FUNCTIONAL INERTIA AS LATENT PERIODS, &c. 49 



The rhythm is most noticeable in the activity of the 

 female reproductive organs ; but, as several writers 

 have observed, rhythm is by no means absent from 

 male organs and organisms. Havelock Ellis* goes 

 so far as to write, "There is some reason to believe 

 that men do actually pass through a rudimentary 

 menstrual cycle affecting the whole organism." 



But as long ago as 1815, Spurzheim t said the same 

 thing. Phrenologist though he was, all he wrote 

 was not valueless. 



Speaking of periodic fits of irritability he wrote 

 (p. 560), "They affect all persons, men and women, 

 at least once within twenty-eight days, weak and 

 irritable persons feel their influence twice within the 

 same time." 



It is well known that in the case of the female the 

 phasic activity is not by any means confined to the 

 pelvic organs. As I wrote in 1902 : J " The pheno- 

 menon of menstruation is undoubtedly the expres- 

 sion of a functional monthly rhythm involving not 

 merely the uterus and other pelvic organs but in 

 a less marked manner the whole female organism. 

 The systemic symptoms, headache, lumbar pains, 

 cardiac palpitation, congestion of thyroid and 

 mammae, loss of clearness of complexion, tendency 

 to pigmentation, malaise, being easily- tired, de- 

 pression of spirits, impairment of voice, and certain 



* Havelock Ellis, " Man and Woman," p. 245. (London, 1894.) 

 f J. G. Spurzheim, " The Physiognomical System of Doctors Gall 

 and Spurzheim." (Edinburgh: Blackwood, 1815.) 



I D. F. Harris, "Periodicity of Hemicrania in the Male," Edin- 

 burgh Medical Journal, July 1902. 



