaching a woman a
lover should begin by sucking the nipples of her breasts, and in
the songs of the Bayaderes of Southern India sucking the nipple
is mentioned as one of the natural preliminaries of coitus.

In some cases, and more especially in neurotic persons, the
sexual pleasure derived from manipulation of the nipple passes
normal limits and, being preferred even to coitus, becomes a
perversion. In girls' schools, it is said, especially in France,
sucking and titillation of the breasts are not uncommon; in men,
also, titillation of the nipples occasionally produces sexual
sensations (Fere, _L'Instinct Sexuel_, second edition, p. 132).
Hildebrandt recorded the case of a young woman whose nipples had
been sucked by her lover; by constantly drawing her breasts she
became able to suck them herself and thus attained extreme sexual
pleasure. A.J. Bloch, of New Orleans, has noted the case of a
woman who complained of swelling of the brea