The Psychology of Sex (Vol. 1-6). Havelock Ellis

The Psychology of Sex (Vol. 1-6) - Havelock  Ellis


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so is the respiration. The spleen is rhythmic, so also the bladder. The uterus constantly undergoes regular rhythmic contractions at brief intervals. The vascular system, down to the smallest capillaries, is acted on by three series of vibrations, and every separate fragment of muscular tissue possesses rhythmic contractility. Growth itself is rhythmic, and, as Malling-Hansen and subsequent observers have found, follows a regular annual course as well as a larger cycle. On the psychic sides attention is rhythmic. We are always irresistibly compelled to impart a rhythm to every succession of sounds, however uniform and monotonous. A familiar example of this is the rhythm we can seldom refrain from hearing in the puffing of an engine. A series of experiments, by Bolton, on thirty subjects showed that the clicks of an electric telephone connected in an induction-apparatus nearly always fell into rhythmic groups, usually of two or four, rarely of three or five, the rhythmic perception being accompanied by a strong impulse to make corresponding muscular movements.[75]

      Since the investigations of Goodman, Stephenson, Van Ott, Reinl, Jacobi, and others, it has been generally recognized that menstruation is a continuous process, the flow being merely the climax of a menstrual cycle, a physiological wave which is in constant flux or reflux. This cycle manifests itself in all a woman's activities, in metabolism, respiration, temperature, etc., as well as on the nervous and psychic side. The healthier the woman is, the less conscious is the cyclic return of her life, but the cycle may be traced (as Hegar has found) even before puberty takes place, while Salerni has found that even in amenorrhœa the menstrual cycle still manifests itself in the temperature and respiration. (Rivista Sperimentale di Freniatria, XXX, fasc. 2–3.)

      For a summary of the phenomena of the menstrual cycle, see Havelock Ellis, Man and Woman, fourth ed., revised and enlarged, Ch. XI; "The Functional Periodicity of Women." Cf. Keller, Archives Générales de Médecine, May, 1897; Hegar, Allgemeine Zeitschrift für Psychiatrie, 1901, Heft 2 and 3; Helen MacMurchy, Lancet, Oct. 5. 1901; A. E. Giles, Transactions Obstetrical Society London, vol. xxxix, p. 115, etc.

      Mittelschmerz is a condition of pain occurring about the middle of


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