A woman of 30, normal and intelligent, after conversing on love and passion, and then listening to the music of Grieg and Schumann, felt real and strong sexual excitement, increased by memories recalled by the presence of a sympathetic person. When then tested by the dynamometer the average of ten efforts with the right hand was found to be 28.2 (her normal average being 31.1) and with the left hand 28.0 (the normal being 30.0). There was, however, great variability in the individual pressures which sometimes equaled and even exceeded the subject's normal efforts. The voluntary muscles are thus in harmony with the approaching general sexual avalanche. (Vaschide and Vurpas, "Quelques Données Expérimentales sur l'Influence de l'Excitation Sexuelle," Archivio di Psichiatria, 1903, fasc. v-vi.)
Cf. MacGillicuddy, Functional Disorders of the Nervous System in Women, p. 110; Féré, L'Instinct Sexuel, second edition, p. 238; id., "Note sur une Anomalie de l'instinct Sexuel," Belgique Médicale, 1905; also "Analysis of the Sexual Impulse," in an earlier volume of these Studies.
J. P. West, "Masturbation in Early Childhood," Medical Standard, November, 1895.
Cf. the discussion of hysteria in "Auto-Erotism," vol. i of these Studies.