An essay on hysteria : being an analysis of its irregular and aggravated forms ; including hysterical hemorrhage, and hysterical ischuria / by Thomas Laycock.

  • Laycock, Thomas, 1812-1876.
Date:
1840
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An essay on hysteria : being an analysis of its irregular and aggravated forms ; including hysterical hemorrhage, and hysterical ischuria / by Thomas Laycock. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.

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    some notice, namely, that which secretes the sexual odours of animals. These are very generally some modification of the musk odour, varying in intensity with the habits of the animal. This musk odour is certainly the sexual odour of man. Sauvages de- clares, Vapor foelidus apud hircos asstro venereo percitos procul dispergitur; mulieres emunctas naris affinem huic odorem in viris cognoscunt.* In some persons it is very pleasant, and perhaps would seldom have that disgusting and suffocative effect if due attention were paid to cleanliness. Its principal seat is in the follicles of the axilla?, and is not given off before puberty. It is most powerful in individuals who have strong sexual powers, or are continent. The ancients said of a man who abstained from venery that he smelt like a he-goat. The scents of captive animals have a similar origin. Very offensive exhalations from the genitals are occasionally transferred to the axilla;. Aretaeus says that the froth on the lips of men affected with satyriasis is not unlike the smell of a goat under the influence of the astrus vcneris.f It is not improbable that the odours of the flowers of vegetables are analogous to this. It is certain, however, that the hircine odour marks those vegetables used as aphrodisiacs, and, in connection with all these circumstances, it is a curious fact that the most popular antihysteric remedies are of the same nature. It is not my intention to enter on the vast field for speculation derived from the effects of remedial agencies on the generative system. The above statements are made incidentally, with the hope of directing attention to the subject. The smoothness and softness of the skin, and delicate finish of the whole system of the human female, form a small part only of the numerous attractions she possesses, but undoubtedly are an essential portion of the machinery of that extensive system insti- tuted to secure the propagation of the species. They, like other sexual characteristics, are dependent on the due development of the ovaries. Iiemove these, and the fat deposited in the subtegu- mentary tissue, giving the skin its softness and equality, disappears, the individual becomes thinner, and the muscles prominent, so that she appears more muscular. This state is strikingly obvious in old virgins. This subtegumentary fat is not found in the male, neither is fat deposited in the cellular tissue, generally, while the generative organs are vigorous. If a bull and an ox be fed for the same time, under the same circumstances, the latter will be fat when the former is all beef. This deposit of fat beneath the skin of females must not be con- founded with that which takes place in spayed or castrated ani- mals. In the latter it occurs because the system is less active from the absence of all generative impulse ; in the former this impulse is the cause of it. ♦ Nosol. Method., tome, ii., p. 4:20. Tiedemann is very copious on this subject. Comparative Physiology by Gully and Lane, vol. i., p. 208, 8vo. 1834. f De Causis et Signis Acut. Morb. lib. ii., cap. liL