Studies in the Psychology of Sex (Vol. 1-6). Havelock Ellis
celebrations. In the East, the great primitive autumn festivals seem to have fallen somewhat earlier. In Babylonia, the seventh month (roughly corresponding to September) was specially sacred, though nothing is known of its festivals, and this also was the sacred festival month of the Hebrews, and originally of the Arabs. In Europe, among the southern Slavs, the Reigen, or Kolo—wild dances by girls, adorned with flowers, and with skirts girt high, followed by sexual intercourse—take place in autumn, during the nights following harvest time.
[150] A. Tille, Yule and Christmas, p. 21, etc.
[151] Long before Wargentin, however, Rabelais had shown some interest in this question, and had found that there were most christenings in October and November, this showing, he pointed out, that the early warmth of spring influenced the number of conceptions (Pantagruel, liv. v, Ch. XXIX). The spring maximum of conceptions is not now so early in France.
[152] Villermé, "De la Distribution par mois des conceptions," Annales d'Hygiène Publique, tome v, 1831, pp. 55–155.
[153] Sormani, Giornale di Medicina Militare, 1870.
[154] Throughout Europe, it may be said, marriages tend to take place either in spring or autumn (Oettinger Moralstatistik, p. 181, gives details). That is to say, that there is a tendency for marriages to take place at the season of the great public festivals, during which sexual intercourse was prevalent in more primitive times.
[155] Hill, Nature, July 12, 1888.
[156] G. Mayr, Die Gesetzmässigkeit im Gesellschaftsleben, 1877, p. 240.
[157] Edward Smith (Health and Disease), who attributes this to the lessened vitality of offspring at that season. Beukemann also states that children born in September have most vitality.
[158] Westermarck has even suggested that the December maximum of conceptions may be due to better chance of survival for September offspring (Human Marriage, Chapter II). It may be noted that though the maximum of conceptions is in May, relatively the smallest proportion of boys is conceived at that time. (Rauber, Der Ueberschuss an Knabengeburten, p. 39.)
[159] Krieger found that the great majority of German women investigated by him menstruated for the first time in September, October, or November. In America, Bowditch states that the first menstruation of country girls more often occurs in spring than at any other season.
[160] Women's Medical Journal, 1894.
[161] It is, perhaps, worth while noting that the wisdom of the mediæval Church found an outlet for this "spring fever" in pilgrimages to remote shrines. As Chaucer wrote, in the Canterbury Tales:—
"Whané that Aprille with his showers sote
The droughts of March hath piercèd to the root,
Thaen longen folk to gon on pilgrimages,
And palmers for to seeken strangé stronds."
[162] L. W. Kline, "The Migratory Impulse," American Journal of Psychology, 1898, vol. x, especially pp. 21–24.
[163] Mania comes to a crisis in spring, said the old physician, Aretæus (Bk. 1, Ch. V).
[164] This is, at all events, the case in France, Prussia, and Italy. See, for instance, Durkheim's discussion of the cosmic factors of suicide, Le Suicide, 1897, Chapter III. In Spain, as Bernaldo de Quirós shows (Criminologia, p. 69), there is a slight irregular rise in December, but otherwise the curve is perfectly regular, with maximum in June, and minimum in January.
[165] This holds good of a south European country, taken separately. A chart of the annual incidence of suicide by hanging, in Roumania, presented by Minovici (Archives d'Anthropologie Criminelle, 1905, p. 587), shows climaxes of equal height in May and September.
[166] Morselli, Suicide, pp. 55–72.
[167] Ogle himself was inclined to think that these breaks were accidental, being unaware of the allied phenomena with which they may be brought into line. It is true that (as Gaedeken objects to me) the autumnal break is very slight, but it is probably real when we are dealing with so large a mass of data.
[168] Pedagogical Seminary, June, 1891, p. 298. For a very full summary and bibliography of investigations regarding growth, see F. Burk, "Growth of Children in Height and Weight," American Journal of Psychology, April, 1898.
[169] L'Année Psychologique, 1898.
[170] Lancet, June 6, 1891. Edward Smith had pointed out many years earlier that scarlet fever is most fatal in periods of increasing vitality.
[171] Havelock Ellis, "The Bladder as a Dynamometer," American Journal of Dermatology, May, 1902.
[172] See, e.g., summary in Internationales Centrablatt für Anthropologie, 1902, Heft 4, p. 207.
[173] Summarized in Zeitschrift für Psychologie der Sinnesorgane, 1903, p. 135.
[174] Camerer found that from September to November is the period of greatest metabolic activity.
[175] Haig, Uric Acid, 6th edition, 1903, p. 33.
AUTO-EROTISM: A STUDY OF THE SPONTANEOUS MANIFESTATIONS OF THE SEXUAL IMPULSE.
I.