well to refrain from any
appearance of asserting the necessity of sexual intercourse at frequent
and regular intervals. The question is chiefly of importance in order to
guard against excess, or even against the attempt to live habitually close
to the threshold of excess. Many authorities are, therefore, careful to
point out that it is inadvisable to be too definite. Thus Erb, while
remarking that, for some, Luther's dictum represents the extreme maximum,
adds that others can go far beyond that amount with impunity, and he
considers that such variations are congenital.[397] Ribbing, again, while
expressing general agreement with Luther's rule, protests against any
attempt to lay down laws for everyone, and is inclined to say that as
often as one likes is a safe rule, so long as there are no bad
after-effects.[398]

It seems to be generally agreed that bad effects from excess in
coitus, when they do occur, are rare in women (see, e.g.,
Hammond, _Sexual Impotence_, p. 127). Occasionally, however, evil
effects occur in women. (The case, possibly to be mentioned in
this connection, has been recorded of a man whose three wives all
became insane after marriage, _Journal of Mental Science_, Jan.,
1879, p. 611.) In cases of sexual excess great physical
exhaustion, with suspicion and delusions, is often observed.
Hutchinson has recorded three cases of temporary blindness, all
in men, the result of sexual excess after marriage (_Archives of
Surgery_, Jan., 1893). The old medical authors attributed many
evil results to excess in coitus. Thus Schurig (_Spermatologia_,
1720, pp. 260 et seq.) brings together cases of insanity,
apoplexy, syncope, epilepsy, loss of memory, blindness, baldness,
unilateral perspiration, gout, and death attributed to this
cause; of death many cases are given, some in women, but one may
easily perceive that _post_ was often mistaken for _propter_.

There is, however, another consideration which can scarcely escape the
reader of the present work. Nearly all the estimates of the desirable
frequence of coitus are framed to suit the supposed physiological needs of
the husband,[399] and they appear usually to be framed in the same spirit
of exclusive attention to those needs as though the physiological needs of
the evacuation of the bowels or the bladder were in question. But sexual
needs are the needs of two persons, of the husband and of the