78 TABOO AND GENETICS 



no longer support the strain of reproduction. 

 A surplus of calcium brings on senility, as noted 

 above. Withdrawal of the interests which 

 centre in sex, together with the marked accom- 

 panying physical changes, involves a shift of 

 mental attitude which is also frequently serious. 

 A British coroner stated in the British Medical 

 Journal in 1900 (Vol. 2, p. 792) that a majority 

 of 200 cases of female suicide occurred at this 

 period, while in the case of younger women 

 suicide is pecuharly likely to occur during men- 

 struation. Krugelstein and Lombroso, respec- 

 tively, remark the same tendencies. (18.) 



It is a matter of almost everyday observation 

 that men and women in the neighbourhood of 

 fifty suddenly find themselves disoriented in 

 the world. Tolstoi, for example, who had 

 written passionately of passion in his earlier 

 years, suddenly awoke, according to his " Con- 

 fessions," from what seemed to him afterward 

 to have been a bad dream. In this case, the 

 result was a new version of religion as a new 

 anchorage for the man's life. It may be paci- 

 fism, prohibition, philanthropy, or any one of 

 a very large number of different interests — 

 but there must usually be something to furnish 

 zest to a life which has ceased to be a sufficient 

 excuse for itself. 



If freed from worry about economic realities, 

 it is not infrequently possible for the first time 



