In the following case of anaesthesia the author could discover no other cause but general weakness.
Mrs. W., twenty-six years of age, was always pale and weak. Menstruation set in at twelve years of age. At nineteen she was married, and ten months later gave birth to her first child. Four years later gave birth to another child. For the last year she complains of stomach trouble and weakness, pain in the back and abdomen. Menstruation is now four to six days ahead of time and lasts five days. She never experienced orgasm but twice. Both times the intercourse was followed by pregnancy. Other times coition only excites her but never brings full satisfaction. The following day she suffers from severe headaches. An examination only revealed a catarrh of the cervix. The patient received a tonic, and the husband was given some hygienic rules to observe in initu. Five weeks later the husband informed the author that the anaesthesia had disappeared.
Sometimes sexual anaesthesia is the result of a hard confinement producing lesion of the muscle bulbo-cavernosus or of the erectile tissue of the bulbs themselves. The blood is then prevented from leaving the bulbs and from entering the corpora cavernosa of the clitoris. In this way the erection of the clitoris, which is more or less necessary for the full and normal inducement of the orgasm, is rendered impossible.
The author recently treated a young lady, twenty years of age. She had her first menstruation when she was sixteen years old and was always regular. She had been married eighteen months, and her baby was eight months old. The patient called to be treated for leucorrhoea, but her husband called the following day and stated that his wife has no pleasurable feeling during initus since her confinement. Before this event, she found perfect gratification. An examination revealed nothing but a catarrh of the cervix and a slight enlargement of the left ovary.
Roubaud also relates the confidences of a patient who wished se stuprare manu a few days after her confinement, but could not, with all her manipulations, induce the desired orgasm. The normal potency returned only after a long rest.
The number of women afflicted with the anomaly of impotence of libido is considerable. It is claimed by many authorities that ten to twenty per cent. of all women are afflicted with this anomaly. The symptoms of total anaesthesia are subjective and objective. There is first the statement of the husband about his wife’s indifference and coldness during the conjugal embrace. The woman complains of lack of orgasm and ejaculation and of the immediate flowing off of the sperma after coition. The peristaltic contractions of the vaginal walls, beginning at the vaginal orifice, and the aspirating movements of the uterus, as they take place in the normal woman, during the orgasm, are missing here. Hence the sperma is immediately discharged from the vagina.
One of the most conspicuous objective symptoms is a relaxation of the entire genital tract. The glans of the clitoris is often undeveloped or wholly adherent to the prepuce. In some women old lacerations of the perineum are present. The genital muscles, the levator ani and constrictor cunni as well as the perineum, are languid and withered. The mucous membrane of the entire genital tract is in a state of hypersecretion, as in true chronic inflammations. The vagina is wide and flabby, the walls are lacking elasticity. The portio vaginalis uteri is flabby and pointed. The uterine walls are weak and soft, and the cavity is wide. The uterus is extremely movable and generally lies in retropositio, the relaxation of the uterine ligaments allowing it to fall downward and backward. The patient’s general health is often poor, she is anemic, nervous and weak. Sometimes there is only hypoplasia of some of the genital organs, otherwise the woman enjoys good health.
Women suffering from anaesthesia may without sacrifice refuse their favors to their husbands and render them submissive to their will and henpecked. Single women, having no pleasure in and hence no desire for conjugation, if they are not induced to give themselves for pecuniary considerations, easily remain virtuous and seem to be very proud of this enforced purity. Even among married women there are wives who pride themselves on repugnance or distaste for their conjugal obligations. They speak of their coldness and the calmness of their senses as though they were not defects but great virtues. Yet the sour, shallow, sexless shrew is surely an imposture as a wife. Her marriage is nothing else but a fraud. In congenital anaesthesia the therapy is valueless, although electricity by Apostoli’s method and massage may be tried in uterus infantilis and in undeveloped ovaries. In prolific women the only advice the physician may give is that, in harmony with Ovid’s recommendation,
“Tu quoque cui Veneris sensum natura negavit,
“Dulcia mendaci gaudia finge sono.”
for the sake of matrimonial peace, simulation of libido and orgasm is a justifiable fraud. Even to resort to some lubricant to simulate the secretion from the Bartholinian and cervical glands is permissible. The man is easily deceived in this respect. He does not in any way feel the ejaculation of the woman. He only surmises her orgasm by her bearing during the culmination of the libido.[AY] The woman also does not feel immediately the male ejaculation, but she perceives it soon by the increase of moisture. Then the effect naturally increases the excitement, as the following case shows: