302 GENERATION. 



far as we can, all considerations except those of a purely sex- 

 ual character, there is less of a promiscuous feeling for the 

 opposite sex in females than in males, and that sexual desire, 

 aside from feelings of fatigue or satiety, is sometimes mark- 

 edly periodical in women. If we may take certain indi- 

 vidual cases as representing physiological conditions, it ap- 

 pears that, in some women, there is a period of comparative 

 indifference to the opposite sex; as the menses approach, 

 there is more or less irritability of temper and disinclination 

 for society, which disappear as the flow is established ; and 

 at or following the cessation of the menses, sexual desire is 

 manifested to an unusual degree, this continuing for only a 

 few days. 



Although there is a periodical condition of heat in the 

 lower animals, connected with ovulation, a sanguineous dis- 

 charge from the genital organs is not often observed. It is 

 only in monkeys that we have a counterpart of what occurs 

 in the human female; and observations upon these animals 

 have shown that they are subject to a monthly discharge of 

 blood, at this time giving evidence of unusual salacity. 1 



In the human female, near the time of puberty, there is 

 sometimes a periodical sero-mucous discharge from the geni- 

 tal organs, preceding, for a few months, the regular estab- 

 lishment of the menstrual flow. Sometimes, also, after the 

 first discharge of blood, the female passes several months 

 without another period, when the second flow takes place, and 

 the menses then become regular. In a condition of health, 

 the periods recur every month, until they cease, at what is 

 termed the change of life. In the majority of cases, the 

 flow recurs on the twenty-seventh or the twenty-eighth day ; 

 but sometimes the interval is thirty days. As a rule, also, 

 utero-gestation, lactation, and most severe diseases, acute 

 and chronic, suspend the periods; but this has exceptions, 

 as some females menstruate regularly during pregnancy, and 



1 LONGET, Trait* de physiologic, Paris, 1869, tome iii., p. 765 ; COSTE, L6* 

 veloppement des corps organises, Paris, 1847, tome L, pp. 188, 223. 



