epeated; the eyes
search restlessly, and there is a tendency to count surrounding
objects or patterns. When the extreme degree of tension is
reached it is only by executing a kind of dance that the
explosive contraction of the bladder is restrained.

The picture of muscular irradiation presented under these
circumstances differs but slightly from that of the onset of
detumescence. In one case the explosion is sought, in the other
case it is dreaded; but in both cases there is a retarded
muscular tension,--in the one case involuntary, in the other case
voluntary--maintained at a point of acute intensity, and in both
cases the muscular irradiations of this tension spread over the
whole body.

The increased motor irritability of the state of detumescence
somewhat resembles the conditions produced by a weak anaesthetic
and there is some interest in noting the sexual excitement liable
to occur in anaesthesia. I am indebted to Dr. J.F.W. Silk for some
remarks on this point:--

"I. Sexual emotions may apparently be aroused during the stage of
excitement preceding or following the administration of any
anaesthetic; these emotions may take the form of mere delirious
utterances, or may be associated with what is apparently a sexual
orgasm. Or reflex phenomena connected with the sexual organs may
occasionally be observed under special circumstances; or, to put
it in another way, such reflex possibilities are not always
abolished by the condition of narcosis or anaesthesia.

"II. Of the particular anaesthetics employed I am inclined to
think that the possibility of such conditions arising is
inversely proportionate to their strength, e.g., they are more
frequently observed with a weak anaesthetic like nitrous oxide
than with chloroform.

"III. Sexual emotions I believe to be rarely observable in men,
and this is remarkable, or, I should say, particularly
noticeable, for the presence of nurses, female students, etc.,
might almost have led one to expect that the contrary would have
been the case. On the other hand, it is among men that I have
frequently observed a reflex phenomenon which has usually taken
the shape of an erection of the penis when the structures in the
neighborhood of the spermatic cord have been handled.

"IV. Among females the emotional sexual phenomena