THE MECHANISM OF DETDMESCENCE. 169

urination, defaecation have been noted as occurring in young
men after a first coitus. Epilepsy has been not infrequently
recorded. Lesions of various organs, even rupture of the spleen,
have sometimes taken place. In men of mature age the arteries
have at times been unable to resist the high blood-pressure, and
cerebral haemorrhage with paralysis has occurred. In elderly
men the excitement of intercourse vrith strange women has
sometimes caused death, and various cases are known of emi-
nent persons who have thus died in the arms of young wives or
of prostitutes.^

These morbid results, are, however, very exceptional. They
usually occur in persons who are abnormally sensitive, or who
have imprudently transgressed the obvious rules of sexual hy-
giene. Detumscence is so profoundly natural a process; it is so
deeply and intimately a function of the organism, that it is fre-
quently harmless even when the bodily condition is far from abso-
lutely sound. Its usual results, under favorable circumstances,
are entirely beneficial. In men there normally supervenes, to-
gether with the relief from the prolonged tension of tumescence,
with the muscular repose and falling blood-pressure,^ a sense of
profound satisfaction, a glow of diffused well-being,^ perhaps
an agreeable lassitude, occasionally also a sense of mental lib-
eration from an overmastering obsession. Under reasonably



' Fer6 deals fully with the various morbid results which may fol-
low coitus, L' Instinct Sexuel, Chapter X; id. Pathologie des Emotions,
p. 99.
