nineteenth century. Subsequently, the medical statements of the
evil results of sexual abstinence became more temperate and
measured, though still often pronounced. Thus Gyurkovechky
believes that these results may be as serious as those of sexual
excess. Krafft-Ebing showed that sexual abstinence could produce
a state of general nervous excitement (_Jahrbuch fuer
Psychiatrie_, Bd. viii, Heft 1 and 2). Schrenck-Notzing regards
sexual abstinence as a cause of extreme sexual hyperaesthesia and
of various perversions (in a chapter on sexual abstinence in his
_Kriminalpsychologische und Psychopathologische Studien_, 1902,
pp. 174-178). He records in illustration the case of a man of
thirty-six who had masturbated in moderation as a boy, but
abandoned the practice entirely, on moral grounds, twenty years
ago, and has never had sexual intercourse, feeling proud to enter
marriage a chaste man, but now for years has suffered greatly
from extreme sexual hyperaesthesia and concentration of thought on
sexual subjects, notwithstanding a strong will and the resolve
not to masturbate or indulge in illicit intercourse. In another
case a vigorous and healthy man, not inverted, and with strong
sexual desires, who remained abstinent up to marriage, suffers
from psychic impotence, and his wife remains a virgin
notwithstanding all her affection and caresses. Ord considered
that sexual abstinence might produce many minor evils. "Most of
us," he wrote (_British Medical Journal_, Aug. 2, 1884) "have, no
doubt, been consulted by men, chaste in act, who are tormented by
sexual excitement. They tell one stories of long-continued local
excitement, followed by intense muscular weariness, or by severe
aching pain in the back and legs. In some I have had complaints
of swelling and stiffness in the legs, and of pains in the
joints, particularly in the knees;" he gives the case of a man
who suffered after prolonged chastity from inflammatory
conditions of knees and was only cured by marriage. Pearce
Gould, it may be added, finds that "excessive ungratified sexual
desire" is one of the causes of acute orchitis. Remondino ("Some
Observations on Continence as a Factor in Health and Disease,"
_Pacific Medical Journal_, Jan., 1900) records the case of a
gentleman of nearly seventy who, during the prolonged illness