il^^A/ ^, ■iSM' The dDNTEMPd Science Series ^MA^f; a Cornell University y Library The original of tliis book is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31 92401 3991 140 HQ 21.E47T9o'r"""'''-'''"'^ '^^mmmmmif, "'"i"^ °' ''"™" secondary 3 1924 013 991 140 THE CONTEMFORAR Y SCIENCE SERIES. Edited by HAVELOCK ELLIS. MAN AND WOMAN. BY THE SAME AUTHOR. A STUDY OF BRITISH GENIUS. AFFIRMATIONS. THE CRIMINAL. STUDIES IN THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SEX. Vols. I.— III. THE NEW SPIRIT. THE NINETEENTH CENTURY- A DIALOGUE IN UTOPIA. ' Man and Woman A STUDY OF HUMAN SECONDARY SEXUAL CHARACTERS. EV HAVELOCK ELLIS. FOURTH EDITION. REVISED AND ENLARGED. ILLUSTRATED. THE WALTER SCOTT PUBLISHING CO., LTD., PATERNOSTER SQUARE, LONDON, E.G. CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS, 153-157 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK. 1904. «3f - PREFACE TO THE FOURTH EDITION. This book was written ten years ago as a study of human secondary sexual characters. It was at the same time intended as an introduction to a more elaborate study of the primary phenomena of sex on the psychological side. As such the book was in the first place undertaken for my own help and instruc- tion, more than for that of others, simply as a necessary piece of pioneering work at the approach to a difficult and confused field. It has been a satis- faction to me to find that various distinguished workers in anthropology and psychology have found my little book helpful ; while it also appears to have commended itself to a wider public both in English and in the translations which have been made into various languages. I do not myself know how many translations are in existence, for it has more than once happened that, with a touching faith in the impersonal and disinterested character of my work, translators have not thought it necessary to com- municate the honour they have paid me; in this way, I understand, it has come about that in at least one VI PREFACE TO THE FOURTH EDITION. country (Poland) two translations of the book have appeared simultaneously. Although it is only ten years since the book was published, during this brief interval has appeared much accurate and valuable specialist work in which the question of sexual differences has been investi- gated. More than ever before, there has been a tendency to take note of the existence of such differences. To some extent the present book may have stimulated that tendency; but, in any case, it was inevitable. The result has been that to cover this field has become both more easy and more difficult; more easy because the material is now copious and of better quality, more difficult because of its increasing extent and complexity. I have the satisfaction of knowing that my book has been the point of departure of various highly in- structive investigations in various countries. Without mentioning living workers, I may refer especially to the late Professor Pfitzner of Strassburg, an anthro- pologist of admirable accuracy and thoroughness,; whose too early death occurred last year. In the first edition of this book, when quoting certain results; reached by Pfitzner, I pointed out that he had mis- interpreted their significance. With his usual open- minded candour, Pfitzner took up the matter again on a much larger scale, and was thus started on a series of researches which have greatly contributed to our knowledge of sexual differences. So far as- 1 am aware, only one investigation to some extent starting PREFACE TO THE FOURTH EDITION. Vll from my book has been brought forward in a hostile and destructive spirit. As this attack was seemingly supported by a ponderous amount of data, it has appeared to me to require an attention it would not otherwise have received, and I have devoted to it a special appendix. For the reasons that I have named it has hap- pened that in this new edition of my book the ground has perhaps been covered in a less complete fashion than was the case in the first edition. To embody all recent researches it would be necessary not only to re- write the book, but to enlarge it to an inconvenient extent. I trust, however, that in its revised form it will still be found a useful introduction to its subject. All the ground has been worked over again and much new material added. I am pleased to find that it has not been necessary to correct -any of the main conclusions, and the last chapter is almost untouched. The only chapter in which it has been necessary to overturn some of the original conclusions is that on the senses; as originally written the chapter was based on a careful study of all the existing data, but those data were scanty; they are now more numerous, and in some respects they seem to point in a different direction. A leading aim in this book, I may remind the reader, was the consideration of the question how far sexual differences are artificial, the result of tradition and environment, and how far they are really rooted in the actual constitution of the male and female Vlll PKEFACE TO THE FOURTH EDITION. organisms. That remained, and still remains, a question that cannot be decisively answered in any dogmatic manner. So far as we can answer it, our answer is not at most points one of very revolutionary character. If, however, we cannot always see our way beyond the opinions our fathers held, if we even learn to appreciate the wisdom of some of our remote ancestors, at all events it may be said that our opinions become more and more according to know- ledge and less rooted in prejudice. In that, at all events, lies a real progress. In these fields our knowledge is still very young. The sciences of human life have been the latest of all to gain self-consciousness. Anthropology is not two centuries old ; scientific psychology is not half a cen- tury old. Men studied the stars, but their own souls and bodies seemed to them both too sacred and too shameful for study. It is but a few years since the great French ethnographist, Gabriel de Mortillet, inaugu- rated in Savoy methodical and precise methods of photographing to scale the unclothed ordinary popu- lation of Europe; and in the admirably illustrated books of the indefatigable Dr. Stratz we have, in a somewhat more popular and less scientific form, what is really the first attempt to look at the human body in a natural and wholesome way, and to set forth pictorially its variations according to sex, race, age, and individual development; while, on the psycho- logical side, the contemporary endeavours of Pro- fessor Stanley Hall, and his collaborators in America PREFACE TO THE FOURTH EDITION. IX to explore on a wide basis the contents of the human mind in early life cannot even yet be said to be thoroughly systemised. Before this century has passed, it may safely be asserted, human knowledge in regard to all the subjects covered by this little book will be accurate and extensive to a degree we can now scarcely conceive, and the attempts of a pioneer to stumble across an uncultivated field will have been forgotten, or only passingly remembered as one of the milestones of progress. HAVELOCK ELLIS. February 1904, Carbis Water, Lelant, Cornwall. PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION (1894). About twelve years ago, for my own instruction, I began to collect definite data concerning the con- stitutional differences between men and women. I was moved to do this because I realised that such differences lie at the root of many social questions in which I took great interest, and I knew of no full and unprejudiced statement of the precise facts. I have continued to collect, sift, and ponder over my data for some years after I had satisfied myself personally as to their general significance and drift, because I believe that there are many men and women who are in the same position as I was twelve years ago, and who will welcome this book as I should have welcomed it at that time. When I look into newspapers and magazines, and observe the reckless or ignorant statements that are still made regarding these matters, I am strengthened in my belief. To the best of my ability I have here presented an anthropological and psychological study of those secondary sexual differences which XU PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. recent investigation has shown to exist among civilised human races. I have throughout sought the advice of acknow^- ledged authorities in various countries on points of detail concerning which a speciaHst can alone give helpful advice; if I had not done this my work would have been even more imperfect than I am conscious that it is. I am -indebted to the specialists in question for the courtesy and readiness with which they have in every case responded to my requests. I am also indebted to various friends, whose names are not mentioned in the text, for suggestions and help of a more general character. H. E. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. PAGE Introduction - i The Primitive Sexual Division of Labour — Man chiefly Militant, Woman chiefly Industrial — Among Savage Races Women not Inferior to Men — The Industries of Women gradually shared and then monopolised by Men — The Status of Women in Barbarism — The Medioeval Attitude towards Women, and its Causes — The Physiological Mystery of Womanhood — The Modern Status of Woman. CHAPTER H. How TO Approach the Problem i8 The Definition of Secondary Sexual Characters — Tertiary Sexual Characters — Standards of Comparison — The Infantile and the Senile — The Human Characteristics of Infant Apes — The Position, of the Lower Human Races — Fallacies due to Incomplete Data and to Bias — Incompleteness of our Knowledge. CHAPTER ni. The Growth and Proportions of the Body 31 General Characteristics of the Male and Female Forms — Size at Birth — Greater Development of Girls at Puberty — Sexual Differences in Height of Adults — Weight comparatively unimportant — Sexual Differences in the Growth and Pro- portions of the Body — The Abdomen — The Breasts — The Chest— The Arm— The Hand— The Index Finger— The Leg— The Foot— The Future of the Little Toe— General Conclusions. XIV CONTENTS. CHAPTER IV. PAGE The Pelvis - - 55 The most prominent Secondary Sexual Character — Construction of the Pelvis— The Pelvis in Childhood— The Pelvis in Relation to the Spinal Column — The Influence of the Erect Posture in Man and Woman — Pelvic Inclination — The Saddle-back — The Evolution of the Human Spinal Column — Disadvantages of the Erect Posture — Women leading Evolution in respect to the Pelvis — The Evolution of the Pelvis in relation to the Evolution of Sexual Emotion. CHAPTER V. The Head - - . . y^ The Skull— In the Infant— Chief Cause of Sexual Differences in Skull— Early Opinions — The three chief Sexual Differences in Skull— Minor Differences — The Cephalic Index — The Face — Sexual Differences in Facial Development — The Eye —The Facial Angle— The Lovirer Jawr— The Teeth— Cranial Capacity — Sexual Differences in Frontal, Parietal, and Occipital Regions of Skull— Man's Skull approaches the Senile, Woman's the Infantile Type. The Brain— Differences in Brain-weight — Among the Insane — The Standards of Brain-weight — Height and Weight — Fallacies — Women's Brains proportionately larger than Men's — Advantages and Disadvantages of a Large Brain — Sexual Differences in the Evolution of the Brain— Sexual Differences in the Frontal, Parietal, and Occipital Regions of Brain— Blood-supply of Brain— The Cerebellum and other Centres below the Cerebrum— Definite Results of Study of Sexual Differences in the Brain at present small. CHAPTER VI. The Senses - - - . Touch— Results of Lombroso, Jastrow, Galton, Marro, etc.— Greater Tactile Sensibility of Women— Educability of the Tactile Sense. Sensibility to Pain— Results of Jastrow, Gilbert, Griffing, etc. Complexity of the Question— Disvulnerability marked in Savages, Children, and perhaps in Women. Smell — Experiments of Nichols and Bailey, Ottolenghi, Garbini Marro, etc.^ — Differences of Opinion. ' 124 CONTENTS. XV PAGE Taste — Investigations of Nichols and Bailey, Ottolenghi, Tou- louse, etc. — Sense of Taste keener in Women. Hearing — Experiments on keenness of Hearing during Health few and inconclusive — Range of Audible Sensation probably greater in Men. Sights-Blindness commoner in Men — Minor Eye-defects com- moner in Women — No marked Sexual Difference in keen- ness of Healthy Vision — Colour-perception and Colour- blindness — Colour-blindness very rare in Women — Also rare among Savages. Coloured Hearing — This and allied Phenomena more common in Women and in Children than in Men — The Confusion between Sensibility and Affectability. CHAPTER VII. Motion - - i6i Muscular Strength — Women's Joints Smaller — Riccardi's Experi- ments showing Maximum Energy more quickly reached by Women — Reaction-Time — Rate of Movement slower in Women — Bryan's Experiments on Rate of Motion — Rarity of Women Acrobats — Women and Physical Training — Sexual Differences in Voluntary Motor Ability — Women Telegraph Clerks — Handwriting — Women's Slighter Mus- cular Energy probably an Organic Character — Manual Dexterity — Opinions of Teachers — The General Opinion that Women have less Manual Dexterity than Men — Dexterity of Women in Various Trades— Sense-judg- ments — Business Experience — Various Experiments — Women probably as well able to form Accurate Sense- judgments as Men. CHAPTER VIII. The Intellectual Impulse - - 187 There is no purely Abstract Thought— DifiicuUy of accurately investigating Intellectual Processes— Jastrow's Investiga- tions into Thought-habits and Associations — Memory — Rapidity of Perception— Women read Rapidly— The ready Wit of Women— Their tendency to Ruse, and its Causes- Precocity— More marked in Girls— Conduct— Puberty and Mental Activity— Industrial and Business Capacity— Ex- periences of the Post Office — Abstract Thought — The Greater Independence of Men— Women as Philosophers and Mathematicians— Religion— Religious Seels founded by Women— Their General Character— Women's Contribu- tions to the Structure of the Catholic Church— Politics. XVI CONTENTS. CHAPTER IX. PAGE Metabolism- - - - - -219 The Blood— Red Corpuscles more numerous in Men— Ainount of Hemoglobin greater in Men— Specific Gravity higher in Men— The Sexual Differences in the Blood coincide with the appearance of Puberty — Rise in the Specific Gravity of the Blood of Woman in Old Age— The Pulse-rate— Always higher in Small than in Large Animals — Sexual Differences in the Human and other Species — Not notably greater than Differences in Size would lead us to expect. Respiration— Vital Capacity much greater in Men — Men produce more Carbonic Acid — Costal Respiration of Women and Abdominal Respiration of Men — Recent Investigations showing that this Sexual Difference is purely artificial — ^It does not exist among Savage Women, nor among those who do not wear Corsets — The Origin of Corsets — Their Influence on the Activity of Women — Development of Chest — Its Relation to Consumption — Temperature — No Sexual Difference yet clearly shown. Excretion — Urine probably relatively greater in amount in Women, and Urea relatively less — Special Influences affect- ing Women. Susceptibility to Poisons — Sexual Differences in the Selective Action of Poisons on different Organs — Arsenic — Opium — Mercury — Special Sexual Susceptibilities to Poisons — Chloroform — Lead — Alcohol the best example of Sexual Selective Action on Nervous System — Tends to attack the Brain in Men, the Spinal Cord in Women. Hair and Pigmentation — Sexual Differences in Distribution, etc., of Hair — The Eyes and probably Hair are darker in Women — Possible Advantages of Pigmentation. CHAPTER X. The Viscera 265 The Psychological Significance of the Viscera — The Thyroid Gland — Its Physiological and Pathological Variations in Women — Exophthalmic Goitre and its Analogy to the State of Terror — The Larynx and the Voice — Changes at Puberty — Relation of the Voice to the Sexual Organs — The Thoracic Viscera — Heart — Lungs — The Abdominal Viscera — Stomach — Digestion — Liver — Spleen — Kidneys — Bladder — The Viscera a Factor in the Production of Emotional States. PAGE CONTENTS. CHAPTER XI. The Functional Periodicity of Women- - 279 The Phenomena of Menstruation — Origin — The Theory that Women are Natural InvaUds — The Cyclic Life of Women — Its Recent Discovery — Illustrated by the Observation of • Various Functions — The Heart, the Eye, etc.— The Special Physical and Psychic Phenomena of the Monthly Climax — These are intensified in Ill-health — The Legal, Scientific, and Social Importance of Women's Periodicity of Function. CHAPTER XH. Hypnotic Phenomena - - 299 The Various Phenomena here included under this term — Som- nambulism — Hypnotism — Ecstasy — Trance — Catalepsy — Magical Phenomena — Women have played a larger part in nearly all. Dreams^Women as Dreamers among Primitive Races — In the . Middle Ages — In Modern Times — Results obtained by Heerwagen, Jastrow, and Child. Hallucinations in the Sane — Sidgwick's Investigations — Greater Prevalence among Women. The Action of Anaesthetics — Nitrous Oxide — Silk's Observations — Abnormal Action under Anaesthesia occurs on the whole chiefly in Women. Meteorologic Sensibility — Suicide — Insanity — Conclusion as to Sexual Difference doubtful — Periodicity in Growth. Neurasthenia and Hysteria — Description of Neurasthenia — De- finition of Hysteria — Its Characteristics — Suggestibility — Relative frequency in the Sexes. Religious Hypnotic Phenomena — Nature of the part played by Women in Religious Movements — Shakers — Theosophists — Dancing Mania — Camisards — Modern Hysterical Religious Epidemics — Christs— Skoptsy — Hypnotic Religious Pheno- mena among Uncivilised Races — Nature and Causation. CHAPTER Xni. The Affectability of Women - -341 What is an Emotion? — Readier Response of the Vaso-motor Vascular System in Women — Physiological and Patho- logical Evidence — The Heart — The Convulsive Tendency of Women— Epilepsy — Blushing— The Reflexes — Ticklish- ness— Laughter and Tears— Facial Expression— The Iris— xviii CONTENTS. The Bladder— Susceptibility to Fright— Mental Sugges- tibility — Obs^sions — Emotional Causation of Disease pre- dominates in Women— Destructive Tendencies—' ' Breakings out "—The Source of these— The Congenital Exhaustibility of Women— The Advantages of Women's Affectability — Anajmia and Affectability- The Greater AflTectability of Women to some extent the Result of Circumstances, to some extent Organic. CHAPTER XIV. The Artistic Impulse - - 3^4 The Industries arose in Women's Hands, the Arts in Men's — Pottery— Tattooing — Painting — Sculpture — Music — Why Women have failed in Music — Metaphysics — Mysticism — Poetry — Fiction — Why Women have succeeded in Fiction — The Supremacy of Women in Acting — The Artistic Impulse generally is more marked in Men — The Cause of this. CHAPTER XV. Morbid Psychic Phenomena - 378 Suicide — Factors that Influence its Frequency — Sexual Propor- tions in Europe — The Influence of Age — The Causes of Suicide — Methods of Suicide — Men prefer Active, Women Passive Methods — Racial Sexual Differences. Insanity — In Various Parts of the World — Causes of Insanity — Forms of Insanity — Alcoholic Insanity and General Para- lysis increasing among Women — General Paralysis as a typically Masculine Insanity^Insanity and Civilisation. Criminality — Difficulties in the way of the study of Sexual Differ- ences — Why Women are less Criminal than Men — The Special Forms of Women's Criminality — Criminality and Civilisation. CHAPTER XVI. The Variational Tendency of Men - - 410 Most Abnormalities more common in Men — The Influence of the Pelvis on the side of Mediocrity — Still-born Children — Sexual Proportion of Congenital Malformations — Muscular Abnormalities — The Ear and its Abnormalities — Psychic CONTENTS. XIX PAGE Abnormalities, Idiocy, Genius, etc. — The Primitive Racial Elements in a Population perhaps more clearly represented by Women — Women more disposed than Men to preserve Ancient Custom and Ancient Methods of Thought — The Organic Conservatism of Women — Advantages of this Sexual Difference. CHAPTER XVII. Natality and Mortality - - - 428 The Birth-rate of Males higher than of Females — Their Death- rate still higher — Causes of the greater Mortality among Males — The Resistance of Women to Disease — As Illus- trated by Scarlet Fever, Small-pox, Influenza, etc. — Recent Improvements in the Death-rate have specially benefited Women — Greater Longevity of Women — The Characteristic Signs of Old Age less marked in Women — The greater Tend- ency to Sudden Death in Men — The greater Resistance of Women to Disease and Death perhaps a Zoological Fact. CHAPTER XVIII. Conclusion - - 44° The Knowledge we have gained does not enable us definitely to settle Special Problems— What it does enable us to do- Women are nearer to Children than are Men — But Woman is not Undeveloped Man— The Child represents a Higher Degree of Evolution than the Adult— The Progress of the Race has been a Progress in Youthfulness — In some respects it has been a Progress in Feminisation — Absurdity of Speaking of the Superiority of one Sex over another— The Sexes perfectly poised— But Social Readjustments may still be necessary— We may Face all such Readjustments with Equanimity. Appendix - 455 Index of Authors - - 475 Index of Subjects - - - - 4^3 MAN AND WOMAN. — •♦• — CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION. THE PRIMITIVE SEXUAL DIVISION OF LABOUR — MAN CHIEFLY MILITANT, WOMAN CHIEFLY. INDUSTRIAL AMONG SAV- AGE RACES WOMEN NOT INFERIOR TO MEN THE INDUSTRIES OF WOMEN GRADUALLY SHARED AND THEN MONOPOLISED BY MEN THE STATUS OF WOMEN IN BARBARISM THE MEDIAEVAL ATTITUDE TOWARDS WOMEN, AND ITS CAUSES THE PHYSIOLOGICAL MYSTERY OF WOMANHOOD— THE MODERN STATUS OF WOMAN. "A MAN hunts, spears fish, fights, and sits about," said an Australian Kurnai once;^ the rest is woman's work. This rnay be accepted as a fair statement of the sexual division of labour among very primitive peoples. It is a division of labour which is alto- gether independent of race and climate. Among the Eskimo, in their snow-houses on the opposite side of the globe, there is the same division of labour as among the Australians.^ The tasks which demand a powerful development of muscle and bone, and the resulting capacity for intermittent spurts of energy, involving * Fison and Howitt, Kamilaroi and Kurnai, Melbourne, 1880 p. 206. ^ See, for instance, II. H. Bancl-oft, Native Races of the Pacific Stales, vol. i. p- 66. 2 MAN AND WOMAN. corresponding periods of rest, fall to the man; the care of the children and all the very various industries which radiate from the hearth, and call for an ex- penditure of energy more continuous but at a lower tension, fall to the woman. That is the general rule. In such matters the ex- ceptions are very numerous. For example, among the Similkameen Indians of British Columbia, ac- cording to Mrs. Allison, who knows them well, formerly "the women were nearly as good hunters as the men," but being sensitive to the ridicule of the white settlers, they have given up hunting.^ Among the Yahgan of Tierra del Fuego fishing is left entirely to the women ; ^ among the Tasmanians, per- haps the lowest human race ever known, the women alone dived for fish; and among the Tasmanians also it was the women who performed the remarkable feat of climbing the lofty smooth-trunked gum-trees after opossums.^ In all parts of the world, in Australia and Africa, as well as among the ancient Celts,- Teutons, and Slavs, women have fought at need, and sometimes even habitually. But usually the perilous and fatiguing tasks of fighting and hunting, of such great moment in early culture, are left to the men. To these might for the most part be added dancing, which is more closely related to the others than is perhaps visible at first sight; it is at once a process of physical training and a mode of reaching the highly-wrought mental condition most favourable for war; the more even activities of primi- tive women would be impaired rather than assisted by powerful stimulants. The Indians of Guiana, as studied by a very careful and sympathetic observer,* present us with a fairly 1 Allison, "Similkameen lnj^ Li m, jx £± [g. rv_ rk m tt h 11 Is "t^'H'^' Tv.iei^n^ z. - -V — — -^ — — — — — ' / -i ^ — — 9 ^ / \ / \ S / \ / \ \ / / S \ 4 A /I / s \ V / ^ \ 3 p \ / > \ \ / \ i \ / \ s V \ ,■>. / / 1 ** •*' s ^ ? '^, ,' -' -" ■t \ 7 ^ r X -^ r \ / *« -0 '„ a Ci^ _ CHART SHOWING COMPARATIVE INCREASE IN WEIGHT OF SWEDISH BOYS AND GIRLS. {Adapted from Axel Key. ) GROWTH AND PROPORTIONS OP THE BODV. 35 to-do classes. He compai-es the development of the poor to a feather which can be strongly bent only to fly back rapidly when the pressure is removed; but if the pressure is too great or too prolonged the retractility may be largely lost. Quetelet, Pagliani, Bowditch, Broca, Dally, and Axel Key seem to agree that environment, alimentation, exercise, climate, altitude, occupation modify the rate of growth with more intensity the more removed the individual is from the final stage of develop- ment. The height finally attained depends chiefly on sex and race. A woman may be said to have reached her full development at the age of twenty; a man continues to show a fair degree of development for some years after this age, especially under favourable conditions. Venn and Galton have shown by their investigations on Cambridge students that the student's head, for example, grows after the age of nineteen more than the average head.^ It is well known that the upper classes in most European countries are taller than the lower classes, and although this may be, to some extent, as Lapouge supposes, a question of difference of race, it cannot be entirely so; Galton, also, con- siders that among the educated classes the average height is greater than it was some years ago. I am not acquainted with any elaborate investigation of women students, showing to what extent the physical development of women may be prolonged under favourable conditions. Under ordinary conditions it seems to be the general rule that physical precocity is greater in women than in men, and the lower the race, generally speaking, the earlier is the full stature attained; thus among the Nicobarese, according to Man, males reach their full height at about the age of eighteen, females a little earlier.^ The average height of adult males in England is about 1.700 m. (or 67.4 ins.), of adult females about 1.600 m. (or 62.7 ins.); the ratio of stature of men and women is in England i to 0.930, or as 16 to ^ Journal Anthropological Jnsiilu'e, 1S89, p. 140. 2 E. H. yii.-a. Journal Anthropological ImtUute, May 18S9. 40 MAN AND WOMAN. 14.88.1 The mid-stature of the well-to-do male members of the British Association at Newcastle in 1889 was 1.715 m., of the female members 1.589 m. The sexual difference in stature in England, therefore, corresponds very closely with that found in neighbour- ing countries; in France, according to Topinard and Rollet, itis 12 centimetres; in Belgium, according to Quetelet, 10 centimetres; in the United States, accord- ing to Sargent, it is somewhat greater, being nearly 13 centimetres. In America, while the sexual differ- ence in weight is somewhat less than in England, the sexual difference in height and also in vital capacity is to a marked extent greater, the greater sexual differences being, it seems, due to the greater de- velopment of American men rather than' to the less development of women. Dr. Sargent prepared for the Chicago World's Fair two nude clay figures of man and woman, founded on the average measurements of several thousand students of Harvard and of various girls' colleges. The general characteristics of the two statues are thus described in Scribner's Magazine, July 1893: — " One admits that the young man is the finer figure of the two. Standing squarely, clean-limbed, strong-necked, he looks rather like a runner than a rower; but there is nothing sordid, nothing warped, nothing to indicate the deterioration of a civilisation of too many wheels, the stunting, or the abnormal one-sided development, of the factory or of city life. The pose, of course, must be the sculptor's, but the measures show: height, five feet eight; weight, one hundred and thirty-eight (the equivalent of one hundred and forty-nine, as we clothe our- selves); chest, thirty-four, to thirty-seven inflated. It is re- assuring that both in height and weight and strength as well, this statue far exceeds the average of any other nation, even England. " When we come to the woman, we must — glissons un peu. A prominent artist looked her over from a professional point of ' Report of Anthropometric Committee of British Association, 1883. As expressed by Galton (Natural Inheritance, 1889), about 12 to 13 : " Consequently by adding to each observed female stature at the rate of one inch for every foot, we are enabled to compare their statures, so increased and transmuted, with the observed statures of males on equal terms." In Belgium, where the race is much shorter, the ratio, according to Quetelet, is as 16 to 15. GROWTH AND PROPORTIONS OF THE BODY. 4I view and refused to accept the statue as the ultimate model. Of course, said her creator; for that you would in fairness select a figure on the eighty or ninety per cent, line, not this, which meets exactly fifty per cent, of them all, and is half-way from the best to the worst; or, to put it more precisely, is only the greatest good of the greatest number. He then naively explained her inferiority to the boy on a ground one hardly dare whisper — namely, that women students in colleges came from a class not equal, socially or intellectually, to that which universally sends its boys. [Whether this is the case or not it could scarcely account for the facts in question; the woman of low social class, at all events in the country, is favourably situated so far as the attainment of a well-developed and beautiful body is concerned.] The figure has more fragility without a corre- sponding gain in grace; the lower half is better than the upper; it is not that tight-lacing has left evident traces (the waist is over twenty-four), but the inward curve of the back, the thinness of the body, lack strength and erectness of pose. The height is five feet three, the weight one hundred and fourteen, the chest measurement but thirty, and the feet ten inches long." Differences in weight, although instructive as regards the individual's condition, are not of any great significance in the adult from our present point of view, and are in some respects fallacious. This is due to the tendency of women to develop exuberant fatty connective tissue. This tendency, while it is chiefly responsible for the charm and softness of the smoothly rounded feminine form, results in women possessing a larger amount than men of comparatively non-vital tissue and makes them appear larger than they really are. Bischoff once took the trouble to investigate the proportions of the various tissues in a man of thirty-three, a woman of twenty-two, and a boy of sixteen, who all died accidentally in good physical condition. He found the following relation between muscle and fat:^ M. W. B.' 41.8 . .. 35.8 . .. 44.2 1S.2 .. .. 2S.2 .. • 13-9 Muscle Fat It is owing to this tendency to put on fat that, as Quetelet found, while man reaches his maximum weight at the age of forty, woman reaches hers only at fifty. The same tendency causes a liability to morbid obesity which all authorities agree to find more common in women; thus, for instance, of Bouchard's eighty-six cases, sixty-two were in women, and only twenty-four The preponderance of the adult man over the adult woman in total stature and bulk is fairly obvious and 42 MAN AND WOMAN. well established; the less obvious sexual differences in the growth and proportions of the various parts of the body are, however, more interesting and significant. Speaking generally, it may be said that, relatively to the total height, in women the head is longer than in men, the neck shorter, the trunk longer, and the legs and arms shorter. Topinard found that, reckoning total height as loo, in 78 men of European race the trunk equalled 33.5, and in 30 women 34.0. E. Harless, at Munich, found that in 9 men and 7 women the trunk equalled 35.9 in the former and 37.8 in the latter. Quetelet obtained similar results in Belgium. Professor Riccardi {Di alcune Correlazioni di Sviluppo, Modena, 1891) has ex- amined 1200 Bolognese and Modenese persons of all ages and both sexes with reference to the height of the seated body, and finds that in children under six there are no sexual differences; then comes a period of oscillation between the sexes, and finally the proportion of the height of the seated body to the total stature is in men as 52 to 100, and in women as 53 to 100; thus a woman, when seated, if we judge her by male standards, appears taller than she really is. Ranke states unconditionally that relative short- ness of trunk is a character of superiority, as it indicates an organism arrived at maturity.^ If we compare the human adult with the hu-man infant, or with the ape, this statement is perfectly justified. As Quetelet has pointed out,^ while the adult head is only double the height of the head at birth, the trunk is nearly tripled in length, while the arms are nearly four times, and the legs as much as five times as long as they were at birth. This is one of those sexual differences which are simply the result of the total difference in bulk and stature due to the pre- cocity and earlier arrest of growth in women. In fairly well-proportioned men, in whom growth has been arrested before they have reached the adult male standard, we find the same proportions as in women. In a dwarf of the usual type, with his huge ' Beilriige %ur Urgeschichte Bayerns, Bd. viii., Fasc. i and 2, 18SS. ^ Antliropoiiietrie, pp. 194, 195. GROWTH AND PROPORTIONS OF THE BODY. 43 head and diminutive legs, the same infantile type is seen in an exaggerated degree. In defective develop- ment, due to the influence of rickets, it has been found that the trunk is on the average only about one inch shorter than usual, the arms two and a half inches shorter, while the legs may be as much as ten and a half inches shorter, thus preserving the infantile type.^ In giants, on the other hand, the increased stature is chiefly due to undue growth of the legs. It is not, however, true that relative shortness of trunk is a mark of superiority if we compare together the adults of various human races. Thus, as Topinard shows,^ negroes possess relatively the shortest bodies, the yellow races the longest, while the white races occupy an intermediate position. From these differences in proportion there naturally results a difference in the position of the centre of the body according to age and sex. The old artists and authors who occupied themselves with the canons of proportion, following the lead of Vitruvius, regarded the navel as the centre of the body. This is not exactly the case. The more immature the human body is the lower the navel is, and the higher the centre of the body. At birth the middle point of the body closely coincides with the navel, or, rather, it is two or three centimetres above it, but as growth pro- ceeds the centre of the body falls until ultimately it is a little below the symphisis pubis in men, remaining a little higher in women. In women the distance between the navel and the pubes is greater than in men ; that is to say that in women the abdomen is larger. This is the rule as stated by Manouvrier, and Professor Cunningham has found from the examination of numerous subjects that the various abdominal zones have the same average depth in women as in men; taking into 1 Shaw, confirmed by Walter Pye, " Lectures on Growth Rates of the Body," Lancet, July 26 and August 16, 1890. " AnthropoUgie CJnerafe, pp. 1065 et seq. 44 MAN AND WOMAN. account the greater size of the men, the relative size of the abdomen becomes thus distinctly greater in women.i This character is in harmony with the reproductive functions of women, and in the artist's hands the full and firm abdomen is one of the beauties of woman's form, in contrast to man's comparatively flat and inconspicuous abdomen, but at the same time a large abdomen is both an infantile and a primitive character; it was, for example, very marked in the Fuegians who were in London a few years ago, and a Fuegian boy with his abdomen exposed bore a strong resemblance to a woman. A still more obvious sexual distinction lies in the breasts, but from the present point of view they cannot be very profitably studied. The only sexual difference worth mentioning here is the distance between the nipples. This is often greater in men than in women; the reason for this is, as Briicke points out, that in its development the breast in women requires a large amount of skin for its increasingly convex surface, and as the skin on the side of the body yields more readily than that between the breasts, the nipples tend to approximate.^ " The breasts should always live at enmity," a sculptor once said to Briicke ; " the right should look to the right, and the left to the left." In well-developed individuals this is so, and in the careful measure- ments of artist's models given by Quetelet at the end of his AnthropomUrie the exceptional distance between the nipples is noteworthy, especially in the case of women belonging to Rome and Cadiz. 1 " Delimitation of the Regions of the Abdomen," Journal of Anatomy and Physiology, Jan. 1893. " E. Briicke, The Human Form, pp. 71, 72. Chapter III. of this book is an interesting discussion of the artistic anatomy of the female breast. From the anthropological point of view the breast has been fully studied in the great work of Ploss and Max Bartels, Das Weill, Bd. i. , Ch. viii. These writers recognise four dilTerent forms of breast : the bowl-shaped (like half a Tangerine orange), the hemispherical (like half or three-quarters of an apple), the conical, and the goat's udder shape. GROWTH AND PROPORTIONS OF THE BODY. 45 With reference to the sexual differences in the thorax or chest itself, the most authoritative anatomists are at present singularly at variance. This is partly due to the fact that not many detailed investigations of a large number of subjects have yet been made, and partly to the fact that it is necessary to allow for the artificial deformation of the chest which is still very common among civilised women. It seems most probable that, as Gegenbaur asserts, the female thorax is relatively shorter and broader than the male. This is also suggested by the shortness of the dorsal region of the spinal column in women and the relative shortness of the breast-bone (as shown by Dwight, as well as by earlier anatomists), and also by the greater relative length of the clavicle in women (as shown by Broca and others). It also seems probable that the depth of the chest antero- posteriorly is less in women than in men. It was asserted by the old anatomists that while man has a large chest and small belly, woman has a small chest and large belly. While this conclusion, which is in harmony with the marked inferiority of the respiratory system in women, is no doubt true, sufficient allowance does not appear to have been made for the artificial constriction of the lower part of the chest in women. Charpy has made a careful study of 200 subjects — male and female, short and tall, fair and dark — in the dissecting room, with special reference to the shape of the chest He finds no notable sexual differences until the age of fifteen, and less well marked after this than many people imagine. He recognises three different types of the female chest, which are, however, more obvious to the artist than the anthropologist: (i) the broad type, square and full like that of a man, with well-spread shoulders, and breasts like expanded discs; it is the type of the ancient goddesses, of the women of Tuscany and Liguria, and the Roman women of Transtevere; (2) the round type, rarer and of more delicate and highly sexualised character; it is smaller and more folded in than the first type, with less antero- posterior diameter, and is the chest of the Venetian women; (3) the long type, with oblong lungs, though its capacity is probably by no means defective; it is the type of English women, and Arab women with their sloping shoulders and graceful carriage often have this form. (Adrien Charpy, " L' Angle xiphoidien," Revue d' Anthropologie, 1884, p. 268.) In women, generally speaking, while the trunk is relatively long, the limbs are relatively short. By her short arms woman approaches the infantile condition more closely than man, as Ranke points out, but it must be added that by the same character she is farther removed than man from the ape and the 46 MAN AND WOMAN. savage, among whom the forearm especially is very- long. The difference is usually trifling, but there is agreement upon ~ the point among most of the chief authorities. It was found to hold good among various lower races examined during the voyage of the Novara, and by Weisbach for German women also; Topinard lays it down as a general rule {Anthropologie Gindrale, p. 1096); Sargent found that the forearms of American girls are decidedly shorter, the arms very slightly shorter than those of boys; and Ranke concludes as the result of his observa- tions that women have shorter arms and forearms, thighs and legs, relatively to their short upper arms still shorter forearnis, relatively to their short thighs still shorter legs, and relatively to the whole upper extremity a shorter lower extremity. (Ranke, " Beitrage zur physischen Anthropologie der Bayern," Beitmge zur Urgeschichte Bayerns, Bd. viii., Fasc. i and 2, 1888.) The arms of women are relatively more shortened than are the legs. (Pfitzner, Zt. f. Morph., 1899, p. 375.) A long forearm, it may be added, as well as a long leg, are among the characters which indicate superiority when we compare the adult to the infant, but indicate inferiority when we compare the European to lower races, like the negro and the Australian, in whom the arms are especially long. The male arm differs from the female by being flatter in youth and more highly moulded and less cylindrical in adult age; in women the arm in adult age develops in rotundity in consequence of the deposit of fat, and constitutes one of the chief beauties of adult womanhood; it is also often somewhat laterally compressed, and (as Briicke remarks) it is so de- picted by Renaissance artists, in comparison with the broad shallow forearm. Artists have differed in their preferences with regard to boys' arms and girls' arms; thus, while Palma Giovane and many other artists have given their angels girls' arms, Andrea del Sarto preferred boys' arms. Briicke has some sensible observations on the effects of , exercise on the arms of girls: — " Many mothers are afraid of \ their daughters doing any exercises with their arms lest the I latter should acquire a masculine shape. It is remarkable, ■however, that no apprehension is shown if these same daughters [practise the piano for several hours every day, exerting certain muscles of the forearm in a violent and exclusive fashion in doing so. Yet there is, in general, no foundation for the fear. Bodily exercises only affect the form of the body disadvan- tageously under two conditions: either when they begin at too early an age, or when they are so excessive as to produce emaciation. Violent exercise may be taken without injuiy GROWTH AND PROPORTIONS OF THE BODY. 47 in this respect is proved by the well-known gymnast who, under the name of Leona Dare, displayed the beauty of her arms in all the great cities of the world." (E. Briicke, The Hwnan Figure, pp. 48, 49.) As a more recent example I may refer to the beautifully developed arms of the gymnast Alcide Capitaine. The study of the hand and the proportions of its various parts has received considerable attention from time to time, and was studied in great detail by Pfitzner at Strassburg. Europeans, speaking gene- rally, have smaller hands than the black races, while the yellow races have the longest hands ; the Javanese, for example, have peculiarly long hands, which are seen to great advantage in the charac- teristic Javanese dances in which the hand plays the chief part. As regards the relative size of the hand, Quetelet and Topinard considered that there are no sexual differences ; Ranke, however, has more recently found that the hand is relatively somewhat shorter in women, and this seems to be confirmed by Pfitzner's investigations, but in any case the differences are_ slight. Sexual differences in the comparative length of the different fingers have attracted some attention. Ecker found many years ago that while in anthropoid apes, and so also in nearly all negroes, the index- finger is shorter than the ring-finger, in women (including negresses) the index tends to be longer than the ring-finger more frequently than in men, thus giving the hand a more elegant shape.^ Mante- gazza examined a very large number of people with reference to this point, and found that while over 500 possessed a shorter index than ring-finger against under lOO with longer index-finger, among the former men were in a majority, and among the latter women were in a large majority ; 77 per cent, of the men, against 63 per cent, of the women showed the longer ring-finger, but only 7 per cent, of the men against 21 per cent, of the women showed a longer index- 1 Arch, fiir Anthropologk, Ed. vii., p. 65. 48 MAN AND WOMAN. finger. Examining twelve very beautiful women from various parts of Italy, he found a longer index- finger in six — a proportion considerably above the average ; he adds that he is not prepared to say that he finds the longer index-finger itself more beautiful.^ Pfitzner confirmed the fact of the greater length of the index-finger in woman, and finds also that woman's thumb is relatively shorter than rnan's.^ The latter characteristic goes with a comparatively low type of organism, but the long index-finger has its interest, bearing in mind the conservative morphological tendencies of women, because it indicates superior evolution. Weissenberg supported these conclusions; he found the predominance of the index-finger unusually marked in Jews, and especially in Jewesses, and he noted that in Assyrian reliefs and Egyptian statues the ring-finger is generally longer than the index, and in the former case at all events, of beautiful type.^ F6r6, who has studied the proportions of the hands and the fingers both in men and women and in apes,* finds that, if we compare the length of the different fingers to the middle finger, while the thumb is shorter in women than in men the little finger is relatively still shorter, while in the ape the little finger is long though the thumb is short. It is by his relatively long legs that the adult civilised man most conspicuously differs in proportion from the infant, although not necessarily from the savage, whose legs are sometimes very long ; and the leg is that portion of the body which grows most rapidly and to the most variable extent; it is also ' P. Mantegazza, " Delia lunghezza relativa dell' indice," Arch, per r Antropologia, 1877, p. 22. 2 W. Pfitzner, " Beitrage zur Kenntniss des menschlichen Extremi- t'atenskeletts," and " Anthropologische Beziehungen der Hand- und Fussmasse," in Schwalbe's Morphologische Arbeiten, Bd. i. -ii., 1890-92. ' S. Weissenberg, " Die Formen der Hand und des Fusses," Zt.J. Elh., 189s, heft 2. * Jour, de VAnat. et de Phys., May-June, 1900. GROWTH AND PROPORTIONS OF THE BODY. 49 that part of the body which is most affected by an early arrest of development, although in this the arm also largely participates.'- The thigh grows with greatest rapidity, and shows also the most decided sexual differences. In women the thigh is markedly shorter than in men ; it is larger, and is set at a different angle. As to the greater absolute and relative length of the thigh in men there seems to be no question, although the results of investigation do not show any similar marked difference for the leg, and according to some observers the leg is relatively very slightly longer in women. The greater circum- ference of the thigh in women is very well marked, and begins at a comparatively early age. It is indeed the only measurement of which we can safely say that it is from an early period of puberty onwards both absolutely and relatively always decidedly greater in both European and American women than in men ; for although the diameter and still more the circumference of the hips are relatively greater in women than in men, the excess seems greater than it really is, arid does not invariably exist, or at all events at so early an age, when we deal with absolute figures. According to the measurements of Quetelet on Belgians, the circum- ference of the top of the thigh becomes absolutely greater in girls of fourteen, and is relatively greater than in boys even after the age of twelve; while Dr. Sargent shows that the thigh of the American girl of fifteen is on the average, in absolute figures, two inches larger than that of the American boy of fifteen. Taking 400 male and female students (who in America fairly represent the average population), of the mean age of twenty, Sargent found that the girth of thigh in the women exceeds that in the men by ij inches, and is the only measurement in which the women do absolutely exceed the men. Dr. 1 Humphry, Human Skeleton; Topinard, Anthropologie GenSrale, pp. 1030-31; Roberts, Anlhropometry, pp. 115-117. 4 50 MAN AND WOMAN. Sargent suggests that the large thighs of women are due to impediment to the blood-stream caused by artificial constriction at the waist, but the opinion is unsupported and is highly improbable. In woman the thigh, though short, tapers rapidly, and at the lower part it is, absolutely, scarcely if at all larger than that of a man; so that while the masculine thigh tends to be columnar the feminine thigh tends to be conical. This characteristic imparts some appearance of instability to the female figure, and the effect is increased by the marked inward inclina- tion of the thighs in women, resulting from the breadth of the pelvis, an inclination which, when it exists in a very marked degree, gives an appearance of knock-knee, and the inward inclination of the thigh is compensated by an outward inclination of the leg. There is an analogous obliquity of the upper extremity ; the forearm is never in a straight line with the arm ; and this obliquity is also empha- sised in women. In 90 women Potter found that the angle of obliquity of the forearm with the upper-arm was 167.35 degrees ; in 95 men the angle was 173.17 degrees.^ But while the lack of straightness in the arm is inconspicuous and conflicts with no demand of the eye, since the arms are not normally called to support the weight of the body, it is not so with the legs. This obliquity of the legs is the most con- spicuous aesthetic defect of the feminine form in the erect posture, while it unfits women for attitudes of energy, and compels them to run by alternate semi- circular rotations of the legs. In large-hipped civilised women the characteristic is much more obvious than in small-hipped savage women. Artists have adopted various devices to disguise it. It is minimised by toning down the hips and giving to women a comparatively masculine outline, or by the 1 H. Percy Potter, "Obliquity of the Arm of the Female in Extension," /flara. Anat. and Phys., July 1895 ; C. Langer, Atmtomie derdusseren Fortnen, p. 269; E. Brficke, Human Figure, 1891, p. 83. GROWTH AND PROPORTIONS OF THE BODY. 5 1 elongation of the thighs and legs; thus the long, straight, and beautiful legs which Tintoret gave to his women almost correspond to heroic canons of proportion which in nature are rarely found in women. The foot has received even more study than the hand, and certain interesting sexual differences emerge. Pfitzner, who has studied the foot^ with the same care as the hand, finds that there are two types of foot : the elongated type with long and well- developed middle phalanges, and the abbreviated type in which the middle phalanges are short and coarse. The first type is most common in men, the second in women. Which is the more primitive form ? We are accustomed, he remarks, to regard women's forms as more primitive, but notwithstanding this he is inclined to look upon the abbreviated type common in women as a more recent acquisition of the race. At the same time he regards the abbreviated form as rather a retrogressive than a progressive evolution; "no one can look at a middle phalanx of the ab- breviated type and not recognise that it is unworthy of any noble mammal, and only to be regarded as a partie honteuse." By their great toes, as well as their thumbs, women are less developed than men; a long great toe and a long thumb are recent acquirements of the race, and they are relatively longer in men.^ Pfitzner has also made an interesting discovery with regard to the present position and probable future of the little toe. It is well known that while the fingers and toes generally are made up of three bones and are three-jointed, the thumb and great toe possess only two phalanges, and are therefore only two-jointed. Pfitzner finds that there is a tendency for the little toe also to possess only two joints, the ^ Schwalbe's Morphologische Arbeiten, Bd. i. , pp. 94 et seq. 2 In harmony with its primitive nature, the long second tpe is also a foetal character, as Braune has shown (quoted by Stratz, Die Schonheii des Weiblichen Korfers, 1903, p. 196). 52 MAN AND WOMAN. middle and end phalanges being welded together. This result is not artificially produced, as it is nearly as common in the embryo and the child as in the adult. There appears, therefore, to be at the present time a progressive, or, as Pfitzner regarded it, retro- gressive development of the little toe; though it should, perhaps, be added that in such a matter the degeneration only applies to the particular part and not to the organism generally. The course of higher evolution has always been accompanied by the dis- appearance or degeneration of particular organs and parts which are no longer needed. It is interesting to note that women seem to be leading this move- ment. Among III feet of men and women 41.5 per cent, of the women showed fusion of the joint, and only 31.0 per cent, of the men. But, as Pfitzner himself remarked, new investigations with a larger number of subjects are needed to confirm this sexual distinction.^ The relative length of the big toe and the second toe occupied the attention of Weissenberg when investigating the fingers {Zt. f. Eth., 1895, heft 2, p. 95). He found that in more than half the cases observed (Greeks, Jews, etc.) the big toe was longer, but in Bashkirs the second toe tended to be longer. The Greek women had a longer big toe more often than the men, but Jewesses not so often as Jews. In England Park Harrison {Jour. Anth. Inst., vol. xiii., 1884) found that the second toe tends to be longer in women, the big toe in men; in various groups the sexual difference was marked. Papillault found in Paris a very slight excess of women among individuals showing a longer second toe (18 per cent, as against 16 per cent, men), and considers that the best conformed foot has a long big toe. Stratz, on the other hand, believes that the best developed foot shows a long second toe, and there can be little doubt that this is the most beautiful form, as may be seen by an examination of the pictures in the National Gallery, or any other large collection. The tendency to the greater prevalence in women of a long index finger thus appears to be accompanied by a similar though less constant tendency to a long second toe. Weissenberg notes that ancient Greek statues usually show a ^ W. Pfitzner, "Die kleine Zehe," ArcKiv fiir Anaf. und Phys., heft. i. and ii., 1890. GROWTH AND PROPORTIONS OF THE BODY. 53 longer second toe, and there are, he observes, aesthetic reasons for such a preference. In Egyptian sculpture (though not in Egyptian statuettes) Weissenberg also found the second toe usually longer; in Assyrian reliefs the big toe is always loriger. The Papuans, who tend especially to have a long second toe, would thus appear to approach the classic ideal much more than do modern Europeans. Lombroso at Turin has recently examined various groups of subjects, normal and abnormal, with reference to the point, and has found in every group that the women showed a larger proportion of shorter big toes than the men {Arch, di Psich., 1901, p. 337). Lombroso's general conclusions on the significance of this variation are, however, faulty, since he is imperfectly acquainted with the results obtained by previous observers. Ottolenghi and Carrara have examined the feet of a large number of persons — men and women, sane and insane, criminals and prostitutes — in order to find Out the amount of space between the great toe and its neighbour, and so to estimate the extent to which the individual's foot approaches the primitive prehensile condition. Carefully examining ico normal men and 62 normal women, they found that the space between the first two toes and the power of separating them are much more marked in women than in men; the proportion of well-marked cases being 28 per cent, among women and only 11 per cent, among men; although the tendency of women to cramp the feet would lead us to expect an opposite result. Among male criminals, prostitutes, epileptics, and idiots there was a still nearer approach to the prehensile condition which is frequent among lower races. (Ottolenghi e Carrara, " II Piede prensile negli alienati e nei delinquenti," Arch, di Psichtatria, 1892, Fasc. iv., v.) I may add that it is probable that women in ordinary life use their toes more than do men. A lady who has written to me on this point demurs to the statement of Ottolenghi and Carrara that women's shoes, even with the pointed toe affected by women, really interfere greatly with their lateral movement of the toes, while the fact that they are thinner and more flexible than men's boots is also favourable to movement. She notes in her- self when standing a tendency to turn the ankles slightly over outwards and to claw down with the toes in an instinctive effort to obtain greater stability. She believes this is common among women both in walking and standing, while women undoubtedly use their toes more than do men in dancing, and she has observed that the heels of women's shoes, especially among the lower class, are often worn down on the outside, but not so often men's. The greater prehensility and flexibility of women's toes may thus, it is possible, while involving the retention of a useful primitive characteristic, be a phenomenon analogous to the greater use of the fingers by women in gesticulation. 54 MAN AND WOMAN. In the somewhat bird's-eye view we have obtained in this chapter over a very large iield of anthro- pological investigation ' it has been sufficiently evident that the differences between men and women extend not only to general proportions and laws of growth but to each part of the body taken separately; that, taken in the average, a man is a man even to his thumbs, and a woman is a woman down to her little toes. Three general conclusions clearly emerge: (i) women are more precocious than men; (2) in women there is an earlier arrest of development; (3) as a result of these two facts, the proportions of women tend to approach those of small men and of children. This greater youthfulness' of physical type in women is a very radical characteristic, and its influence vibrates to the most remote psychic recesses. It is an important factor, but by no means the only factor, in the constitution of secondary sexual differences. ' Many further details may be found in Daffner, Das Wachstum des Menschen, Buschan, art. " Korpergewicht " (dealing both with the body as a whole and with its parts) ; Heal EncydopMie der Gesammlen Heilkunde, 3rd ed., 1896; in Pfitzner, "Ein Beitrag zur Kenntniss der sekundaren Geschlechtsunterschiede beim Menschen," Morphologische Arbeiten, 1896, Bd. vii.; and in the same author's elaborate "Sozial- Anthropologische Studien," published in the Zeitschriftfiir Morpkologie from 1899 to igo2. 55 CHAPTER IV. THE PELVIS. THE MOST PROMINENT SECONDARY SEXUAL CHARACTER — CONSTRUCTION OF THE PELVIS — THE PELVIS IN CHILD- HOOD — THE PELVIS IN RELATION TO THE SPINAL COLUMN — THE INFLUENCE OF THE ERECT POSTURE IN MAN AND WOMAN — PELVIC INCLINATION — THE SADDLE-BACK THE EVOLUTION OF THE HUMAN SPINAL COLUMN — DISADVANTAGES OF THE ERECT POSTURE — WOMEN LEADING EVOLUTION IN RESPECT TO THE PELVIS— THE EVOLUTION OF THE PELVIS IN RELATION TO THE EVOLUTION OF SEXUAL EMOTION. In the brief sketch of the sexual differences in human growth and proportions presented in the foregoing chapter, no attention has been given to what we may regard, at all events from the present point of view, as the two most important parts of the body. Nothing has been said of the head or of the pelvis. The head is entitled to attention separately, not only as the most conspicuous and generally interesting portion of the body, and the seat of the chief nervous centres, but on account of the great amount of study devoted to it, an amount which to-day we are entitled to consider as even excessive. The pelvis is entitled to a chapter to itself because it constitutes the most undeniable, conspicuous, and unchangeable of all the bony human secondary sexual characters. Among numerous lower races, indeed, it is not well marked, and the women of several Central African peoples, 56 MAN AND WOMAN. for instance, when viewed from behind, can scarcely be distinguished from men; even Arab women, in whom the pelvis (as Kocher and others have de- scribed it) is broadTy extended, show nothing of the globular fulness of the well-developed European woman. The pelvis has developed during the course of human evolution ; while in some of the dark races it is ape-like in its narrowness and small capacity, in the highest European races it becomes a sexual distinction which immediately strikes the eyes and can scarcely be effaced; while the women of these races endeavour still further to accentuate it by artificial means. It is at once the proof of high evoliition and the promise of capable maternity. Ancient authorities emphasised this most prominent of all secondary sexual distinctions by saying that while in both men and women the trunk represents an ovoid figure, comparable to an egg, with a large end and a small end, in men the large end is above, in women it is below. That is to say, that in men the diameter of the shoulders is greater than that of the hips, in women the diameter of the hips greater than that of the shoulders. This statement, as Mathias Duval and others have shown, is ex- aggerated. The correct formula would be expressed by saying that while in both men and women the trunk is an ovoid with the large end uppermost, in men the difference between the upper and lower ends is considerable, in women it is slight.^ Thus, as Dr. Sargent shows for Americans between the ages of 17 and 20, the woman's hips, though relatively 4 inches larger, are absolutely smaller than man's; at the age of 20, girth of hip is in actual measurements J-inch smaller in women than in men, but if we take men and women of the same height the girth is as much as 6 inches larger in women than in men. The girth of thigh remains the only external measurement that is absolutely and almost constantly greater in women 1 M. Duval, Pricis d'Anaiomie Artisiique, p. 12$. THE PELVIS. 57 than in men, although its size largely depends upon the relatively great size of the pelvis. The pelvis — the bony girdle ^f the lower part of the body — acts under very different conditions in men from those found in quadrupeds. In animals it forms an arch which supports the posterior half of the body, while at right angles to its weight-bearing axis the arch is left free to form the gate by which offspring enter the world. In man it not only sup- ports the weight of the whole of the trunk, but the weight falls in almost the same line as the axis of the exit from the body. The adaptation of the pelvis to the erect position becomes then a very delicate adjustment of physical forces, and as this adjustment must be carried to its highest point in women, the pelvis of women is in many respects more highly developed than that of men, which retains more animal-like characters. The pelvis consists, above, of the hip-bones or ilia, which are in Man broadly spread out and excavated; behind, of that fused portion of the spinal column which is called the sacrum, and which terminates below in the rudimentary caudal vertebrae called the coccyx; in front, of the two pubic bones which meet to form an angle of varying degree; and underneath, of the two ischial bones which support the weight of the body in the sitting posture. All these four groups of bones which constitute the pelvis are differently arranged in man and in woman, and the differences are numerous and well-marked.i They may, however, for the most part be easily expressed by saying that while in man the pelvis is long, ^ They have been studied in detail by numerous anatomists. The classic work of R. Verneau, Le Bassin dans les Sexes et dans les Races, Paris, 1875, may still be consulted. The French anatomist, Sappey, also gives a clear summary of the sexual differences. See also Garson, " V^vimtiiy" Journal Afiat. and Phys., 1881. For differences in the pelvis and hips in the women of various races, see the illustrated chapter in Ploss and Max Bartels, Das Weib, Bd. i., "Das weibliche Becken in anthropologisches Beziehung"; also E. Marri, "Sulla forma dei Bacini in Razze diverse," Archiv per VAntrop., 1892, Fasc. 1. 58 MAN AND WOMAN. narrow, and strongly built, in woman it is broad, relatively shallow, and delicately made. It is as though the comparatively primitive and ape-like pelvis of man had been pressed outward by forces acting downward from within, with the object of enlarging the door of life for the unborn child. As usually explained by obstetrical writers, the larger pelvis of women is actually due to such a force exerted by the sexual organs which in women are contained within the pelvis. A secondary and accidental result of the broadening and opening out of the pelvis in women lies in the increased size of the thigh and the greater distance between the origins of the thigh-bones, which form such con- spicuous characteristics of the female form. The distance between the iliac crests of the hip-bones in women, although to the eye it appears absolutely greater than in men, is, as we have seen, only relatively greater but absolutely smaller; the breadth of the upper opening of the pelvis is, how- ever, both relatively and absolutely greater in women, both in the higher and lower human races. Sergi has taken advantage of the fact to devise an ilio-pelvic index, formed by multiplying the transverse diameter of the pelvis brim by loo, and dividing by the distance between the iliac crests. This gives, on the basis ofVerneau's data, for European men an index of 46. 5 and for women 50.8. By measuring pelves from all parts of the world, Sergi has found that the ilio-pelvic index is almost invariably greater in women than in men, differences in race appearing to produce very little change in this index (Sergi, "L'lndice Ilio-' Pelvico," La Clinica Ostetrica, Fasc. iii., 1899). Sexual differences in the pelvis become marked, according to Fehling, as soon as the bones begin to ossify, or in the fourth month.^ Fehling's con- clusions have been conformed by Professor Arthur Thomson of Oxford, who finds such differences dis- cernible from the third month. In a very detailed and fully illustrated paper on this subject he gives photographs showing that the pubic angle is from ' " Die Form des Beckens beim Fotus und Neugeborenen," Archiv f. Gyndk., Bd. x., 1876. THE PELVIS. 59 the fourth month onwards perceptibly larger through- out in the female, and concludes that " during foetal life the essentially sexual characters are as well defined as they are in adult forms, and that any differences that occur during growth between the adult and foetal forms, due, it may be, to the influence of pressure or muscular traction, affect both sexes alike, and that such influences are in no way accountable, as has been maintained, for the characteristic features of the pelvis of the female as contrasted with the male."i At birth, Romiti found sexual differences distinct, more especially as regards greater breadth of the subpubic arch, less height of pelvis, and less straight ilia in the female.^ Jiirgens, who studied the pelves of 25 boys and 25 girls under the age of five, found that those of the girls were markedly larger, especially in the transverse diameter.^ While sexual differences thus appear at the earliest age, the infantile pelvis in its general aspects is long, narrow, and straight, thus approximating to the pelvis of the higher apes and the lower human races, such as Kaffirs, Australians, and Andamanese; in European children also, as Litzmann has shown, the transverse diameter of the pelvic brim closely approximates to the antero-posterior diameter, a characteristic of the lower races, while in adult Europeans the transverse diameter much exceeds the antero-posterior, and in women more than in men. In nearly all respects the adult woman's pelvis is in more marked contrast to the infant's than is the adult man's; all the lower parts are opened out instead of compressed, the ischial spines especially being widely separated. If we compare the breadth of the pelvis to its length, as Topinard has done on ^ Arthur Thomson, "The Sexual Differences of the Fcetal Pelvis," Jour. Anat. and Phys., Ap. 1899. 2 G. Romiti, Atli detla Soc. Toscana di Sci. Nat., vol. viii., 1892. ^ " Beitrage zur normalen und pathologischen Anatomie des mensch- lichen Beckens," Rudolf Virchow Festschrift, iSgi. 6o MAN AND WOMAN. a large scale to ascertain the " pelvic index," we find that with vertebrate evolution from the lower animals to European man the pelvis has constantly been becoming broader in relation to its length, and that in women the pelvis is always broader in relation THE PELVIS, 6l to its length than in men. "As we rise in the human series," Topinard concludes, " the pelvis enlarges, and consequently the supremely beautiful pelvis is an Average Andamanese Femala Pelvis (adapted from Garson). Average European Female Pelvis (adapted from Garson). afnple pelvis. The Greeks, by narrowing the pelvis in their sculpture, not only deprived woman of one of her most deserved characteristics, but made her 62 MAN AND WOMAN. bestial." 1 By the breadth of her sacrum also, woman shows a higher degree of evolution than man. The sacrum in apes and in the lower human races is long, straight, and narrow, in harmony with the rest of the pelvis; the sacral index which expresses the degree of breadth of the sacrum shows a pro- gressive rise from Hottentots to Europeans which culminates in European women." An external indication of the size of the pelvis may probably be found, as Stratz has lately pointed out, in the lozenge-shaped space on the surface of the sacrum which has been called after Michaelis. This space is formed laterally by two dimples correspond- ing to the superior posterior iliac spines, above by another dimple usually situated at the spinous process of the last lumbar vertebra, and below by the point at which the gluteal fissure begins. In men the lateral dimples, if found at all, are several centimetres nearer to each other. Stratz, who has fully discussed this region, considers that these sacral dimples are secondary sexual characters scarcely inferior to the breasts in importance. This can scarcely be admitted, though, on the other hand, Briicke and Waldeyer have gone too far in denying that they are a sexual distinction at all. In all youthful and well-nourished women these dimples are large and deep, and the enclosing space well defined and inclined to the horizon. Various ancient authors refer with special admiration to these dimples, as a feature of feminine beauty, comparing them to the dimples of the face. In men they are much less marked, and, according to Stratz, only occur in from 18 to 25 per cent, cases (C. H. Stratz, Archiv f. Anth., Bd. 27, 1900, p. 122; G. Fritsch, Zt.f. Eth., 1898, heft 2, p. 142; Ploss, Das Weib, 1901, pp. 181-188; numerous illustrations are given). We may gain a somewhat deeper insight into the problems that are grouped around the pelvis if we ' Topinard, Anlh. Gen., pp. 1049-50. ^ The gradual evolution of the female pelvis and its departure from the male type is well shown by Dr. Garson's carefully prepared diagrams of the typical Andamanese and European pelves. (See accompanying figures.) They are constructed from the average dimensions of 13 Andamanese and 14 European female pelves. PELVIS. 63 consider it in relation to the spinal column, and more especially in relation to the various forces which influence or modify the adoption of the completely erect position. Verticality, as Delaunay pointed out,^ is in direct ratio with evolution and nutrition, while hori- zontality is in inverse ratio. The apes are but imperfect bipeds with tendencies to- wards the quadru- pedal attitude; the human infant is as imperfect a biped as the ape ; savage races do not stand so erect as civilised races. Country people (even apart, according to Delaunay, from agri- cultural labour) tend to bend forward, and ' See his interesting ob- servations on this subject, Etudes de Biologic Coin- farh, le P.irtie, 1878, pp. 47-52; also Dr. Frank Baker's remarkable presi- dential address to the Anthropological Section of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (1890) on the ascent of man to the erect position and the consequent modi- fications his body has under- JAVANLSli GIRL. {Stratz.) 64 MAN AND WOMAN. the aristocrat is more erect than the plebeian. In this respect women appear to be nearer to the infantile condition than men. " It has been observed among the natives of Ceylon," remarks Delaunay, " that the women are more curved forwards than the men. In our European societies it is easy to see that women generally do not hold themselves quite upright and walk with the body and head bent forward." The carriage of the human female to any careful observer has (except during pregnancy) a sinuous character and a forward tendril-like move- ment which is full of charm, and contrasts with the more proud and rigid, almost convex, carriage of the human male. The head tends to fall forward, and that this tendency is not due to training seems to be shown by the fact that it has an anatomical basis, as was pointed out by Cleland. From child- hood onwards the skull is slowly tilted more and more backwards in order to throw more and more of the weight behind. " The female skull," Cleland remarks, "is much less tilted back than the male, being in this, as in various other respects, more child-like than the male skull." ^ While the head is more tilted forward in women, the pelvis is also more tilted. This is due to partial arrest of an infantile character. The angle formed by the superior plane of the pelvis with the horizon when standing is about 7o°-^8o° in the infant, 50° — 55° in men, 55° — 60° in women. (Papillault's method of measure- ment gives a wider angle, but a similarly large sexual difference.) This inclination — which tends to efface the mons Veneris between the thighs and to give an abdominal curve often adopted by artists — better sup- ports the pelvic contents. In animals it appears there is also a sexual difference; thus in the horse the angle is said to be 110°, in the mare 120°. There is some reason to suppose that when the angle in women 1 Cleland, "The Variations of the Human Skull," PhilosofMcal Trans, of Roy. Soc, 1870. THE PELVIS. 65 is very little inclined (from 24" to 45°) there is a tendency to uterine prolapse. The racial differences are considerable; thus in Mexican women, whose pelvis is in many respects remarkable, the average inclination is from 61° to 65°.^ In harmony with this the anus appears to be rather farther back and nearer to the coccyx in women than in men; in the apes (and also to some extent in the child) there is a long distance between the tip of the coccyx and the anus (Cunning- ham). In certain African races, even (according to Delaunay) among the Moors, the vagina is often so far directed backwards as to render necessary the quadrupedal method of coitus. The older anthropologists used to judge of the inclination of the pelvis by the direction of the urinary stream in the female. A stream directed backwards is an animal-like character rarely found, even in the lower races; a forward direction of the stream indicates that the distinctively human upright position has reached a high degree of attainment. An anatomical explanation has sometimes been given {i.e., by Wernich in the case of Japanese women) for the primitive attitude of women during urination. This attitude, it may be necessary to remark, is for both sexes the opposite of the civilised; i.e., the men squat, the women stand. This was the custom even in ancient Egypt (according to Herodotus) ; it was also the custom in ancient Ireland (according to Giraldus Cam- brensis). It is to-day, or was until lately, the custom in large part of Australia (the ;«z/&a-operation here makes the sitting posture more convenient for men, but it would be hazardous to suggest that this operation was ever universal), in New Zealand, throughout North America— among the Apaches, in Colorado, in Nicaragua— and in Angola and some other parts of Africa. (Some of the evidence is given in Captain J. G. Bourke's Scatalogic Rites of all Nations, 1891, pp. 148-153.) To sit on the heels is for males the orthodox Mohammedan custom. There is no reason to suppose that anatomical considerations come in here to any marked extent; it is partly a psychological, partly a ritual matter, partly a question of clothing. In the case of Japanese women. Professor W. Anderson wrote to me, there is no reasonable ground for supposing any anatomical peculiarities, and he pointed out that the tight skirts of the ' Sappey; also H. Meyer, "Die Beckenneigung," Archivf. Anal., etc., l86l, p. 137; Felsenreich, "Beckenneigung," Wien. Med. Wochemchrift, 1893 ; De Yta, " Le Pelvis Mexicain," Atti dell xi. Congresso Medico (Rome, 1894), vol. v. p. 137 ; Papillault, " L'Homme Moyen k Paris," Bull. Soc. cCAnth., 1902. 5 66 MAN AND WOMAN. women make it difficult to raise them. Mr. Tregear, one of the chief authorities on the Maoris, and Secretary of the Polynesian Society, writes to me that at the present day it is invariably the rule for both sexes amongst the Maoris to squat, but that in old times the women stood, and he makes the important observation that the girdle or mat of most primitive races makes it easy (bearing in mind the sexual difference in the position of the organs) for the women, difficult for the men, to urinate in the standing position without exposure. Among most uncivilised races, it is a matter of religious ritual to avoid exposure of the sexual organs; the considerations of. hygiene which the men among the Maoris and other races bring forward to explain their practice of squatting is merely an after- thought ; the primary consideration is of a ritual character. The same consideration still prevailed when men (on account of the development of their garments, or for whatever reason) gave up the squatting position; and Hesiod recommends men to urinate before an object standing full before them, so that no divinity may be offended by their nakedness. ( Works and Days, 1. 727 et seq.j so also Pythagoras, Laert. VIII. i. 19.) This habit has become ingrained in civilised men unto the present day, although they have long ceased to consider how the gods view the matter. It is curious that as men began to develop this habit women seem nearly everywhere to have adopted the custom discarded by the men. Perhaps it was fostered by the general contrari- ness of men and women, which everywhere makes men unwiHTng to adopt women's ways and women unwilling to adopt men's; for it is only within comparatively recent times that the develop- ment of women's garments has offered much obstacle to the primitive custom. In any case there are now but few countries where the habit is for both sexes the same, and these countries seem to be in a transition state. In most countries the habits of the sexes in this matter are opposed, and as a general rule also the practice of the more civilised countries is the reverse of the primitive practice. So far as I am aware, the evolution of these customs has never been discussed, but they are as in- structive and as wide-reaching (also as complicated) as many more dignified problems in the origin of civilisation. The inclination of the pelvis is related to, though it is not identical with, the saddle back or lumbo-sacral curve which in its exaggerated pathological form is called lordosis. This is only slightly marked in the ape, and does not exist in the human embryo. It is one of the superior qualities of African races, and THE PELVIS. 67 appears to be increased by the muscular action of the back, as in rowing upright and in carrying children on the hips. It is always more pronounced in women than in men, as Duchenne first showed,! and is especially well marked in Spanish and Creole women, constituting the main anatomical basis to their beauty of carriage.^ Cunningham's lumbo- vertebral index shows the tendency to curvature; a high index indicates — though not invariably — a low curve, and a low index a high degree of curvature. In the chimpanzee the index is 117, in the Aus- tralian 108, in the male Andaman 106, in the female Andaman 105, in negroes Lumbar 105, in Europeans 96, in (21) Irish males 96.2, in (22) Irish females 93.5. (An index below 100 means that the anterior measurements of the lumbar vertebrae exceed the posterior.) So that curvature increases on the whole as we ascend the scale, and tends to be greater in women. Among North l"J}0rsal- H S «'3 ' Physiologic des Mouvsmsnts, 1867, pp. 726-734- " Art. " Ensellure,'' Did. des set, Anthrop. 68 MAN AND WOMAN. American Indians, who have a medium lumbar index, Dorsey has found that the sexual difference is marked and constant.^ Luschka, Balandin, Charpy, Ravenel, all consider that the lumbar curve is most marked in women. Charpy points out that the degree of the curve is in proportion to the inclination of the sacrum, and this is confirmed by Papillault, who points out that the prominence of the buttocks in relation with, this sacral obliquity is an index of functional utility. As sacral obliquity may be due either to an acute sacro-vertebral angle or to a pronounced lumbar curve, Papillault remarks that we have two different types which may possibly be of racial significance. In association with this greater curvature we find, if we compare the bony spinal column of man with that of woman, that the chief difference is the relatively greater length of the lumbar region in woman. In woman also the curve seems to begin higher and to attain its summit at a higher point. This is a character which in association with the greater relative size of the abdomen fits woman for her maternal function. While in women the lumbar region constitutes 32.8 per cent, of the entire column, in men it constitutes only 31.7 per cent.;^ and, on the other hand, the dorsal section of the column is 46.5 in men against 45.8 in women. The lumbar region of the column is thus not only longer in women than in men, but it is moulded on a different plan, being more arched and the vertebrae moulded more distinctly in adaptation to this arch. ' G. A. Dorsey, "The Lumbar Curve in some American Races," Bull. Essex Inst., vol. 27, 1895, Salem, Mass. 2 These are the figures given by Professor D. J: Cunningham, who has very carefully studied the relations of the spinal column in the Cunningham Memoirs of the Royal Irish Academy, No. 2, 1886, and in "The Lumbar Section of the Vertebral Cohxmn" Journal of Anal, and Phys., Oct. 1888. G. A. Dorsey, who has studied the lumbar index in American Indians {Bull. Essex Inst., Salem, Mass., vol. 27), finds it an important sexual distinction, as well as a test of racial superiority. THE PELVIS. 6g "All these distinctions," Cunningham believes, "may be accounted for by the different habits pursued by the two sexes. There is no part of the vertebral column which is more readily moulded by the func- tions that the spine has to perform, because it is that section of the column which works under the greatest degree of superincumbent pressure." Soularue, by the method of measuring the anterior face of each vertebra separately, found the same relatively greater length of the lumbar vertebras and ascertained that it applied also to the lower dorsal vertebras. The difference was almost equally great in Europeans, Mongols, American Indians, and Negroes. Soularue found that the sacrum is very slightly larger and also more curved in men; in Mongol and American Indian women, however, it was relatively larger in women.^ Rosenberg {Morphologisches Jahrbuch, 1876) from his re- searches into the development of the spinal column has come to the conclusion that it is shortening in Man. The ancestral form, he considers, had 25 movable vertebrse anterior to the sacrum; now there are 24; in the future there will be only 23. In this connection he points out that on the transverse process of the first lumbar vertebra of the foetus is found the cartila- ginous rudiment of a rib which subsequently disappears through its fusion with the transverse process, suggesting that the ancestral type was a condition now most frequently found in the gibbon, 13 ribs and 25 movable vertebras. This ancestral type is sometimes found in Man at the present day. Professor Ambrose Birmingham supports Rosenberg's view {Journal Anat. and PAys.,]uly 1891). Weidersheim, who also appears to support Rosenberg's view (Der Bau des Menschen, 1887), remarks that the spinal columns with the most reduced number of vertebras always occur in women, so that women in this respect would be leading the evolutionary movement, a sup- position in harmony with the higher morphological development of the pelvis in women. Rosenberg's view, however, is not universally accepted ; thus Professor Paterson (" The Human Sacrum," Proc. Roy. Soc, 18,92) does not accept it, on the ground that there is more often elongation than contraction of the region above the sacrum; but his facts and arguments, as contained in the abstract published by the Royal Society, do not clearly support his objection to Rosenberg's view, and he admits that a process of fusion is going on at the caudal end of the column. ' Soularue, "Etude des Proportions de la Colnnne Vertebrale chez I'homme et chez la femiiie," Bull, et Mem. Soc. d'Anth., I'aris, 1900. 70 MAN AND WOMAN. The question has since been discussed by Professor D. J. Cunningham, who disputes Paterson's views and leans towards Rosenberg's (" The Significance of Anatomical Variations," Brit. Med. Jour., loth Sept. 1898). He believes that the lumbo-sacral region of the spine, which is in a position of verykjnstable equi- librium,may exhibit both retrospective and prospective variations, and points out (asagainst Paterson) that statistics alone do not suf- fice to show the direction of the movement; a prospective or pro- phetic variation can at first make little way against the strong counter-current of normal and atavistic tendencies, so that a long period must elapse before it wins its way to a high place on the sta- tistical table. If we suppose, Cunningham argues, that man and the anthropoid apes have descended from a gibbon-like ancestor with at least 26 prassacral vertebra;, we find that man has 25, the gorilla and the chimpanzee 24, and the orang 23. The orang has thus travelled farthest on this line and reached its goal, for it exhibits comparatively few variations. Man and the gibbon are lagging behind, though they have made considerable progress along the same path. Cunningham adds, though not as an argument having any anatomical value, that the assriietic taste of man emphatically condemns a long trunk with short legs. ^ - \ If woman's body seems to be somewhat more reminiscent of the quadrupedal posture than man's, -she has excellent reason for it.. There can be little doubt that, as Dr. Baker shows, in both sexes all (sorts of pathological and unwholesome conditions ; have been encouraged or produced by the assumption ! of the erect posture; it is sufficient to mention hernia, stone, disease of the vermiform appendix of the intestine, varicose veins, exposure of the great arteries to injury, torpidity of gall-bladder, greater constric- tion of lungs and therefore inability to sustain prolonged and rapid muscular exertion, disorders of the liver from the difficulty of raising blood through the ascending vena cava, and the tendency to syncope. Women share these disabilities with men, but in addition they suffer other special disadvantages. The erect position has comparatively slight effect on man's sexual organs, beyond producing a pre- disposition to scrotal varicosity and greater exposure to injury; it tends very seriously to affect woman's THE PELVIS. 71 sexual organs, and enormously interferes with the maternal functions. " In the quadruped," as Dr. Baker remarks, "the act of parturition is compara- tively easy, the pelvis offering no serious hindrance. The shape of the female pelvis is therefore the result of a compromise between two forms — one for support, the other for ease in delivery. When we reflect that along with the acquirement of the erect position the size of the head of the child has gradually increased, thus forming still another obstacle to delivery and to the adaptation which might otherwise have taken place, we can realise how serious the struggle has been, and no longer wonder that deaths in childbirth are much more common in the higher races, and that woman in* her entire organisation shows signs of having suffered more than man in the upward struggle. In no other animal is there shown such a distinction between the pelvis of the male and that of the female — a distinction that increases as we ascend the scale. . . . The frequency of uterine displacements, almost ' unknown in the quadruped, has also been noted, and it is significant that one of the most effective postures [ for treating and restoring to place the disturbed organ 1 is the so-called ' knee-elbow position,' decidedly quad- rupedal in character." ^ We may say, indeed, that the adoption of the erect biped position has — to use the convenient teleological method of expression — placed Nature in an awkward dilemma. On the one hand, it is necessary for the stability of the body and the due support of the organs that the pelvis should be tough, that the bony girdle should be strong and hard, and the inner channel small. On the other hand, for the higher evolution of the race it is necessary for the bony girdle to be rendered somewhat less stable by the 1 The advantages of this posture in the treatment of the diseases of women have been summarised by Dr. Potter of Buffalo, who con- siders that its discovery by Marion Sims was "the turning-point in the history of gynecology." (" Posture in Obstetrics and Gynecology," Trans. Ant. Sue. of Obsiet. and Gynec, vol. v., 1893, pp. 99-102.) 7^ MAN And woman. increased size of the outlet which will permit the birth of large-headed children. The most delicate adjustment is required to prevent these directly opposite necessities from conflicting with each other.^ If we were born through the navel (as some of us supposed when we were children) the dilemma would not exist; but while such a method of par- turition would be in perfect harmony with the biped position, it would have been impracticable in the quadrupedal position. On the whole, as we know, while the adjustment is not absolutely perfect and we suffer from the disadvantages of the biped position, the demands of the higher evolution of the race have caused, and will no doubt continue to cause, an increased expansion and development of the pelvis, a movement in which women are the natural leaders. But the children always tend to be somewhat too developed for the gate by which they enter the world; this cunningly contrived girdle of bone is a force on the side of mediocrity, shutting out the highly developed from the chances of life, although it is a force which tends to become weaker, for the size of the head depends on both parents, and the women with small pelves tend to produce still- born children or weak children unlikely to survive, and so it is not easy for them to transmit their small pelves. In the higher evolution of the race the in- creased development of the head must always be accompanied by the increased development of the pelvis. A word may perhaps be said here on a point which has a connection with this question usually ignored. Many writers — ^ The difficulty of this adjustment is shown by the cases, occa- sionally occurring, of congenital diastasis of the symphysis pubis. In such cases there is increased pelvic elasticity, and the pelvic ring tends to gape at the pubis. The result is (as in a case recorded by Schauta, Centralbl. f. Gyn'ak., Aug. 1899) that labour is easy, quick, almost painless, and without bad results. But, on the other hand, additional care and artificial support are required during pregnancy. THE PELVIS. 73 I think especially of Strauss {The Old Faith and the New) and Renan (Introduction to translation oi Le Cantique des Cantiques) — have spoken in glowing terms of a future of humanity in which sensuality, by which they mean the sexual emotions, shall have almost disappeared, to give place to pure rationality. There is no foundation whatever for any such supposition. We do not know very much of the sexual emotions (as distinguished from sexual customs) among the lower races, but while their sexual practices are often very free, there is considerable evidence to show that their sexual instincts are not very intense. (See Havelock Ellis, Studies in the Psychology of Sex, vol. iii., Appendix A, in which information on this point is brought together.) It would probably be found that the higher races {i.e., those with the larger pelvis) have nearly always the strongest sexual impulses. As civilisation advances abnor- malities become more frequent, the individuals are multiplied, in whom the sexual impulse is weak or even non-existent. But these, even if healthy or highly intelligent individuals, are not the individuals who tend to propagate the race. The persons best adapted to propagate the race are those with the large pelves, and as the pelvis is the seat of the great centres of sexual emotion the development of the pelvis and its nervous and vascular supply involves the greater heightening of the sexual emotions. At the same time the greater activity of the cerebral centres enables them to subordinate and utilise to their own ends the increasingly active sexual emotions, so that re- productioij is checked and the balance to some extent restored. 74 CHAPTER V. THE HEAD. THE SKULL IN THE INFANT — CHIEF CAUSE OF SEXUAL DIFFERENCES IN SKULL EARLY OPINIONS THE THREE CHIEF SEXUAL DIFFERENCES IN SKULL- MINOR DIFFERENCES — THE CEPHALIC INDEX THE FACE — SEXUAL DIFFERENCES IN FACIAL DEVELOPMENT ' THE EYE — THE FACIAL ANGLE — THE LOWER JAW THE TEETH — CRANIAL CAPACITY — SEXUAL DIFFER- ENCES IN FRONTAL, PARIETAL, AND OCCIPITAL REGIONS OF SKULL MAN'S SKULL APPROACHES THE SENILE, woman's THE INFANTILE TYPE. THE BRAIN — DIFFERENCES IN BRAIN- WEIGHT AMONG THE INSANE — THE STANDARDS OF BRAIN-WEIGHT — HEIGHT AND WEIGHT FALLACIES WOMEN'S BRAINS PRO- PORTIONATELY LARGER THAN MEN's — ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF A LARGE BRAIN SEXUAL DIFFERENCES IN THE EVOLUTION OF THE BRAIN SEXUAL DIFFERENCES IN THE FRONTAL, PARIETAL, AND OCCIPITAL REGIONS OF BRAIN— BLOOD-SUPPLY OF BRAIN — THE CEREBELLUM AND OTHER CENTRES BELOW THE CEREBRUM — DEFINITE RESULTS OF STUDY OF SEXUAL DIFFERENCES IN THE BRAIN AT PRESENT SMALL. The study of the pelvis naturally brings us to the study of the head with which it is in such intimate relation. In studying the head we may first of all consider the skull, unimportant in itself as being merely the comparatively inert garment of the living brain, which to some extent it moulds, and by which. THE HEAD. 75 to a large extent, although not in detail, it is itself moulded; at the same time we will glance at the interesting but as yet not greatly cultivated study of the face; then we will turn to the brain, unquestion- ably an organ of the first importance as being a collection of the chief nervous centres which are probably more or less concerned in every process that goes on in the organism, but unfortunately an organ which does not easily lend itself to study. THE SKULL. If we take up the skull of an infant we find that it is very light and very smooth, with thin, trans- lucent walls delicately veined by the blood-vessels. The orbits appear large; the lower jaw is small and shallow, and its angles very wide; the face, taken altogether, is relatively small. The parietal bones are very large, forming the greater part of the roof and a large part of the walls of the skull, and each parietal bone presents a well-marked boss, the resultant of mixed compressive forces, which gives the impression that the skull is not yet fully ex- panded. The other bones are mostly in a very undeveloped condition, and their component parts are still incompletely welded together. The bony processes and corrugations, which afterwards give a foothold to powerful muscles to support or turn the head, can scarcely be traced at all. We notice, further, that the hole through which the spinal cord emerges to enter the spinal column is placed very far back, so that when supported at this point of junction between the head and the body the head tends to fall forwards. There would be no difficulty whatever in recog- nising an infantile skull even if it were magnified to adult proportions. But it is another matter when we turn from age distinctions to consider the sexual 76 MAN AND WOMAN. characters in an adult skull. Some investigators (like Aeby), though not in very recent days, have gone so far as to declare that there are no sexual differences in the skull except size. And most com- petent craniologists, like Virchow, one of the most distinguished, insist that, among non- European races, it is extremely difficult to determine the sex from the skull, as the criteria furnished by one race do not hold for other races, although among some savage races (as in New Britain) the sexual differences in the skull may be " colossal." When attempting to determine by inspection alone the sex of skulls of known origin, Mantegazza, an experienced anthro- pologist, found that his mistakes were from three to iive per cent. ; Rebentisch, a younger and less experi- enced observer, found that his errors were nine per cent. The skull is of incomparably less importance from this point of view than the pelvis. And although it is impossible to assert that differences between the skulls of men and of women are only those of size, it is extremely probable that, as Manouvrier argues, such sexual characters as may be found are due mainly to the differences in general physical propor- tion; that is to say, that they depend chiefly on the greater precocity of woman and her earlier arrest of growth. It need scarcely be added that to say that the sexual differences in the skull are largely the result of the general physical differences is not to say that they are of no significance. Jacobasus of Copenhagen, who in 1709 wrote a book De distinguendis Cadaveribus per Crania, showed that there were some sexual differences in the skull. Soemmering {De corporis humani fabrica, 1794) considered that the head was relatively rather larger in women. His pupil Ackermann discovered a number of precise differences which have since been credited to other anatomists. Bichat {Anaiomie descriptive, 1801) thought there was little sexual difference. Gall (Fonctions du Cenieau, 1822) stated that the anteio-posterior diameter is longer in women, and the other diameters shorter. These statements THE HEAD. >]'] are worth quoting as the opinions of the most distinguished authorities of their time, but they were not founded on extensive and accurate data. Barnard Davis and Thurnam {Crania Britannica, 1856-65) seem to have been the first to recognise the necessity of always separating the sexes in craniometrical tables. Dureau (" Des caract^res sexuels du cr4ne humain," Revue d'An/hropologie, 1873, t. ii. pp. 475-487) gave an excel- lent summary of the history and data of the subject up to that date; and Mantegazza ("Dei caratteri sessuali del cranio ^imano," Arch, per l'Ant?opologia, 1872, vol. ii. pp. 11 et seq.) gave a brief critical summary of the matter. The most im- portant recent studies are embodied in two inaugural disser- tations : E. Rebentisch (Strassburg), " Der Weiberschadel," Morphologische Arbeiten, ii. 2, 1893), and Paul Bartels (Berlin), Ueber Geschlechtsunierschiede am Schddel, 1897. For a good general account of the history of head-measurements see Marage, " Historique des Recherches sur la Ci^phalom^t'rie," L'Ann/e Psychologique, 5th year, 1899, pp. 245-298. And for a discussion of methods, Manouvrier, z^., pp. 558-591. Panichi has shown by his observations on the skulls of children at Florence that sexual differences begin to be visible at the age of six, and that most of the chief sexual distinctions are fairly well marked before the age of twelve.^ As to what the most constant sexual differences, taken comprehensively, are, it cannot be said that any two authorities are quite agreed, for each craniologist has his own preferences, and we have to bear in mind that sometimes a skull may be masculine in some of its characters, feminine in others; while a man's skull may approach a woman's in character, or (more frequently, in Mante- gazza's experience) a woman's skull may resemble a man's. There is no one constant sexual character in the skull, but there are a few characters which, when taken together, unmistakably indicate its sex. I will briefly state these, following, so far as possible, the opinions of four anthropologists belonging to different countries — Broca in France, Schaaffhausen in Germany, Mantegazza in Italy, and Turner in ' R. Panichi, "Ricerchedicraniologiasessuale,"^n'A. /«r /"^M/rtf/., 1892, Fasc. i. 78 MAN AND WOMAN. Great Britain.^ (i.) Perhaps the most conspicous and distinctive of all the characteristics of the male human skull is the prominence of the glabella (or bony projection over the nose) and of the supraciliary ridges; that is to say, that men have overhanging brows which are little marked in women, while they do not exist in children ; they develop at puberty and TYPICAL MALE SKULL {Potrier). increase with age, and form a distinctly retrogressive character, being exaggerated in many lower races and to an extreme extent in the anthropoid apes. Associated with these bony prominences in men are ^ Broca, Instructions craniologiques et craniom'eiriques ; Schaaff- hausen, " Ueber die heutige Schadellehre," CorrespondenzblcUt deutsch. Gesell. AnthroJ)., 1889, p. 165; Mantegazza, "Dei caratt. sess. del cranio," Arch, per PAntrop., vol. ii. p. 14; Sir W. Turner, "Report on the Human Crania," Challenger Reports, Zoology, vol. x. THE HEAD. 7g large frontal air-sinuses which in women are much smaller.! (2.) In women certain bosses which are prominent in children have usually persisted to a more marked extent than in men; these are the parietal bosses at the outer and upper part of the back of the head and the frontal bosses half-way up the forehead over the eyes; in men these present the appearance of having been largely obliterated by TYPICAL FEMALE SKULL (Poirier). the expansion of the skull. (3.) All the muscular prominences are better marked in men, and the bones of the skull generally are thicker and stronger; thus the inion (the small occipital protuberance at the back of the head) is nearly always larger in men, ' The frontal sinuses have been studied by Professor S. Bianchi, of Siena, " I seni frontah e le arcate sopraccigliari," Aich. per I'Anirop., 1892, Fasc. 2. 80 MAN AND WOMAN. as are the mastoid processes beneath the ear, which in children are very small. The ridges on the skull for the attachment of muscles are also more marked in men. With regard to these three points it may be confidently said that there is very general agreement among anatomists. There are other sexual distinc- tions which seem to be fairly well marked but which are less obvious : thus in women the top of the head appears to be flatter, and at a more marked angle with the straight forehead, while in men the curve from before backwards is more smooth and even — a distinction insisted upon by Ecker and Mantegazza, and recognised by the Greek sculptors; women's skulls, also, in most races, are relatively shallower than those of men, in dependence on the greater flat- ness of the head; in women, again, while the base of the skull is usually smaller than in men, the arch of the skull, measured from the base of the nose to the occipital foramen, is often as large as in men. These characters have not the same definiteness or constancy as the three characters first mentioned. The lowness of the female skull, which is accepted by Welcker, Weisbach, Ecker, Cleland, and Benedikt, seems to be due to the persistence in women of the infantile character of flatness of the roof; at birth the male and female skulls are of equal height, but the female skull in its adult shape lacks the final increments of height gained by the male. There are, however, many races among whom the skull is not lower in women than in men: such are the stone-age folk of the Homme-Mort Cavern (Broca), Auvergnats (Broca), New Caledonians (Broca), Negroes (Davis and Broca), Crania Helvetica (von Holder), Corsicans (Broca), Ancient Romans (Davis and Thurnam), Irish (Davis), Anglo- Saxons (Davis and Thurnam). The relation of the arch of the skull to its base (the direct line between the two ends of the arch) has been worked out for various races by Cleland in his interesting paper on "The Variations of the Human Skull," in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Soc, 1870. In infancy and childhood the base is very small compared to the arch; in women the base is almost always short, while the extent of the arch is in some instances as great as in the male. Comparing races, the Irish have the largest proportion of arch to base, the Chinese next. The short base line of women is therefore an infantile character, THE HEAD. 8l but on the other hand the longer base line of man is a savage character. "The most striking and altogether remarkable fact," as Cleland points out, "is that in uncivilised nations, while the length of the arch is very variable, the length of the base line is always great." Here, as is so often found, the infantile condition indicates the direction of evolution. Cephalic Index. — A very great amount of study has been expended on the cephahc index, especially in regard to race and to sex. In regard to race, the great value of this index is unquestioned ;i in regard to sex, although the assertions of craniologists have been equally emphatic in opposite directions, its value is by no means so clear. This index, which was devised many years ago by Retzius and per- fected by Broca, shows the relation of the breadth of the skull to its length ; it is ascertained by multiplying the maximum transverse diameter by loo, and dividing the result by the maximum antero- posterior diameter, certain precautions being observed in taking the measurements. A head or a skull of which the cephalic index is from 70 to 74 is (accord- ing to the international agreement of Frankfort, usually, accepted in England) called dolichocephalic; from 75 to 79 it is called mesaticephalic ; from 80 to 84 brachycephalic; below 70 it is hyperdolicho- cephalic; and above 84 it is hyperbrachycephalic. Therefore, the more an individual is relatively broad- headed the higher is his cephalic index, and long- headed persons have a low cephalic index. While some anthropologists (like Deniker in his Races of Man), realising that the differences are in any case slight, are content with the conclusion that there are no important sexual differences in this respect, a large number of other distinguished anthropologists — De Quatrefages, Welcker, Broca, Calori — assert that in Europe women are more dolichocephalic than men, ' Sergi (Specie e Varieth Umane, 1900, and Mediterranean Race, igoi) has shown the importance of studying the skull by a zoological method based on form, but the cephalic index, when used with discre- tion, still retains much value. 6 82 MAN AND WOMAN. that is to say, that women's heads tend to be rather longer or not so broad. But, on the other hand, other eminent anthropologists — Weisbach, Mantegazza, Hamy, Topinard — find that women are more brachy- cephalic than men. Crochley Clapham gives the measurements of nearly 2000 insane men and about the same number of insane women at Wakefield asylum;^ he also examined a much smaller number of normal men and women ; calculating the cephalic index from the figures given by Clapham, I find that for insane males it is 80.3, for insane females 80.1, for sane males 81.2, for sane females 80.5; that is to say, that the sane are slightly more brachycephalic than the insane, and the men very slightly more brachycephalic than the women. If we turn to consider the cephalic index among human races generally, the discrepancy continues equally great. Among the following the men are more brachycephalic than the women: — Parisians anterior to nineteenth century (Topinard), Auvergnats (Broca), Troglodytes of Lozere (Broca), Papuans of New Guinea (Mantegazza), Admiralty Islanders (Turner), Italians of Bologna (Calori), Flemish (Houz6), Annamites (Mondiere), Polynesians (Clavel), Letts (Woeber), Lapps, both Norwegian and Russian (Mantegazza, Kharouzine, Deniker), Ancient Britons (Davis), Bas Bretons (Broca), Alsatians (Schwalbe, Pfitzner), English (Davis), Ancient Romans (Davis), Basques (Broca), Modern Asiatic Greeks (Neophytos), Hindus (Davis), Greenlanders (Davis). Among the following, on the other hand, the women are more brachycephalic: — Berbers of Biskra (Topinard), Neolithic men of the Marne (Broca), Californians of Santa-Barbara (Carr.), Italians of Bologna (Mante- gazza), Andamanese (Flower), Negroes (Broca, Huschke, and Davis), Tahitians (Deniker and Laloy), Australians (Flower, Krause, Duckworth), Papuans ' Art. " Head, Size and Shape of," in Did. of Psychological Medicine. THE HEAD. 83 of Loyalty Islands {Crania Ethnica), Russian Mord- wins (Deniker), Tyrolese (Tappeiner), Italians of Romagna (Vitali), Spaniards (Aranzadi), Portuguese (Macedo), Faroe Islanders (Arbo), Omahas (Manouv- rier), New Caledonians {Crania Ethnica), Russians (Elkind), Ainos (Koganei, Kopernicki, Tarentzky), Veddahs (Thomson), Finns (Retzius), Sardinians (d'Hercourt), Swiss (His), Irish (Davis), French (Sappey), Danish (Davis), Germans (Krause, Daffner), Guanches (Broca), Chinese (Davis), Czechs (very slightly, Matiegka).! From these mixed and not always reliable data it is obvious, however, that no definite conclusion may be drawn, except that we note that while the first list contains a very large proportion of white races, the second contains a very large proportion of dark races. Among savage and dark races generally dolichocephaly prevails; among the prehistoric races of Europe dolichocephaly prevailed to a greater extent than in the Europe of to-day, and the predominance of the brachycephalic is still in- creasing ;2 the higher age of the dolichocephalic races is suggested (as Virchow remarks) by the existence at both ends of the long continents of dolichocephalic races whose great age we must recognise;* the brains of brachycephalic men are decidedly larger than those of dolichocephalic men, as Calori has shown;* among the criminal, insane, and degenerate generally, while marked brachycephaly is sometimes found, dolichocephaly prevails to a greater extent ' Topinard, Anthrop. Gin., pp. 376, 377; Morselli, Arch, per VAntrop., vol. v., and various other sources. "^ Topinard, V Homme dans la Nature, 1891, p. i6l. ^ R. Virchow, Crania Ethnica Americana, 1892. * Topinard, Anthrop. Gin., p. 568. Tappeiner (Z/. / Eth., 1899, heft 5, p. 203) has found that even among a very brachycephalic people like the Tyrolese the more brachycephalic skulls tend to have the greatest cranial capacity, but as regards the extreme (ultra) brachy- cephalic group he found that this no longer held good. Bolk in Holland found the mesocephalic skulls the most capacious, but the brachy- cephals were superior to the dolichocephals ; and Ammon {Int. Ctbll. Anth., 1902, heft I, p. 8) states that his results do not really contra- dict Bolk's. 84 MAN AND WOMAN. and in a greater degree;^ finally, some observers (Pruner Bey and Durand de Gros) found that brachy- cephaly tends to -be associated with large pelves in women.^ The differences are often very small, but even in these cases they are sometimes so persistent or harmonious that hesitation is necessary in rejecting them ; slight difference with harmonious arrangement was found to be the case among the Alsatians by Pfitzner, and in Spain Aranzadi found that in eight different groups belonging to eight different provinces the women were slightly, but in every case distinctly, more brachycephalic than the men. It must be added that the various series of measure- ments of the head of which the results have been briefly given are of very unequal value; they have been made by a variety of individuals and sometimes on very small series of subjects. It was the opinio« of Broca, the greatest of French anthropologists — an opinion founded on extensive experience — that among the dark races women are more brachycephalic than men, although he found them less so among the existing races of Western France.^ Virchow, the greatest of German anthropologists, in a study of the skulls of the aborigines on the west coast of America, found the women much more brachy- cephalic than the men; dolichocephaly and hyper- dolichocephaly he found chiefly, and the latter almost exclusively, among men.* It.is doubtful whether we can say that on the whole the course of evolution is from the dolichocephalic to the brachycephalic. As Bischoff's investigations showed, we may most properly regard the anthropoid ^ See, for instance, M. Benedikt, Kraniometrie und Kepkalomelrie, Vienna, 1888, p. 23; also Clapham, Art. "Head, Size and Shape of," DM. Psych. Med. ^ Delaunay, Bull. Soc. d' Anfhropohgie, Paris, 5 Mars 1S85. ^ Revue d'Anthropologie, t. ii. p. 28. * R Virchow, " Beitriige zur Craniologie der Tnsulaner von der Westkiiite Nordamerikas," Zeitschrift fiirEih,, 1889, heft S- THE HEAD. 85 apes as markedly brachycephalic ; moreover, they are most so in early life, and the orang, which may prob- ably be regarded as the anthropoid with the best developed brain, is the most brachycephalic. In the human species the new-born infant tends to be somewhat dolichocephalic but quickly reaches the maximum brachycephaly. Children nearly everywhere are more brachy- cephalic than adults; this occurs in dolichocephalic as well as brachycephalic races, and (as Danielli found among the Nias of Sumatra) when the mother is more dolichocephalic than the father. Thus, for example, Skoff found that for Russians the cephalic index presents its maximum in childhood and diminishes with age, so that skull-growth is more especially in the antero-posterior direction; in adult Russian skulls Popow has found little difference in cephalic index. It is worth noting that in early life, on the whole, at all events among Europeans, girls are decidedly more brachycephalic than boys. Thus Mantegazza found by measuring nearly loo boys and over loo girls between the ages of 4 and 14, belonging to the poorer classes at Bologna, that while the average cephalic index in the boys was only 79.10, in the girls it was as high as 83.35;^ it may be added that the index of the girls is almost the same as that of adult Bolognese men (as ascer- tained by Calori), the women being rather lower. It is noteworthy that while Clapham found the average cephalic index of his insane men to a small fractional extent greater than that of the women, below the age of twenty the index of the women was markedly higher (82.9 against 78.6), and this difference was chiefly due to defective antero-posterior development in the girls. Gerald West, who has measured over 3000 children between the ages of four and twenty- one in the schools of Worcester, U.S.A., finds that ^ Mantegazza, " Studii cli Craniologia sessuale," Arch, per VAnlrop., vol. ■!. 00 MAN AND WOMAN. the maximum width of head is reached earlier in girls than in boys ; that the index of girls' during the period of growth is on the whole higher than that of boys; and that while the final index for girls is nearly the same as that reached at five years of age, the final index for boys is ij per cent, below that attained at five years of age.^ In line with these inquiries we may probably place the investigations of Conner who found by the examination of lOO infants at birth that the cephalic index of the child at this period tended to be nearer to that of the mother than to that of the father; while 25 per cent, of the infants' heads fell into the same index group as the mothers', only 18 per cent, fell into the same index group as the fathers'; so that the mothers' heads were somewhat more infantile than the fathers'.^ As regards English children, Macalister finds that the change from brachycephalism to mesaticephalism takes place shortly after the completion of the first dentition. It is through such investigations that we may hope to learn more than we know at present concerning the significance of the cephalic index. It will be observed that the youthful brachycephaly of women is owing less to excessive breadth than to defective length of the skull. This late antero-posterior growth is due, not so much to brain development as to the expansion of the air-sinuses in the frontal bone, which in childhood scarcely exist. We have already seen that the races in which the women are > G. West, "The Growth of the Body, Head, and Face," Science, 6th Jan. iSgj. ^ Conner, " Ueber Vererburg der Form und Grosse des Schadels,'' Z(. f. Geburlsk. u. Gynak, 1895. The special characters of the f«!tal skull have been studied by Sergi (Rivista di Scienze Biologichi, vol. ii., 1900), who finds that the characteristic shape of the foetal skull is pentagonal, this being due to the prominence of the centres of ossification, and that the presence of this shape in adult life, instead of the more usual ellipsoid or ovoid, indicates the persistence of a foetal character. THE HEAD. 87 more brachycephalic outnumber those in which the women are more dolichocephalic than the men. The opinion may be hazarded that if any further sexual difference is ultimately found it will be in favour, on the whole, of the somewhat greater brachycephaly of women among the darker and more primitive races, and a possibly greater tend- ency to dolichocephaly among the fair and civilised European races.i It is not difficult to understand why this should be so when we remember that the child is brachy- cephalic, and that while women approximate to the child-type more closely than do men, the anatomical tendency of civilisation is also to a nearer approxima- tion to the child-type than commonly prevails among savages. The Face. — It will be convenient here to considet briefly the general structure of the face. Speaking of the face generally, it must be said that its evo- lutional tendency is to become smaller while the skull becomes larger; the apes, as is specially obvious in the gorilla, have enormous faces com- pared to their small skulls; the human face, com- paratively, is small; and woman's face compared to her relatively large head is usually stated to be smaller than man's; so that, as Soemmering pointed out a century ago, while man is in this respect higher than the apes, woman is higher than man. The evolution of the face from childhood to adult life has at present attracted singularly little attention, although it is full of interest. The only investigation with which I am acquainted, on a sufficiently large ' This conclusion is confirmed by the data more recently brought together from scattered sources by Karl Pearson [Chances of Death, vol. i. pp. 349 ei seq.]. If we divide the series brought forward by }'earson into two groups, one in which the women are more dolicho- cephalic, and the other in which the women are more brachycephalic, than the men, we find that the first group consists almost exclusively of civilised races, while all the very primitive races are included in the second group, which also includes various civilised peoples. 88 MAN AND WOMAN. number of subjects, is that carried on at Worcester, U.S.A., by Professor West of Cambridge, Mass., on 3250 individuals between the ages of five and twenty-one.' There seems to be a certain amount of parallelism between face-growth and stature- growth, both in the tendency to periods of retarda- tion of growth, in the temporary relative predomi- nance of girls at puberty, and the more continued growth in men. The evidence points to the exist- ence of three periods of growth, the first ending at about the seventh year, while the third begins at about the age of fifteen. Between the ages of eleven and thirteen girls approach boys in the diameter of the head, while in the diameter of the face at the age of twelve girls seem quite to reach boys. " In proportion to the length of head," West remarks, "the width of head and width of face of girls are generally greater than those of boys, and in propor- tion to the width of head the width of face is also greater in girls than in boys." It was found that while the face in girls ceases to grow at the age of seventeen, in boys it is still growing at eighteen, and probably continues to grow afterwards. These results seem to show that women's faces may be relatively broader than those of men, though at the same time, in accordance also with the impression gained by observation, and, indeed, with the result obtained by Kollmann's facial index, they are relatively short, as in children. These results are confirmed by Pfitzner's observations on a very large number of adult subjects in the Anatomical Institute at Strassburg ; he found that the face in women is relatively broader and shorter, these characteristics leading to a greater conservation of the infantile type. Pfitzner found the sexual differences in the length-breadth index of the face very constant, regular and marked when compared with the trifling sexual differences in the 1 "The Growth of the Face," Science, 3rd July 1891 ; "The Growth of the Body, Head, and Face," Science, 6th Jan. 1893. THE HEAD. 89 length-breadth index of the head.^ As the lower part of the face with the lower jaw is less developed in women than in men, the upper part with the orbits forms a relatively larger part of the face (as Huschke remarked) and tends to appear larger than it actually is, an appearance which is probably still further emphasised by a frequently rounder or more oval shape of the orbit in women, and perhaps a really relatively greater height of the orbit. The real difference is less than it appears. Paul Bartels found that, except among Malays and Singhalese, it is not absolutely greater in women, but, in agreement with Welcker, Weisbach, Ecker, and Rebentisch, finds that it is relatively larger. Zeiler,^ on the other hand, finds that the capacity of the orbit is, rela- tively as well as absolutely, less in the females both of apes and the human species. Relatively, he con- cludes, it is much greater in apes than in men, and there is an increase with age which is specially marked in the case of apes. It must be added that Topinard's fronto-zygomatic index shows the relatively greater breadth of the face as compared to the breadth at the temples; the higher this index the broader the temples or the narrower the face, so that the highest indices are found in hydrocephalic heads; the index is higher in children than in adults, and is invariably higher in women than in men.^ On casual inspection women's eyes seem to be generally larger and more prominent than men's. This effect is for the most part apparent only, and is due to a large extent to the over-arching of the bony ridges above the eyes in men. The races in whom this distinctively masculine character is defi- ' W. Piitzner, " Ein Beitrag ziir Kenntniss der sekundaren Gesch- lechtsunterschiede beim Menschen," Morphologische Arheiten, Bd. vii., heft 2, 1896; ib., Zt.f. Morph., Ed. iii., heft 3, 1901, pp. 524, 573. ^ J. Zeiler, Beitrage zur Anth. der Augenhohle, Inaug. Diss., 1899; I have not been able to see this pamphlet. ' Topinard, Anthrop. Gin., p. 936. go MAN AND WOMAN. cient have an infantile or feminine appearance. The eye itself, according to Priestley Smith, is at all ages very slightly larger in the horizontal diameter in men than in women, but the difference is extremely small, only about .1 mill. The Facial Angle. — This angle, which, speaking roughly, indicates the amount of protrusion of the upper jaw, has not — in the general neglect of the face in favour of that portion of the skull in con- tact with the brain — led to the general recognition of any sexual distinctions. This is very largely due to the very various ways in which craniologists have determined it. As, however, defined by certain in- vestigators, the facial index has some importance and has led to fairly clear results. Welcker (followed by a large number of craniologists) measured the facial angle by the degree of projection of the spine of the nose at its base as compared to the root of the nose. This index, in the hands of most observers, shows women to be more prognathous than men. Thus Benedikt, investigating this angle, found prognathism more marked in infants than in adults, and that while prognathism decreased with age (instead of, as among the lower animals, increasing with age) women remained slightly more prognathous than men, usually about half a degree.^ Topinard considers that the most important of all the facial indices for indicating morphological rank is the alveolar-sub-nasal index, which m a somewhat different way also indicates the degree of protru- sion of the upper jaw. The investigation of this index shows that prognathism is very much greater among lower than among higher races. Among Hottentots, for example, it is nearly 50; among English, French, and Germans, it oscillates around 20, while Mongols and Polynesians come midway. In every large Indo-European series women are more prognathous than men. Among ^ Benedikt, Kraniomctrie tiiul Kephalometrie, 18S8, p. 31. THET' HEAD. gi Parisians, for example, from the twelfth to the nineteenth centuries, among Bretons, Auvergnats, Basques, Corsicans, as well as among ancient Egyptians and Javanese, women are markedly, and to a very considerable degree, more prognathous than men. But it is a curious fact that this is not so among the darker races in a lower stage of civilisation, nor does it appear to be so among the Chinese; among African negroes, Nubians and Bushmen, the women are markedly less prognathous than the men.^ Women thus possess on the whole, at all events among European races, a tendency to alveolar prognathism. This, although a savage character, is far from being a defect; it frequently imparts, as Virchow remarks, a certain piquancy to a woman's face. Perhaps the naive forward move- ment of slight prognathism in a woman suggests a face upturned to kiss; but in any case there is no doubt that while not a characteristic of high evolution it is distinctly charming. When we investigate other forms of the facial angle, more especially those which show the projection of the upper part of the jaw in relation to the forehead, it is usually found that women are, if anything, less prognathous than men. These are, however, less characteristic and important varieties of the facial angle. It is possible to estimate the total prog- nathism of the face by taking the profile as a whole, with the inclusion of the lower jaw, and to measure the projection of the angle where the teeth meet. This is measured by Camper's maxillary angle (quite distinct from Camper's facial angle), which takes as its apex the junction of the teeth, while the base is at the forehead and at the point of the chin. Topinard attaches great importance to this angle, almost as much importance indeed as to the 1 P-. Topinard, " Du Prognathistne,'' Revue d'Anth., 1872, p. 628; and 1873, pp. 71 and 251; Manouvrier, V Annie Psych., Sthyear, 1S99, p. 582. 92 MAN AND WOMAN. mass of the brain or to the biped attitude, because it enables us to arrange many zoological species in their order of morphological evolution, as well as to classify the individuals within a species. The larger the maxillary angle the higher the degree of evolution. It is found that in women, both among the higher and the lower races, the maxillary angle is always markedly smaller than in men. The angle formed, therefore, by the whole face, supports the conclusion reached by the investigation of the alveolar region of the upper jaw, that women are somewhat more prognathous than men. While prognathism of the lower part of the upper jaw must be regarded as a reminiscence of a more primitive age, the protrusion of the lower part of the lower jaw is a distinctively human character which is most marked in the highest European races. A receding chin is a character of degeneracy and animality. In women the chin is usually less pro- minent. In women also, as in children, the angles of the jaw are decidedly large. On the other hand, women show a higher degree of evolution than men, and at the same time approach the infantile type, by the relatively smaller weight of their jaws, as has been shown by Bertillon, Morselli, Orchanski, and others. The lower human races, as well as apes, have relatively larger lower jaws, and the same tendency has often been found among criminals; but while woman's skull is to man's as 85 to 100, woman's jaw is to man's as only 79 to loo.^ The Teeth.— It is rather surprising that very little attention has been given to the anthropological exam- ination of the teeth among European races, although it is a promising field and one where examination is comparatively easy. A few anthropologists, Schaaff- ' E. Morselli, " Sul Peso del Cranio e della Mandibula in Rapporlo col Sesso," Arch, per I'Antrop., 1876; Rebentisch (op. cit., pp. 33-39) regards this as the most important of sexual distinctions ; cf. I'aul Bartels {op. cit., pp. 22-43). THE HEAD. 93 ha'usen and Flower for example, have reached interesting results, but dental surgeons, so far as I have been able to elicit by inquiries of some of the heads of the profession, have added little to our knowledge of sexual diiferences. Gorham, who weighed several thousand teeth, says nothing what- ever as to differences according to sex.^ Among the lower as compared to the higher human races it is generally agreed that the teeth are larger and more regularly arranged, that the wisdom teeth resemble the other molars and are less cramped and not so frequently absent, while the dental arch is squarer and not so rounded as in the more civilised races.^ There is also no doubt that among primitive races, whether of earlier or our own times, the upper jaw and palate exhibit fewer irregularities and malfor- mations, being usually extremely well formed and developed; it would also appear that among the higher and middle classes irregularities are of more frequent occurrence than among the working classes. A powerful jaw, and perhaps also various mental qualities correlated with such a jaw, are of less primary importance under the conditions of civilised than of savage and barbarous life. The tendency of civilisation is to decrease the number and size of the teeth, and to decrease the size, and often to deform the bony cavity, of the mouth.^ As the lower jaw is in women markedly smaller than in men, while the teeth show no corresponding reduction, we should expect disturbances of develop- ment to occur with special frequency in women. This seems to be the case. That the jaws of women have a marked tendency to be defective in size and conse- quently to cramp the teeth, there is much evidence to show. Mr. C. S. Tomes, F.R.S., writes in a private letter : " Speaking from a general impression, ^ Med. Times, gth January, 1875. 2 C. S. Tomes, Manual of Dental Anatomy, i8Sq, p. 459. ^ See, for instance, Oakley Coles, Deformities of the Mouth, p. 34. 94 MAN AND WOMAN. which, as you know, is nearly valueless in such a matter, I should say that contracted dental arches necessitating the extraction of teeth for space are commoner in female than in male children." An examination of the various tables appended to the fourth edition (igoi) of Talbot's very interesting and instructive work, The Irregularities of the Teeth, seems to show that on the whole abnormalities of the jaw, more especially a tendency to the V-shaped arch, are especially frequent in women. Magitot has found by an examination of the wisdom teeth in 241 men and 259 women that they are more precocious in women than in men in France, the maximum number appearing at 22 years, in men at 23 years, — although at 25 years there happened to be 10 women to 6 men.^ Galippe found the density of the teeth to be slightly greater in men than in women ; but if we examine the data which have been accumulated during recent years as to the incidence of caries, there are no marked sexual differences. In some countries one sex seems more liable to caries than the other, but on the whole the incidence is equal.^ We owe to Professor Flower a dental index which is constructed by multiplying the dental length by 100, and dividing by the basio-nasal length (or length from the naso-frontal suture to the edge of the foramen magnum). He finds that the white races are microdont (possessing, that is, small teeth and a small dental index) ; the yellow races are mesodont ; the black races megadont, with large teeth and a large dental index, while among the anthropoid apes the dental indices are still larger. Among the apes the dental index among females is always ' Bull. Soc. d' Anthropologie de Paris, 20 Fev. 1879. ** A summary of the observations so far made will be found in Lipschitz, " Cariesfrequenz bei Schulkindern," Comptes Rendus Xli. Int. Con/;. Med. (Moscow, 1897), vol. v. p. 6. For Report of Com- mittee of British Dental Association, see Brit. Med. jour., 21 July 1900. THE HEAD. g5 greater than among males. A similar sexual differ- ence is seen in the human species, the teeth in women more nearly retaining their size while the cranium with the body generally is less. The differ- ence is, however, slight among European races. Schaaffhausen has shown that the two upper middle front or incisor teeth are in women and girls not only relatively but absolutel}' larger than in men and boys of the same age. Comparing 50 girls to 50 boys of the ages of 12 to 15, he found that the average breadth of the teeth in question was as 1.33 in girls to i in boys. . Among 12 men belonging to Zandvoort, in Holland, he found an average breadth of 8.3, while 12 women gave a breadth of 8.8. In some women the teeth in question are conspicuously large.^ We see therefore that while the jaws of women may in civilised races tend to be unduly small, there is good reason to believe that their teeth have remained relatively and even absolutely larger than those of men. Schaaffhausen's con- clusions were criticised by Parreidt, who measured the incisor teeth of 100 men and 100 women at Leipzig, and found that at most decades of life the central incisors of men were absolutely larger than those of women, but he ultimately agreed that they were relatively larger. Paul Bartels also measured the teeth in over 60 skulls, and reached the same results as Parreidt.^ Max Bartels, it may be added, comes to the conclusion that this sexual distinction is world-wide, and gives many photo- graphs in evidence. Stratz associates the large incisors with the relatively broader face in women, and regards -them as a mark of feminine beauty. It is probable, however, that in the lowest human races the sexual difference is less, both men and women possessing large middle incisors; this has ' Ploss and Max Bartels, Das Weib, 7th ed., 1901, Bd. i. p. 15. ^ Paul Bartels, Ueber Geschlechtsunlerschiede am Schadel, pp. 36-41; he gives a good account of the whole controversy. gS MAN AND WOMAN. been noted to be the case among the Australians by Professor Klaatsch.^ In considering the lower part of the face in the two sexes we thus see that there are very notable differences, in fact consti- tuting secondary sexual distinctions of the first order. In men the jaws develop to a much greater extent, are furnished with more powerful muscles, and become the seat of prominent hairy appendages. In women, though the incisor teeth at all events remain large, this region generally remains softer, more rounded, smaller, altogether markedly less developed, this difference extending from the external ears to the larynx. This region is in women both more infantile and more primitive, while at the same time revealing less animality and higher racial though not individual evolution. These distinctions, while of importance as secondary sexual character, may also possess a significance of quite anothet order, and Woods Hutchinson has ingeniously suggested that they may help to account for the varying sexual incidence of cancer. It is well known that the two organs most affected by cancer are the breast and the womb. When we leave these two feminine sexual glands out of account it is found that cancer is somewhat more prevalent in men, and the region common to both sexes in which it most markedly pre- vails in men is precisely the district around the mouth. Cancer of the ear, larynx, parotid, mouth, pharynx, throat, oesophagus, neck, and jaws is in nearly every case twice as frequent in men as in women, and on the whole nearly three times as frequent as in women (see e.g., G, B. Longstaff, "Etiology of Cancer," Brit. Med. Jour., 21 Sept. 1901). Now all these organs are closely connected with the mouth, and it is usual to put forward the idea that the greater frequency of cancer here in men is due to smoking. This explanation, common as it is, seems rather far-fetched. Woods Hutchinson points out (.S'/wa'zVjzw //z^;«a« and Comparative Pathology, 1901, p. 268) that cancer tends to appear in those organs in which function is decaying, while the vitality of the rest of the body is well maintained. This is con- spicuously the case as regards the breast and womb. But it is also the case. Woods Hutchinson observes, with regard to the highly developed masculine mouth-region. After the age of fifty senile regressive changes here begin to take place towards the infantile condition, and relatively these changes are much greater in men, because in women this region already approxi- mates to the infantile type. The liabihty of this region to cancer in men would thus be a phenomenon of degeneration in a highly developed region of sexual significance, strictly compar- able to the liability of the womb and breast to cancer. 1 Zt.f. Eth., 1901, heft 3, p. 137. THE HEAD. 97 Cranial Capacity. — A considerable amount of atten- tion has been given to the question of sexual differ- ences in cranial capacity, but the results have been small. In nearly every large series of skulls, ancient or modern, savage or civilised, the cranial capacity is found to be considerably greater in men than in women. But when we consider that the body- weight is also considerably greater in men this result is not surprising, and while some anthropologists have asserted that the cranial capacity of men is relatively somewhat greater than that of women, others have been at least equally justified in deciding that the cranial capacity of women is relatively greater than that of men. At the best, cranial capacity is not an exact indication of brain size; and to measure brain size by the external size of the skull furnishes still rougher and more fallacious approximations, since the male skull is more massive than the female.^ A point of some interest, which was noted long ago by Retzius,^ and has since often been raised, is the relative sexual difference in the higher and in the lower races; it is a question whether in the higher races there are not greater sexual differences than in the lower races. I have prepared the following table bearing on this point, using many of the figures obtained by Weisbach, and also working out the proportions given by Topinard, Flower's as harmon- ised by Topinard, .and adding others from different ' It is worth noting that woman's skull constitutes a larger part of the total bony skeleton than man's. Thus Manouvrier's cranio-femoral index gives the relation of the weight of the thigh-bones to that of the skull, the latter equalling loo. Most women (83 per cent.) have heavier skulls than thigh-bones; in most men (81 per cent.) the thigh- hones are heavier. From this point of view the relative size of the skull diminishes in the following order : child, woman, short man, tall man, ape. ^ Muller's Archi-u fiir Ana^., 1845, p. 89; and see RoUeston's Presidential Address to Anthropological Section Brit. Association, 1875; also Le Bon, Kevtte cTAnih., 1879, p. 56. Huschke in 1854, Vogt and Welcker a few years later, pointed out the tendency to greater sexual differentiation of the skull among civilised peoples. 7 98 MAN AND WOMAN. sources.! The figures give the average cranial capacity of woman's skull if the man's be taken to equal woman s 1000. Negro (Davis), 984. Bushman (Flower), 951. Hottentot and Bushman (Broca), 951. Hindu (Davis), 944. Negro (Tiedemann), 9.32. Eskimo (Broca), 931. Austrahan (Broca), 926, Malay (Tiedemann), 923. Dutch (Tiedemann), 919. Prussian (Kupffer), 918. Irish (Davis), 912. Andamanese (Flower), 911. New Caledonian (Broca), 911. Dutch (Broca), 909. Tasmanian (Broca), 907. Kanaka (Davis), 906. Veddah (Davis, Flower, Vir- chow, Thomson), 903. Marquisas (Davis), 902. German (Welcker), 897. Auvergnat (Broca), 897. Aino (Koganei), 894. Tyrolese (Tappeiner), 893. Bavarian, town-dwelling (Ranke), 893. Aino (Kopernicki), 890 Australian (Flower), 889. Bavarian, country dwelling (Ranke), 888. Scotch (Turner). 887. Russian (Popow), 884. German (Davis), 883. Alsatian (Schwalbe), 880. German (Weisbach), 878. Ancient British (Davis), 877. Javanese (Tiedemann), 874. Australian (Turner), 871. Chinese (Davis), 870. German (Tiedemann), 864. Anglo-Saxon (Davis), 862. Parisian of 12th century (Broca), 862. English (Davis), 860. Parisian of 19th century (Broca), 858. Javanese (Broca), 855. Eskimo (Flower), 855. German (Huschke), 838. This table seems to brings out on the whole a gradual sexual divergence in cranial capacity under the influence of evolution and civilisation. There are naturally many discrepancies, due to some of the series included being too small, or abnormal, or to difference in methods of measurement. Thus if from the series of Veddah skulls two were to be omitted — an abnormally large masculine and an abnormally small feminine skull — it would be found that the Veddahs, a very primitive race, would come at the top of the list, where they perhaps belong. It must of course be remembered that we cannot rashly assume 1 Weisbach, "Der deutsche Weiberschadel," Archiv fur Anth., Bd. iii., 1868; Topinard, VHonwie, etc., 1891, p. 218. THE HEAD. gg that this divergence, if real, is entirely due to civilisa- tion. It may be largely a matter of race, as Waldeyer believes. There are, however, two great factors working for increased cranial capacity — large size of body and mental activity — which both operate in civilisation. Among the small Maravers of southern India the cranial capacity of the women is, even absolutely, rather greater than that of the men; among the large-bodied Germans the cranial capacity of the women is relatively very small. Town-dwellers have a larger cranial capacity than country-dwellers, but the muscular labour undergone by country-dwellers keeps their cranial capacity at a fairly high level; Ranke found that while the minimum of loo large-headed male town-folk was as low as 1218, the minimum of 100 smaller-headed male country-folk was 1260.^ The town-dweller without either manual or mental work stands very low, and in civilisation both the heaviest manual and the heaviest mental work falls to men. It is perhaps worth noting that Jacobs and Spielmann found that while West End Jewesses are distinctly inferior to West End Jews in cranial measurements, thfere is comparatively little difference between East End Jews and Jewesses. It must be realised, how- ever, that there are very distinct limits^ to the equalisation of cranial characters by the equalisation of social conditions. Among orangs and gorillas the sexual cranial differences are enormous. The Austrahans are almost the lowest of human races, and live under the simplest conditions, but, as Turner remarks, examining the Challenger skulls, "The sexual characters were strongly marked in the Australian crania. The much smaller size and capacity of the female skull, its comparative light- ness, the feebleness of its ridges and processes, more especially the glabella; its low basi-bregmatic height ' J. Ranke, "Stadt- und L,s.ndbevo\keiurLg," Bei/ra^e zur Bio/o^e, 1882. 100 MAN AND WOMAN. and the high orbital index, all constituted important features of difference between the female and the male skulls." The relatively greater difference in cranial capacity among civilised than among savage races generally, however, remains a fact of some interest and significance. It has often been asserted, and more especially in the earlier days of craniology, that the frontal regions of the skull, regarded as the "nobler" regions, are more developed in men than in women. There is, however, no reason for supposing that the frontal region is higher or more characteristically human than any other cranial region; and there is just as little reason for supposing that the frontal region is more highly developed in men. Cleland, who com- pared the three regions of the skull — frontal, parietal, and occipital — in men and women, could find no noteworthy difference. Manouvrier, who has made, the most extensive and reliable investigations on this point, found, by the examination of Broca's registers, that the frontal curve is relatively larger in women than in men in 14 series of skulls out of 17; that the parietal curve was relatively larger in women in 6 out of 17 series. He therefore came to -the con- clusion that women exhibit a frontal type of skull, men a parietal type.^ That the occipital region is also relatively larger in women has been found as well by Manouvrier as by Weisbach, who in his careful investigations of the German skull came to 1 Manouvrier, "Sur la grandeur du Front et des principales regions du Crine chez I'Homme et chez la Femme," Bull, de I'Ass. fran. pour I'avancement des Set., 1882, pp. 623-639. Also Art. "Sexe," Did. des SCI. Anthrop. DafFner [Das Wachsthum des Menschen) found the frontal breadth practically the- same in both sexes, although the circumference was much greater in males. It may be noted here that a high forehead is by no means, as commonly supposed, the necessary accompaniment of high mental capacity. In women Benedikt {Kran. 11. Keph., p. 125) is accustomed to regard it as an indication of convulsive degeneration, and he refers to the instinctive concealment by women of a high forehead by arrangement of hair. THE HEAD. lOI the conclusion that there is greater height and length in the occipital skull in women with equal breadth. Topinard's figures of the relative breadth of the different regions of the head in Parisian men and women show little or no superiority of breadth of the frontal region in women, but a very markedly greater breadth of the posterior region of the head, indicat- ing large size of occipital lobes and cerebellum. As Topinard points out, as a rule this breadth is greatest in the superior races; "the cephalic index of Russians and Javanese is almost the same, but the former, a higher race, have greater occipito-cerebellar breadth; the Basques have, almost to a decimal, the cephalic index of the Tasmanians, but they have greater occipital breadth; Parisian men have only two units of cephalic index more than Parisian women, but the latter have eight units more of occipital breadth."! Picozzo {Arch, di Psich., 1895, Fasc. vi., p. 564), utilising the material collected by Macedo, has examined the cranial sutures in 1000 skulls of Portuguese origin, about equally divided be- tween the two sexes. He found that the sutures in women were of simpler character, that fusion takes place at a. later age in women, and that in women also the solidification of the sutures of the anterior part of the skull is relatively earlier than in men. The prolonged retention of the free sutures is, as Picozzo points out, an obviously infantile character. He believes, also, that the relatively earlier fusion of the sutures anteriorly in women is a sign of inferiority. This can scarcely be admitted, when we recall that there is no ground for attributing any special in- tellectual pre-eminence to the frontal region, and that in any ^ Topinard, L'Anth. Gen., p. 694. Wilks (Lectures on Dis. Nervous System] remarks, "We have only to look at the head of a person with his faculties well developed to see a considerable projection behind, whilst in a person of low development the neck and head are in one line." (It would perhaps be better to say "imperfect" rather than "low" development, since this small occipital development is sometimes found in men of marked intellectual ability. ) Clapham has found, as a result of the measurement of 4000 heads, as regards the proportion of the anterior segment to the whole circumference, that the anterior segment increases rather than diminishes in passing from the sane to the insane, and from the insane to idiots (four. Ment. Set., April 1898, p. 293). 102 MAN AND WOMAN. case the frontal region in women is, relatively, as fully developed as in men. It is sufficient to say that the anterior sutures close earlier in women than the posterior, because the frontal region is precociously developed in women. On the whole, we have found no valid ground for concluding from an examination of the skull that one sex is morphologically superior to the other sex. The only well-marked and generally acceptable sexual cranial differences, so far as our present know- ledge extends, are those pointed out at the outset: in men the air-sinuses and muscular projections are more marked, and in women the bosses are more prominent. In all three of these respects men approach the savage, simian, and senile type (for these, as we have seen, and as Virchow pointed out, approximate to each other), while in all these respects also women approach the infantile type.^ It is open to a man in a Pharisaic mood to thank God that his cranial type is far removed from the infantile. It is equally open to a woman in such a mood to be thankful that her cranial type does not approach the senile. THE BRAIN. The history of opinion regarding cerebral sexual difference forms a painful page in scientific annals. It is full of prejudices, assumptions, fallacies, over- hasty generalisations. The unscientific have had a predilection for this subject; and men of science seem to have lost the scientific spirit when they approached the study of its seat. Many a reputation ^ The special morphological characters of the feminine skull as inter- mediate between the infantile and masculine type were shown by Lissauer {Arch. f. Anth., 1885), and this point was often emphasised by Virchow. Paul Bartels ( Ueber Geschkchtstmterschiede am SchSdel, 1897, p. 97) considers that the absence of animal characters in the female skull as compared to the male is one of the chief results of his investigation. The arguments of an eccentric zoologist, Albrecht, in favour of the '-'greater bestiality" of women in anatomical respects (Corr.- Bl. Deutsch. Gesell. Anth., 4884), need not be seriously discussed. THE HEAD. 103 has been lost in these soft and sinuous convolutions. It is only of recent years that a comparatively calm and disinterested study of the brain has become in any degree common ; and even to-day the fairly well ascertained facts concerning sexual differences in the brain may be easily summed up. There is no doubt whatever that in European races (for of other races our knowledge is scanty) the absolute weight of the brain in man is consider- ably greater than in woman. The following are ^ few of the averages reached by some of the chief investigators in different countries, working on a large number of brains, most of the series comprising many hundreds : — Wagner . . Huschke Broca . . . Topinard . Bischoff . BoycP . . Manouvrier . /Men \ Women I Men t Women f Men t Women /Men \ Women /Men t Women f Men \ Women / Men 1 Women 1353 1225 Grammes. Difference. I4IO 1262 148 1424 1272 152 1365 I2II 154 1360 1250 no 1362 I2I9 143 1354 133 128 ^ These figures were obtained from Hoyd's well-known investigations at the Marylebone Infirmary, London. Sir James Crichton-Browne has obtained very similar results with the brains of the insane. From an examination of nearly sixteen hundred brains he found that the average in the male was 1351 grammes, in the female 1223 grammes ; the male average is a little lower than in the sane, on account of the serious nature of brain disease in men, and consequently in insanity the sexes approach each other in brain-weight more than in sanity. See Crichton-Browne " On the Weight of the Brain in the Insane," Brain, vols, i.-ii. ; also Clapham, Art. "Brain, Weight of, in the Insane," Diet. Psych. Med.; Tigges, "Das Gewicht des Gehirns und seine Theile bei Geisteskranken," v4//^if?«is/«. Zeitschrift ficr Psychiatric, vol. 45, 1888, heft. I and 2. 104 MAN AND WOMAN. It is clear that in Europe men possess absolutely larger brains than women. There is no doubt on this point. The difficulty has arisen at the next stage. Have men relatively larger brains than vi^omen? We have first to decide relatively to what we are going to compare the brain. Height has usually suggested itself as the most convenient term of comparison. It would be better, as Topinard suggests, to take the height of the body only, ignoring the legs, but, so far as I am aware, this is never done. It is not difficult to ascertain with fair accuracy the average height of a population, and it is evident that when we have brought the brain into relation with the stature we have made some approximation to a fair estimate. Relatively to stature, it is nearly always found that men still possess somewhat heavier brains than women. Thus, according to Boyd's average as well as BischoiFs, man's brain- weight is to woman's as loo to go; the average stature of men and women in England is as loo to 93 ; so that, taking stature into account, men have a slight but distinct excess of brain (amounting, roughly speaking, to something over an ounce) over women. Precisely the same difference in ratio has been found in France.^ On the strength of this ounce a distinguished brain anatomist has declared that "the difference, therefore, in the size and weight of the brain is obviously a fundamental sexual distinction," and the same assertion has often been made by others. On consideration, however, it becomes clear that while it is very convenient, and even approximately correct, to estimate sexual differences in brain-mass relatively to sexual differences in body-height, it is not quite fair to women. Men are not only taller than women, they are larger. If human beings, while retaining their present height, were moulded ' A discussion on this point will be found in Topinard's Anthropologie Ghiirale, p. 557. THE HEAD. I05 into circular columns the same size all the way up, the male columns would be usually of greater cir- cumference than the female columns. As we found in Chapter III., there is only one measurement — the girth of the thighs — which is almost constantly larger in women. It is clear that we should be doing an injustice by comparing the amount of brain of the female column to that of the male column, for the male column must necessarily possess an absolutely larger amount of brain-tissue per foot, merely in order to equal the percentage amount of the female column. That additional ounce is fully needed merely to place men on a fair equality with women. The evident inaccuracy of the stature criterion has therefore led a number of eminent craniologists — Clendinning, Tiedemann, Reid, Wagner, Weisbach, etc. — to adopt the method of estimating sexual differ- ences in brain-weight in accordance with their ratio to body-weight. This is obviously a more logical method. The almost constant result is that, propor- tionately to body -weight, women are found to possess brains somewhat larger than men's, or else brains of about the same size. This was ascertained many years ago by Parchappe, Tiedemann, Thurnam, and others, in England, France, and Germany;' More recently Bischoff, in his important and accurate work on the brain, shows similarly that while woman's brain-weight is to man's as go to lOO, woman's body- weight is to man's as only 83 to 100 ; Vierordt has also illustrated the same fact, that relatively to body- weight women have larger brains.^ It may be taken as proved that in relation to body-weight — a more logical relation than that to body-height — women's ^ See, for instance, Tiedemann, Phil. Trans. Royal Soc, 1836, vol. cxxvi., p. 306; Parcliappe, Recherches sur Fendphale, 1836, etc. 2 T. L. V^?. von Bischoff, Das Hirngewicht des Menschen, Bonn, 1880; H. Vierordt, "Das Massenwachsthum der Korperorgane des Menschen," Archiv filr Anat. u. Phys., 1890; also tables in the same author's Anatomische Tabellen, 1892. Topinard [Anthrop. Gen., pp. 530 et seq.) has also discussed this question. I06 MAN AND WOMAN. brains are at least as large as men's, and are usually larger. We have, however, not even yet reached a fair statement of the relative amount of brain-mass in men and women. To estimate brain-weight by its ratio to body-weight is satisfactory enough if we are dealing cautiously with very large averages. But it has to be remembered that we are comparing a comparatively stable element with one which is extremely unstable. The well-to-do, well-nourished, and comparatively lazy classes weigh much more than the under-fed and overworked classes. The relations between body and brain may be quite different in tlie individuals who die in a workhouse from what they are in the ordinary population. There are not only differences between individual and individual; there are very marked fluctuations in the same individual. A well-nourished individual dying after a slow and wasting disease has run its course, will appear to possess a relatively much larger brain than if he had died at the outset of the disease. Brain, although not the most stable tissue, is relatively stable, more stable even than bone ; fat, which makes up a very large part of the general body-weight, is the most unstable tissue in the body ; it is used up on the first call from the over-strained or under-fed organism; while, according to Voit's analyses, 97 per cent, of the fat has disappeared at the completion of starvation, the nervous system has only lost 3.2 per cent, of its weight.^ When we compare brain- weight with stature we are falling into a fallacy, but we are comparing elements that are at all events fairly constant, and therefore our error is fairly con- stant; when we compare brain-weight with body- weight we are on sounder ground, but one of our two elements fluctuates to a much greater extent than the 1 See, for instance, in Waller's Physiology, a diagram showing relalive loss of different tissues under the Influence of starvation. THE HEAD. I07 other, and produces an error which is less constant and requires greater care to circumvent. There is another serious and more constant error in estimating sexual differences in brain-mass by the ratio to the bulk of the body. Women, as we have already seen (p. 41), are fatter than men. There is a tendency in adult women to deposit fat about the breasts and arms, and especially in and around the abdomen, in the gluteal regions, and in the thighs, a tendency which only exists to a moderate extent in men. As we have seen, Bischoff found that the propor- tion of fat in the woman to that in the man was as 28.2 to 18.2, and that while the proportion of muscle to fat in an adult man is as 100 to 43, in an adult woman it is as 100 to 78. Though his results were only founded on two typical well-nourished subjects, there is no doubt as to the general tendency of women to deposit fat. It is part of what some have called the anabolic tendency of the female sex — the tendency to acquire rather than to expend — and it is further illustrated by the fact that while men attain their maximum weight at about the age of 40, women, whose growth terminates at a distinctly earlier period than that of men, do not attain their maximum weight until the age of about 50. Now fat is a comparatively non- vital tissue; it needs, compared to muscle, but very little innervation. Therefore it is not fair to women, in studying brain difference in relation to body- weight, to make no allowance for their excess of comparatively non-vital tissue.^ Manouvrier estimates that the active organic mass of woman's body is to that of man's as at most 70 to 100. This is only an approximate estimate, but in any case the relative excess of brain-tissue in woman is very large, for the ' Professor Manouvrier, the well-known Parisian anthropologist, an energelic champion of the anatomical virtues of women generally, has especially drawn attention to this fact. (L. Manouvrier, Sur I'lnter- pretaiioii de la quaniite dans I'Encephak, Paris, 1885; also Art. " Cerveau," in Diet, de Phys., vol. ii. ) I08 MAN AND WOMAN. sexual ratio in brain-weight may be put with fair constancy, as we have seen, as go to loo. The two usual and most convenient methods of estimating the sexual proportions of brain-mass — the ratio to body-height and the ratio to body-weight — are thus both erroneous, and in both cases the error leads to the assignment to women of an unfairly small mass of brain. It might be thought that there is some fallacy on the other side which would tend to restore the balance. Such a source of fallacy might be thought to lie in the massive bony skeleton of men, but this does not seem to be the case to any appreciable extent. If, for example, we take the skull, the average relation of the weight of man's to woman's is (if we accept Morselli's figures) as loo to 86 ; the sexual ratio of weight of the large and well- to-do members of the Bath meeting of the British Asso- ciation was 100 to 79 ; of the small-sized Belgian race (according to Quetelet) it is loo to 87 : so that while these two ratios of bulk differ widely (as we should expect), they oscillate around the sexual ratio of bone-mass. There is indeed one correction which must yet be made, and it is a correction which does something towards restoring relative predominance of brain tissue to men. Independently of sex, and (at all events among Mammalia) independently even of species, increase of body-size has a fairly constant and regular tendency to be accompanied by an in- crease of brain which is relatively less in amount. Tall men have smaller brains, relatively, than short men ; tall women have, relatively, smaller brains than short women; and the shortest women have brains that are relatively much larger than those of the tallest men.i This law involves a correction which is not 1 Bischoff, Broca, Topinard, etc., have shown that this holds good for either the stature-ratio, the bulk-ratio, or both. See, for example, Kschoff, Z>as ffirtigeivic/ii, Tp. ^2 ; Topinii.rd, AniArop. Gen., p. 533; J. Marshall, "On the Relation between the Brain and the Stature and Mass of the ^ody," /ournal of Anat. and Phys., July 1892. THE HEAD. lOg large, being scarcely two per cent., and perhaps even less, for Bischoff and Tigges have shown that brain increases with height to a greater extent in women than in men. This consideration, however, serves to complicate the problem of the brain-ratio, and to reduce somewhat the estimate of the relative predom- inance of brain tissue in women. No satisfactory plan has yet been devised for avoiding the fallacies involved in measuring the brain by the ratios to stature and bulk. The relation of the brain to a bone (such as the femur), or to the heart or to somf particular muscle, are among the methods that have been suggested. There is ample scope here in the future for the efforts of the mathematical anthro- pometrist. It is sufficient at present if we are generally agreed as to the nature and directions of the errors in the usual methods. There is, therefore, no doubt that when we have eliminated the chief distributing errors, we are com- pelled to conclude that women possess a relatively larger mass of nervous tissue than men. This by no means necessarily implies that women have any natural advantage over men. The fact that the absolutely large brain is to a great extent the appanage of a large muscular system apparently contributes to its steadi- ness and tone. A relatively large brain not rooted in a good muscular foundation is not always a good gift of the gods; it is often difficult to turn on effectively to intellectual tasks; it acts uncontrollably and with too much facility; it may be liable to explosive out- bursts; it is a fact of some significance that the epileptic possess relatively large brains.^ A very con- siderable proportion of the good work of the world has been done .by brains which were large, though, relatively to the bulk of the body, not inordinately large. There is no doubt that some men of genius, in the ^ See, for instance, Clapham, Art. " Brain, Weight of," Diet. Psyche Med. no MAN AND WOMAN. departments both of science and of art, have possessed brains that were enormously large, both absolutely and relatively. But it is not doubtful that a brain both absolutely arid relatively large is a possession of most uncertain value. Taking the six largest recorded male brains (without special research but eliminat- ing those of dubious authenticity), we find one (guaranteed by Bischoff) as large as 2222 grs., which belonged to a totally undistinguished individual ; then, slightly smaller, the brain of an imbecile, examined by Levinge at the Hants County Asylum, and said to be of normal consistence; then we have Turguenieff, the great Russian novelist, a tall but not extremely large man, with a brain of 2012 grs.; the fourth, 1925 grs., belonged to an ordinary labouring man, and was examined by Bischoff; the fifth, igoo grs., belonged to a bricklayer; the next, 1830 grs., was the brain of Cuvier, the famous zoologist.^ The six largest brains of women known (as recorded by Topinard) are : first, that of an insane woman, weighing 1742 grs.; she died of consumption, and her case was recorded by Skae; then comes one of 1587 grs., belonging to a sane woman, who died at the age of 63 (Sims) ; then another of the same weight, belonging to an insane woman, and recorded by Clapham at Wakefield Asylum; then two cases of 1580 grs., both in sane women, and recorded by Boyd; finally another, also of 1580 grs., which belonged to a medical student who is said to have possessed exceptional ability, and to have shown no signs of insanity, but who committed suicide believing that she had failed to pass her final examination. A large brain is a perilous possession, ' It may be added that since I compiled the above list, a brain larger than any of these here mentioned has been described in Holland by G. C. van Walsem [Neurolog. CentralblL, 1st July 1899): it was that of an epileptoid idiot, and weighed 2850 grs. Manouvrier {liev. de I'Ecole dAnth., Dec. 1902) has also described a brain weighing 1935 grs.; it was that of a man esteemed for his judgment and the rectitude of his conduct, but who remained obscure. The accuracy of the weight of Turguenieff's brain has been questioned without reason. THE HEAD. Ill and — so far at least as this evidence goes — it is even more likely to be a perilous possession in a woman than in a man. A large brain is often inert or dis- ordered, and fails to receive the rich blood-supply it demands; there is much to be said in favour of a small, well-ordered, and active brain. It is possible that great thinkers generally have large brains, but among distinguished men of action a small brain seems to be quite as often found as a large one. Some light is thrown on the significance of the relative preponderance of nervous tissue in women, by considering the course of the brain's evolution in the two sexes. At birth the boy's brain is larger than the girl's. Boyd, from an examination of about forty cases of each sex, found the average weight 331 grs. in boys, 283 grs. in girls, a difference of 48 grs., and this is accepted by Topinard (and also by Riidinger) as about the average difference; Mies, however, who more recently recorded the result of the weighing of a large number of new-born infants, found that for 79 boys the weight is 339 grs., for 69 girls 330 grs., a difference of only g grs.^ Boyd's measurements give boys a preponderance of brain in relation to body- weight; Mies's figures, founded on larger ex- perience, give a decided preponderance to brain tissue in girls. I think that the fact that most observers have found the brains of new-born boys decidedly larger than those of girls may be very simply explained. Children with unusually large heads — that is to say, the children to whom birth is most likely to prove fatal — are more usually boys, and therefore help to raise unduly the masculine average of brain for the new-born; girls are comparatively free from this danger. The brain grows enormously during the few months after birth, and very rapidly during the first few years of life. While at the age of three months the brain is about the fifth part of the weight of the body, in the 1 Went. Klin. Wochenschrift, lolh January 1889. 112 MAN AND WOMAN. adult it forms merely about a thirty-third part. By the age of six months (according to Boyd's fairly large figures) the absolute weight of the brain has doubled in girls, and nearly doubled in boys; by the age of seven years the weight of the brain has quad- rupled in girls, and before the age of fourteen it has quadrupled in boys. The precocity of the female brain in childhood is therefore extremely marked. Even Boyd's figures, which give girls a relatively small amount of brain at birth, show that between the ages of four and seven girls possess larger brains than boys in relation to height. While girls between the ages of four and seven have already gained 92 per cent, of their final brain-weight, boys at the same age have only reached 83 per cent. The girl's brain grows but little after the age of seven, and has practically ceased to grow by about the age of twenty ; the man's brain does not reach its maximum size until after thirty years of age. Owing to the rapid growth of the brain in the first years of life, it is in childhood, and more especially during the ages of two to four, that both sexes possess the largest amount of brain in relation to height. The premature and fallacious maximum in the weight of the brain before the age of twenty, which is found chiefly or exclusively in the female brain by the large series of Boyd, Bischoff, and Broca in three countries, seems to show, as Topin- ard points out,^ that the precocity and extent of brain- growth in women at this early age exposes them to greater chance of death than men, just as boys are more exposed at birth; for it must always be remem- bered that brain-statistics in early life are exclusively founded on those members of the community who have been failures in the race of life; we cannot necessarily argue from them to the successful members of the community who reach adult life. Soon after the age of twenty the average weight of the brain begins to fall ; in men there is no notable fall until 1 Anthrop. Gin., p. 557. THE HEAD. II3 after fifty-five ; in both sexes there is a somewhat rapid dedine after this age, and there is some reason to think that in old age men undergo relatively greater brain-loss than women. The larger amount of brain in women, which we have found to exist after the elimination of fallacies caused by incorrect criteria of proportion, is correlated with the precocity and earlier arrest of growth in women which exists as well for the brain as for the general proportions of the body. Tall people have larger brains, absolutely, than small people; the tallest and largest people, on the average, have the largest brains ; but their brains do not increase in the same ratio as their bodies generally; the figures of Bischoff, Broca, and others, show that as body-height and body- weight increase in both men and women, so the pro- portion of brain decreases. A relatively large mass of brain-tissue is a character which women share with short people generally and with children. It is time to turn to the question of sexual differ- ences in the relation of the various parts of the brain. In doing this we have to consider the relation of the two hemispheres of the cerebrum, or brain-mantle, to the cerebellum or smaller brain, and to the upper parts of the spinal cord called the pons and medulla oblongata; in the cerebrum we have to distinguish between the frontal lobe in front, the occipital lobe ■ at the back, and the intermediate temporo-parietal region; and we may take these last three sub- divisions of the mantle first. It has been said by Meynert that sexual distinc- tions in the brain are much better marked in the relation of its parts to one another than in the organ taken as a whole. But if this is so it is not well illustrated by the curious manner in which the opinions of brain anatomists concerning sexual differ- ences in the proportion of the cerebral lobes have of late years been turned upside down. Some years ago it was asserted with great emphasis, more 114 MAN AND WOMAN. especially in Germany, that even from an early period of foetal life there are marked sexual differ- ences in the lobes of the cerebrum, tending to show the great intellectual superiority of man over woman. Burdach considered that men are distinguished from women by the development of their frontal lobes; Huschke, in 1854, came to the conclusion that woman is a homo parietalis, while man is a homo frontalis; Rvidinger in 1877 found the frontal lobes of man in every way more extensive than those of woman, and sexual differences, according to him, are distinct during foetal life; his pupil, Passet, as recently as 1882, confirmed these results, though in a more modified form. It is quite possible to explain these conclusions. Individual variations are very considerable; most of these results were founded on very small series of brains; the brain, moreover, is a very difficult organ to examine; and, finally, as it had always been taken for granted that the frontal regions are the seat of all lofty intellectual processes, only a result which gave frontal pre-eminence to men could be regarded as probable. It is no longer possible to accept the opinion that the frontal lobes are defective in women. Broca examined some 360 brains --with great care and uniformity of method; his results show that the whole cerebral hemisphere being taken as 1000, while the proportion of frontal lobe in man is as 427, in woman it is as 431; it is only a difference in favour of women of 4 in 1000, but it is enough to show at least a practical sexual equality; on analysing the figures according to age, it is found that while in early adult age men have some frontal advantage over women, this position is decidedly reversed in old age.^ Among the insane, Crichton- Browne has shown that the proportion of the frontal lobe to the rest of the brain is not less in women, ' Topinard, Anthrop. Gen., p. 580, and more especially Manouvrier, art. " Cerveau/* Z)zV/. de Physiologic THE HEAD. 115 but is even slightly more;^ Clapham's figures, deal- ing with some 450 subjects, show practical equality in the sexes; Meynert and Tigges, dealing with a considerable number of brains belonging to the insane, have both found the frontal lobe larger in women. The most reliable and accurate measure- ments made with special reference to this point are probably Eberstaller's. He measured with great care no less than 270 hemispheres belonging to adults (176 male and 94 female), and he found that the upper end of the fissure of Rolando occupies rela- tively the same place in the two sexes, what differ- ence there is, only 0.5, being in favour of the frontal lobe in women. The results obtained by Professor Cunningham, a very cautious and reliable observer, are in exact harmony with those of Eberstaller ; so far as he found any sexual difference at all it was in favour of the frontal lobe of women. He also ascer- tained that the lower end of the fissure of Rolando holds relatively the same place on the cerebral surface in the two sexes, and that at no period of growth is there to be found what might safely be called a sexual difference in the fissure. It had been asserted by Passet and others that the fissurd of Rolando is longer, absolutely and relatively, in men; measuring the fissure by a thread carefully inserted between its lips, so as to follow all its flexures, Cunningham found, by examining a large number of brains, that (except at birth) there was some advantage, so far as there was any advantage at all, on the part of the female fissure.^ While it has recently become clear that women have, so far as there is any sexual difference at all, some frontal superiority over men, it has at the same time been for the first time clearly recognised that ' Brain, vol. ii. pp. 62-64. ^ Professor D. Cunningham, " Conlribution to the Surface Anatomy of the Cerebral Hemispheres," Ctmningham Memoirs of the Royal Irish Academy, No. 7, 1892. Il6 MAN AND WOMAN. there is no real ground for assigning any specially exalted functions to the frontal lobes. This opinion had been very widely accepted without any definite reasons at all, and even Hitzig, the pioneer of modern progress in the precise knowledge of cerebral localisation, had given it the weight of his authority by assigning to the frontal lobes the seat of logical thought. It is not difficult to account for this an- cient notion; there is a deeply implanted feeling in the human mind which associates with "above," " front," " top," more dignified ideas than with "below," "back," "bottom." The frontal region exactly fits in with this implicit mental assumption ; it is precisely that part of the body which is most above, to the front and to the top; it is not, there- fore, surprising that the centres for the highest intellectual processes should have been placed in a position where we can scarcely believe that a quad- rupedal craniologist would have placed them; nor is it surprising that it is only within very recent years that we have brought ourselves to believe that the occipital lobes are intimately concerned in so high a process as that of vision. The extreme anterior part of the brain, usually called the pre- frontal lobe, gives little definite reaction to electrical stimulus (though the fact that the frontal region is inexcitable to electrical stimulus is no argument against its importance in intellectual processes);^ and there is no decisive experimental ground for asso- ciating the frontal region with intellectual processes in any special and peculiar manner. Moreover, the iroutal region is, relatively, very considerably de- veloped in the anthropoid apes, in whom the intel- lectual processes are not usually regarded as highly developed. Nor is the frontal lobe relatively more ' As Sherrington and Griinbaum have pointed out, it is probable that further progress in this field will be made rather by the patient com- bination of clinical and microscopical research than by excitation experi- ments in the laboratory. THE HEAD. II7 developed in the adult than in the foetus. And it may be added that in women, in whom it is if any- thing more developed than in man, the relations of the frontal region (as Cunningham's results show) more nearly approach the anthropoid form than man's; although in one important respect, as Cunning- ham points out, men in the relations of this region approach the apes more nearly than women : the area of the frontal lobe covered by the parietal bone is relatively less in men than in women. It must be added that while at present it cannot be definitely asserted that the frontal parts of the brain are specially connected with the higher mental processes, neither can it be definitely denied.^ A consideration which makes it very improbable is the high per- centage of the frontal lobes to the brain as a whole, furnished by idiots and imbeciles; in Clapham's figures it is scarcely second to that given by even the most intellectual forms of insanity. The question remains open, though it seems most reasonable to suppose that the whole of the brain is concerned in mental operations, and certainly by no means least the sensori-motor regions of the middle of the brain cortex, of which we have the most detailed experi- mental knowledge. These centres are concentrated in the parietal portions of. the cerebrum, and there seems now to be no doubt that they predominate in men. This result has been obtained by Broca (though Broca's figures show only a slight preponderance of this region in men), Meynert, Rudinger, Crichton-Browne, Tigges, etc. There is some reason to suppose that the parietal region is very largely developed in persons of exceptional intellectual power; thus Rudinger, examining eighteen brains of distinguished ' The case has, however, been reported (Dide, Rev. Neurol., 1901, pp. 446-462) of a woman who lived a normal life, though she eventually became insane, in whom the frontal lobes were atrophied to an extreme degree ; microscopical investigation showed that this atrophy was not acquired but congenital. Il8 MAN AND WOMAN. men, found that in all of them the parietal lobes were largely developed in the frontal direction. In apes the parietal region is small owing to the incurr sion both of the frontal and occipital lobes.^ It is somewhat doubtful whether the occipital lobe is larger in women than in men ; Broca's figures show it to be on an average relatively the same size, in earlier adult age somewhat larger, in old age some- what smaller; Crichton- Browne found it larger in women; many authorities speak uncertainly, or are inclined to find it larger in men. Cunningham finds it larger in women. It may be added that the general tendency of the occipital lobe in the mammalian series is to decrease; it is relatively smaller in the anthropoids than in the niore primi- tive apes, and is still smaller in Man; on the other hand, it tends to become more convoluted, so that we cannot regard it as in process of atrophy; Gambetta's brain, which was small, was a marvellous example of occipital convolution. Sexual distinctions in the important matter of the vascular supply of the brain have as yet received little attention. Sir James Crichton-Browne and Dr. Sidney Martin have, how- ever, made a few observations. They found that the com- bined diameters of the internal carotid and vertebral arteries which supply the brain, taken together, are relatively to the brain-mass rather larger in women than in men. So that women's brains receive a proportionately larger blood-supply than men's, and would not suffer as they otherwise would from the comparative poverty which, as we shall see later, character- ises their blood. The same investigators have found the internal carotid slightly larger in men, the vertebral slightly larger in women.^ These results were founded on a small ^ " It would be an interesting field for speculation," Cunningham remarks, "to consider whether this parietal increase in the human brain has anything to do with the acquisition of the educated move- ments of the limbs — more especially of the upper limbs — and that wonderful harmony of action which exists between the brain and the hands, and which has played so important -i part in the evolution of the species." — "Contribution to the Surface Anatomy," etc., p. 59. • ^ Sir J. Crichton-Browne, "Sex in Education," Bri/. Med. Journal, 7th May 1892. THE HEAD. . II9 number of subjects, though they seein in harmony with the results already set forth; for while the internal carotid chiefly supplies the parietal regions which we have found to be large in men, the vertebral chiefly supplies, not only the doubtfully large occipital, but various other basal ganglia which are large in women. If we turn from the consideration of the sexual differences in the divisions of the cerebrum to the larger and plainer divisions of the brain-mass into cerebrum, cerebellum, and the medulla and axial part of the brain, the points of sexual difference are somewhat. clearer. The most reliable evidence points on the whole to the cerebellum being, relatively, dis- tinctly larger in women than in men, as stated long ago by Gall and Cuvier. Broca's figures show that to a slight extent the iriedulla and cerebellum, but especially the latter, are relatively larger in women. Dr. Philippe Rey, who has worked up Broca's figures with much elaboration, finds that with scarcely an exception all the centres below the cerebrum are relatively larger in women.^ Boyd's figures show that the cerebellum is to the whole cerebrum in males between the ages of 7 and 14 as 103 to 1000, and between the ages of 30 and 40 as 106 to 1000 ; in females at the earlier period it is as 105 to 1000, at the later period as 108 to 1000; the medulla is somewhat larger in males at the earlier age, and larger in females at the later age. Marshall, in an important paper ^ on the weight of the brain and its parts, found that the ratio of the cerebellum to the cerebrum (from Boyd's figures) is in adult males as I to 8.17, in adult females as i to 8; and he further worked out from Boyd's figures the ratio ' P. Rey, " Le Poids du Cervelet," Revue d'Aiith., 1884, p. 193. ^ J. Marshall, " On the Relation between the Weight of the Brain and its parts, and the Stature and Mass of the Body in Man" (founded partly on facts recorded by Boyd in Philosofhical Trans., 1861, partly from Boyd's original MSS., and partly from fuller tables prepared by Boyd at Marshall's xeofiSsX), Journal of Anat. and Phys., July 1892. 120 MAN AND WOMAN. of the parts of the brain to the whole in decimal parts of an ounce to every inch of height : — Men. No. of Cases. Age. Entire Encephalon. Cerebrum. Cere- bellum. Pons and Medulla. 103 30-40 .725 .632 .077 .015 Women. 85 30-40 .695 1 .611 .076 .015 This shows that while men possess relatively to height more cerebrum than women, in the distribu- tion of the lower centres the sexes are equal. Reid, Peacock, Weisbach, Meynert, and Bischoff have agreed that there is little sexual difference in regard to the relative proportions of the cerebellum. It must be added that, in accordance with what has been already said in regard to the brain generally, this sexual cerebellar equality relatively to height really means cerebellar predominance in women. Some of the basal ganglia of the brain, according to Tigges and others, are absolutely as well as rela- tively larger in women. Putting together numerous facts, it seems clear that the mantle is that part of the brain which is most liable to vary. The cere- bellum, the various basal ganglia, and the spinal cord seem to be more constant than the cerebrum ; they do not waste to the same extent with age or with insanity. It is worth noting that the cerebellum in women is relatively larger than is the cerebrum. But the significance of this fact is at present by no means obvious. There is less to be positively affirmed to-day about the functions of the cerebellum than there was fifty years ago. It has no connection, as was once supposed, with the sexual instinct. Its destruction does not produce either paralysis or loss of intelligence. The only definite function which, so far as is yet known, it seems to possess, is the THE HEAD. 121 function of, to some extent, co-ordinating muscular movement. Ferrier has suggested that visceral or organic sensory impressions are represented in the cerebellum. It may be added that the cerebellum is a characteristically adult organ; in the new-born child it may only form about one-thirteenth or less of the brain-mass; in the adult it forms about one-seventh. Its development indicates height in the zoological scale, and it is relatively largest in man. While the sexual differences in the brain are at the most very small, it would appear that the differences in the relative amount of the spinal cord are some- what more marked. Mies found that, both in normal subjects and in the insane, women have throughout life a larger cord, as compared to the brain, than men.^ The results obtained by the Collective In- vestigation Committee of the Anatomical Society of Great Britain ^ go further than this, and indicate that as regards the length of the cord, women tend to show an even absolute superiority. In the 115 cases examined the committee found a marked tendency for the cord to descend lower in females than in males. Relatively to the length of the spinal column, the cord is longer in females, and this greater exten- sion may be a sexual peculiarity. In females, also, there was greater variation than in males; while absolutely longer on the average in women, the longest cord measured was in a woman (47 cms., as against 46.5, the longest in a man). Relatively to the average length of the spinal column, from the foramen magnum to the base of the sac, the cord is slightly longer in females than in males; while the female spinal column to the male spinal column was as 94.8 to 100, the female cord to the male cord was as 97.1 to 100. This spinal predominance in women (which is also an infantile character, all the foetuses 1 Ctbll.f. Anth., heft 3, 1897, p. 273. '^ Jour. Anat. and Phys., Oct. 1894. 122 MAN AND WOMAN. • examined showing a long cord) may possibly be of some significance. It can scarcely be said that the study of the brain from our present point of view leads to the revelation of any important sexual distinctions.^ In the future, when the facts are more precisely ascertained, and their significance more obvious, than they are now, it may be different. At present it is necessary to insist upon the fact that the importance of the brain has been greatly exaggerated. Its importance, unquestion- ably, is great, but it is an importance that is strictly related to the brain's very intimate connection with the body generally. We have been apt to regard it as the despotic ruler of the body, whereas, so far as it is a ruler at all, it is a distinctly democratic ruler. The brain elements, for the most part, are but sensori-motor delegates brought together for the sake of executive convenience. We must not, therefore, be surprised if we can often better study these cerebral representatives of the organism by investigating the organism itself. While, however, the brain is at present an unpro- fitable region for the study of sexual difference, it is, as we have seen, an extremely instructive region for the study of sexual equality. Men possess no rela- tive superiority .of brain- mass; the superiority in brain-mass, so far as it exists, is on women's side;^ ^ Gustaf Retzius, in his very careful and judicial study of the human brain, takes account of sexual Aifftitnces (Das Mensckenhirn, I., pp. 166-7, Stockholm, 1896). He concludes that, while there are no specific or characteristic sexual differences, we may say on the whole that the brains of women show somewhat fewer deviations from the type, and a greater simplicity and regularity. While most deviations may be found in the brains of women, the percentage of their occurrence is in general smaller. It may be added that Waldeyer, one of the chief of German authorities, has expressed himself as in agreement in this matter with Retzius. It is , „ 199 „ „ „ 2,080 ,> „ „ 9^ „ „ „ 2,240 Feuiale Observers Detected. One part in 456,000 :> „ ,. 204 „ „ „ 3.280 „ ,. „ 126 „ •, „ 1.980 From these results the experimenters concluded that the sense of taste is more delicate in women than in men. This is true in the case of all sub- stances excepting salt. " As we had found a similar difference," the writers remark, " in an earlier and independent set of experiments, which agreed in every essential particular with the results of the present test, we do not regard it as an accidental 1 " On the Delicacy of the Sense of Taste," by Dr. E. H. S. Bailey and Dr. E. L. Nichols. A brief abstract of the paper is given in the Proceedings of the American Association for the Advancement of Science for 1887. The paper is printed in full in Science, 1888, p. 145. 140 MAN AND WOMAN. difference, or as likely to disappear in more extended investigations." They noted that wide individual differences presented themselves (as much as in the ratio of one to three), and that these variations were not explicable as results of education, men with great experience in handling drugs being surpassed by women without any such training. In a few cases the ability to detect a dilute sweet was accompanied by an inability to detect a dilute bitter. Professor Nichols' remarks on p. 135 apply equally to these experiments and to those on the sense of smell.^ Shortly afterwards the question was independently taken up and investigated with great care by Dr. Ottolenghi at Turin.^ He experimented on 190 persons, i.e. 60 male congenital criminals, 20 male occasional criminals, 20 normal males of the lowest social class, 50 students and professional men, 20 criminal women, and 20 normal women; all were healthy and of robust constitution, the greater part between the ages of 20 and 50. He experimented with bitter, sweet, and salt sensations. For the first he selected sulphate of strychnine, and found that 12 per cent, of his normal persons perceived one part in 800,000; setting out from this strength he made eleven graduated solutions, the strongest being i part in 50,000; as a sweet substance, in place of sugar, which is not very divisible, he used saccharine, making eleven gradations between i in 100,000 parts (which could be tasted by 25 per cent, of the normal men and 45 per cent, of the normal women) and I in 10,000; the eleven common salt solutions ranged from I to 500 to 3 in 100. Numerous precautions ^ More recently Dr. Bailey has tested the sense of taste among Indians in a similar way ; he finds that the order of delicacy is about the same as in white persons, but that the ability to detect dilute ' solutions is less among the Indians. The sexual differences found were the same as among the whites; males had a. more delicate sense for salt, while in other respects the females possessed a more delicate organ. (Kansas University Quarterly, 1893.) ^ " II Gusto nei Criminali in Rapporto coi Normali," Archivio di Psichiatria, vol. a., Fasc. iii.-iv., pp. 332-338. THE SENSES. I4I were taken: the mouth was well rinsed with luke- warm water; each experiment was repeated, and control experiments with distilled water were made to avoid the disturbing influence of expectation and subjective sensations; the solutions were kept at the temperature of the air. In making the test the solution was squirted on to the tongue from a pipette, and care was taken that the amount (half a c. cm.) should always be the same. Ottolenghi presents his results in a table which divides the subjects into three groups (indicating delicate, middling, and obtuse sensations) under each head of "bitter," "sweet," and " salt " ; the table is so arranged that it also pre- sents the percentage of individuals in relation to each solution. Speaking generally, the criminals, more especially the male criminals, showed a very small proportion of persons with delicate sense of taste ; the professional men showed keen sense of taste; in regard to bitter, for example, there were 54 per cent, professional men in the class showing delicate per- ception, as against 15 per cent, congenital criminals. The males of low social class came midway between professional men and criminals, but nearer to the criminals. The criminal women may be said to rank with the men of low social class, while the normal women on the whole rank with the professional men. Thus 50 per cent, normal women belong to the refined class as regards bitter, against 54 per cent, professional men ; while 10 per cent, belong to the obtuse class, against 14 per cent, professional men. The weakest bitter solution was, however, only per- ceived by (4) professional men. Eighty per cent, of the normal women belonged to the refined class as regards sweet, as against 70 per cent, professional men; the weakest solution being perceived by 45 per cent, women to only 25 per cent, professional men ; while only 10 per cent, belonged to the obtuse class as against 14 per cent, of the professional men. Ninety per cent, of the normal women possessed 142 MAN AND WOMAN. refined taste as regards salt, against 80 per cent, of the professional men, the difference in favour of women being marked in the case of the weakest salt solution (go per cent, of the women to 40 per cent, of the professional men) ; this result is in curious con- trast, it is worth while to note, to the exceptional delicacy as regards salt possessed by the men investi- gated by Bailey, and Nichols. Ottolenghi considers that his results show that men and women possess nearly equal acuteness as regards all three tastes, but he believes that if other conditions were equal, and male habits of smoking and drinking were taken into account, it would be found that men possess a more delicate sense of taste. It is clear, however, that an examination of Ottolenghi's care- fully made and clearly reported results does not justify this conclusion. No evidence is brought for- ward to show that alcohol and tobacco — as used temperately by average students and professional men — produces any degeneration of the gustatory apparatus, while the observations of Bailey and Nichols bring no support to this view. Moreover, the influence of social class, as shown Ijy Ottolenghi's males, is so evident and so marked that it is obvious we ought to know to what social class his " normal women" belonged. If they belonged to the same class as the students and professional men, then the evidence as presented by Ottolenghi simply shows that men and women are equal in this respect. It is much more probable, however, that the women chiefly belonged to a much lower social class and were more nearly comparable to the males of very low social class.i If so, Ottolenghi's results may be said to support those of Nichols and Bailey. Di Mattei investigated gustatory acuteness among '■ This seems to be indicated in Dr. Ottolenghi's remark — interesting also from another point of view— that among the normal women were some who were "given to vices and debauchery," and that these showed a percentage of obtuseness at least as great as that shown by the criminal women. THE SENSES. I43 Italian school children, but his results are not de- cisive. He found that girls are more sensitive to sweet sensations, and boys to bitter, while the sexes are equal as regards salt solutions.^ In Russia, Den found that both among the educated and the un- educated women have a more delicate sense of taste than men. In Paris Toulouse has also found gusta- tory sensation more acute in women, except as regards salt solutions, for which (like Nichols and Bailey) he found that men are apparently more sensitive. HEARING. Deafness (which is usually due to inflammation of the middle ear) is, in the opinion of nearly all authorities, decidedly more common in men than in women. Politzer, Troeltsch, Urbantschitsch, Wilde, Duncanson, etc., all agree on this point; Marc d'Espine found 97 deaf men to 67 deaf women; Zaufal found 698 men to 451 women.^ Among children the sexual differences are slight. While, however, the greater tendency of men to marked pathological disturbances of hearing seems fairly certain, I am not acquainted with any extended and reliable series of observations bearing on sexual differences in sensitiveness to sound during health. Dr. Roncoroni has examined 20 healthy men and 15 healthy women from this point of view, and finds the advantage in keenness on the side of the men; 12 of the men possessed a delicate sense of hearing as against 7 of the women.^ Among the insane he found hearing nearly equal in men and women. Professor Jastrow about the same time published a very brief note concerning an attempt to determine from what height a shot weighing 10 mgmm. must 1 Arch, di Psich., igoi, Fasc. 3. 2 See Gelle, Precis des Maladies de F Oreille, 1885, pp. 571, 572 ; also Weil, " Untersuch. d. Ohren kx. d. Gehors v. 5905 Schulkindern," Zeitschrift f. Ohrenh., vol. xi. p. 106. ^ Archivio di Psichialria, 1892, Fasc. i. pp. loS, 109. 144 MAN AND WOMAN. be dropped upon a glass plate so that the sound might be heard by the subject at a distance of 25 feet. It was impossible to secure absolute and constant quiet, but the hearing of the women was decidedly more acute than that of the men, the results being 17 and 35 mm. respectively.^ Thus these observations, so far as they go, lead to distinctly opposite results. In regard to range of audible sensation, Mr. Galton, using his whistle at the Anthropometric Laboratory at South Kensington, found that 18 per cent, males could hear the shrillest test-note as against only 11 per cent, females; and that 34 per cent, males heard the next shrillest test-note as against 28 per cent, of the females. This result harmonises with what we know of sight. It is worthy of note that pianoforte tuners are usually men. I am not aware whether this is owing to the inability of women to rival men in this field. SIGHT. Blindness in this country (according to the census of i8gi) is much more common among males than among females at all ages up to 65 ; the preponder- ance of women after this age is due simply to the greater longevity of women. It does not seem to be true, however, that minor defects of sight are more common in men. The most convenient method of estimating the sexual distribution of defective eyesight is by referring to the data collected by ophthalmic surgeons. Thus Mr. R. Brudenell Carter has analysed his notes of 10,000 cases of disease or disturbance of the eyes in his own private practice, and finds 4,621 males to 5,379 females; this is over 600 more females than there would have been had his patients been in exact ratio to the general popu- ' " Studies, etc.," Amer. Journal Psych., April 1892, pp. 422, 423. THE SENSES. 145 lation. In classifying his cases according lo the shape of the eyeball, he finds : — Males. Females. Total. Emmetropia or normal eye-sight . Short-sight or myopia, inclucling-j simple and compound myopic 1 astigmatism (or irregularity off eye-ball) J Long-sight or hypermetropia,'\ including simple and com- pound hypermetropic astig- matism J Mixed astigmatism 2,123 1,464 995 39 2,318 1,684 1,328 49 4,441 3148 2,323 88 Totals 4,621 5-379 lo,nnn Therefore among Mr. Carter's patients, belonging to the well-to-do classes, there has been, even when the sexual ratio in the general population is taken into account, a distinct preponderance of women and girls. The preponderance is not to be explained, Mr. Carter points out, by special proclivity on the part of women to any single form of eye-disease. He is " inclined to refer it to the greater sensitiveness of the female sex, to the more sedulous employment of their eyes over a variety of sedentary occupations, and to their weaker muscles, which are less able, as a rule, than those of men to maintain prolonged efforts of accommodation or of convergence." ^ Mr.. Carter's cases are fairly chosen, and sufficiently large in number to be reliable. We may accept them as showing that vision is in all directions more frequently defective in women than in men. A number of investigations have been made in schools in various countries, more especially in the United States, Germany, and Sweden, with the 1 "An Analysis of Ten Thousand Cases of Disease or Disturbance of the Eyes, seen in Private Fta.clice," Lamei, Oct. 29, 1892. 10 146 MAN AND WOMAN. special object of determining the prevalence of eye- defect among school-children, and the more extensive and reliable of these investigations show a pre- ponderance of the short-sighted among girls vs'hich is much more marked than among Mr. Carter's patients. Thus among 11,000 boys in Sweden, Professor Axel Key found that short-sightedness ranges from 6 per cent, at the age of 11 to 37.3 per cent, at the age of ig. But among 3000 Swedish girls he found that short-sightedness ranged from 21.4 per cent, at the age of 10 to 50 per cent, and over at the age of 20.1 In America Dr. West examined the sight of 793 boys and 602 girls in the public schools of Worcester, Mass., using Snellen's test-types for the younger children, the Galton eye-test for those in the higher grades. In all the nine grades, except the first, which includes the youngest children, it was found that the percentage of defective eyes was distinctly greater among the girls, the difference usually being over 10 per cent. ; but among boys the defect seemed to be more serious in a larger number of cases.^ Dr. F. Warner's observations, based on an examination of 60,000 school children, also showed that serious eye defects are more common in boys.^ In igo2 eight oculists were temporarily appointed to examine the eyesight of the children in London Board Schools (14,000 boys and 13,000 girls). The report of the medical officer to the London School Board, Dr. James Kerr, shows that among these children, who were between the ages of eight and twelve, the percentage with defective vision was at every age decidedly greater in the girls than in the boys. When the children were divided into two groups — precocious (younger than the average age in their standard) and retarded (older than the average) — the sexual difference was still invariably maintained, ' Die Puheriatsentwickelung, etc., pp. 30, 61. ^ Avierican Journal of Psychology, August 1892, pp. 595-599, ' Brit. Med. Journal, 25th March 1893. THE SENSES. I47- though the retarded group showed more defective' vision than the precocious group.^ When we turn to more special investigations into the relative keenness of sight of men and women, the data at hand are found to be very limited. The examination at Bath of members of the British Association, by means of Galton's test, revealed little sexual difference; the men had rather better sight with the right eye, the women rather better sight with the left. At his Health Exhibition Laboratory Mr. Galton found that men are generally slightly superior to women in keenness of vision. Jacobs and Spielmann found that the English Jewess is decidedly superior to the' English Jew in keenness of sight, both in the average and in the maximum and minimum; they are in this test above both the male and female as tested at the Health Exhibition by Galton.^ Professor Jastrow has made some careful and interesting experiments on a small number of male and female students of Wisconsin University.^ There were 31 men whose average age was 22 years, and 22 women whose average age was 21 years; the majority were born in Wisconsin, and three-fourths of their parents were of American birth, mostly mer- chants, professional men, and farmers; nearly all the students were in good health, although some of them were troubled with headaches. The printed page was first placed beyond the subject's vision, then gradually moved towards him until he could just read it. The distance at which the page could be read with maximum strain was found to be slightly greater in the men, but the difference was too slight to be of any significance ; the nearest point at which the type could be read was also almost identical. The ^ Brit Med. Jour., 14th March 1903, p. 615. ^ "Comparative Anthropometry of Enghsh Jews," Journal Anth. Institute, August 1889. ■■' "Studies, etc.," Amer. Journal Psych., April 1892. 148 MAN AND WOMAN. smallest type was then ascertained which was visible at 25 feet ; this was found to be (in dioptrics) 9.4 for the men, 6.'7 for the women. Acuteness of vision was tested in several ways: it was found that a series of lines i mm. wide and separated by spaces of I mm. could be distinctly discerned at a distance of 117 inches by the men, of 97 inches by the women; a similar determination with a checkerboard pattern, both black and white squares being 4 mm. square, gave 121 inches for the men, 124 inches for the women; and it was found that irregularly arranged dots could also be counted at about the same distance by both men and women, although when the dots became rather numerous tlie men had a slight advan- tage. The strength of vision was tested by noting the smallest size of letter readable at 25 feet through one and through two thicknesses of common cheese- cloth ; the result in dioptrics was, through one thick- ness, 24.7 for the men and 19.0 for the women; through two thicknesses 45.0 for the men, 42.0 for women. Taking the evidence as a whole, we may conclude that in most, if not all, civilised countries women are more liable to the slight disturbances of eye-sight, due to defective accommodation, which are peculiarly associated with civilisation;^ while men are probably more liable to serious eye-defects. If, however, we take men and women belonging to the healthiest classes of the community and test the strength and acuteness of their vision, there is found to be no marked sexual difference. Such a result is in accordance with what we know- concerning the visual acuity of savages. At present our knowledge is imperfect, but so far as it goes it 1 Animals furnish a confirmation of the association of eye-defects with civilised conditions. Motais, in a contribution to the Paris Academy of Medicine, stated that having examined the eyes of wild beasts, captured after they had reached adult age, he found them normal ; those captured earlier, and still more those born in captivity, were short-sighted. THE SENSES. 149 tends to show that " in a state of nature there is no marked sexual difference in visual acuity." ^ Colour-perception and Colour -blindness. — Newton was able to make out seven colours in the spectrum. Those who possess this power can see a dark blue band between blue and violet, and they also see a broader orange band than ordinary people; they are always very fond of colour. Green has found 'only three persons who saw the seven colours (and con- siders they are about i in 2000 or 3000 individuals) ; they were all males.^ Professor Nichols has made some interesting experiments as to sexual differences in the sensitiveness of the eye to faint colour.^ The pigments selected were red lead, chromate of lead, chromic oxide, and ultramarine blue. Each of these pigments was mixed in a carefully graduated way with white magnesium carbonate, so that a series of coloured powders was formed of which the pure pig- ment formed the first, while the succeeding number were of less and less saturated hue, and finally could not be distinguished from white. These were put into small glass phials. The four sets of bottles (labelled by means of marks) — thus containing mixtures of red and white, yellow and white, green and white, blue and white — were then mingled in- discriminately, and the observer was requested to arrange them according to hue and degree of colour- saturation. The individuals examined were 54 in number (31 males and 23 females), mostly between the ages of fifteen and thirty. Five were more or less colour-blind, but this defect was not found to injure in a marked way their ability to classify the colours. In the following table the figures indicate the amount of colouring matter present in 100,000,000 volumes ^ W. H. R. Rivers, in Reports of the Cambridge Anthropological Ex- pedition to Torres Straits, vol. ii. part i. p. 28. ^ Colour-Blindness, p. 103. ^ " On the Sensitiveness of the Eye to Colours of a Low Degree of Saturation," by E. L. Nichols, Ph.D., American Journal of Science, vol. XXX., 1885, pp. 37 41. 150 MAN AND WOMAN. of white in the most dilute mixture which can be distinguished from a pure white by the average observer : — Average for males „ ' ,, females 15-9 59.8 Chromate of Lead. 17-3 33-2 Chromic Oxide. 817.7 913-6 148.5 108. 1 " As will be seen from the above table the average male observer is measurably more sensitive to red, yellow, and green, while the female shows superiority in the blue alone." The hght reflected by pigments, as Professor Nichols points out, is not monochro- matic, so that these results cannot be held to show us accurately the relation of the eye to the pure spectrum. The individual variations were very great: 8 persons (5 males and 3 females) could distinguish yellow in a mixture of 3 parts in 100,000,000 ; while 2 (both females) could only detect it in a mixture containing 190 parts to 100,000,000. The lack of delicacy with respect to green was a general trait, possibly, remarks Professor Nichols, traceable to familiarity with foliage. In arranging the phials in order in the series, women on the average were superior to men, though the two nearest approaches to complete accuracy were both men. In the following table 100 would indicate complete accuracy: — Red Lead. Chromate of Lead. Chromic Oxide. Ultramarine. Male ... Female . 86.86 90.81 87.16 93-24 92.81 98.28 ' 78.13 82.92 It would be interesting to consider whether special delicacy in discrimination of a colour is accompanied by special prefer- ence for that colour, or the reverse, but there is no evidence at present to decide this. Professor Earl Barnes found in Cali- fornia, among nearly 1000 children of all grades, that while the favourite colours of boys and girls were essentially the same, more girls select red, more boys blue. " If," he remarks, " with increasing years children generally select more red and less blue, as seems to be the case, this would indicate that girls are more THE SENSES. I5I mature than boys on an average " {^Pedagogical Seminaiy, March 1893). It may be added, however, that since (as Garbini and others have shown) red, with yellow, is the first colour to be recognised and liked in early childhood, the preference of women for red might be regarded as the retention of an infantile characteristic. There seems little doubt that (at all events in America, where most observations have been made) red is most often the favourite colour selected by women, blue by men. Thus Jastrow found at Chicago that, among 4,500 adults, of every 3c) men, 10 voted for blue and 3 for red ; while of every 30 women, 5 voted for red and 4 for blue. Wissler obtained some- what similar results among students in New York, but at Wellesley College blue was preferred to red. There is a much greater range in women's preference for colour, and they prefer green (which Aars in Germany found a favourite colour among young girls) much oftener than men. (For a summary of obser- vations on the subject, see H. Ellis, "The Psychology of Red," Pop. Set. Monthly, Aug. and Sept. 1900.) These observations, so far as they go, tend to show, as also the observations on eye-sight also seem to show, that in range of sensation women are inferior to men, but that within the limits of ordinary range common to both sexes women have perhaps slightly greater power of discrimination. The experiments of Nichols and Bailey were made on a very small number of subjects, so that they cannot be regarded as decisive. Garbini in Italy made a very elaborate and careful study of the evolution of the colour sense in 600 children, taking note of sexual differences. He adopted two methods, one in which the child had to match the colours, and another in which he had to name them. By the first, or mute method, boys were a little superior in the third year, they were equal with girls in the fifth, and in the sixth year the girls were decidedly superior. By the second or verbal method, the girls were markedly superior in the fifth and sixth years; older children were not investigated. Girls were found more precocious than boys.^ 1 Garbini, "Evoluzione del Senso cromatico nella mfama," Arch, per VAnirop., 1894, Fasc. I. 153 MAN AND WOMAN. In America Gilbert tested the colour discrimination of a large number of New Haven school children between the ages of six and seventeen. His examina- tion was confined to one colour, and the test consisted of ten shades of red closely graded; the child was given the lightest shade from one set and told to pick out all those shades that were like it from another set. The advantage was slightly in favour of the girls, but the curves for the two sexes cross and recross very frequently. The boys are ahead at six, but at seventeen, when the curves end, the girls take the lead. A general average for all ages gives a very small advantage for the girls. But they have an additional advantage in that only 18.7 per cent, of them failed to discriminate at all, while 22.3 of the boys failed in so doing.^ The girls, probably from greater familiarity with the matching of colours, had a slight advantage in this test, which was of too limited a character to be quite conclusive. When we turn to the sexual difference in regard to colour-blindness, a subject which has been very fully investigated, there is no doubt whatever about the results. Men are much more frequently colour- blind than women. The committee on colour- blindness of the Ophthalmological Society found that among males generally {i.e., out of 14,846 individuals) the percentage of pronounced cases of colour-blindness was 3.5, the average percentage being 4.16. They found that colour-blindness was nearly always much slighter in females than in males, and even then only existed in 0.4 per cent.^ Holmgren, from an examination of 32,000 men, found 3.17 per cent, colour-blind. Dr. Joy Jefferies of Boston, from an examination carried on chiefly in educational institutions, of over 18,000 males, found ' J. A. Gilbert, Studies from the Yale Psych. Lab., vol. ii., 1894, p. 58. ■^ "Report of the Committee on Colour-Bliiidness of the Ophthal- mological Society," Trans. Ophthal. Soc., 1881. THE SENSES. 153 4.1 per cent, colour-blind, and among over 14,000 females only 0.008 were colour-blind. Mr. T. H. Bickerton finds the percentage 0.16. Therefore while colour-blindness exists in about. 30 or 40 per thousand males of the general population of European countries it is found in onlj' i to 4 per thousand females, being thus at least ten times more frequent in men than in women. One woman to ten men is the proportion found by Favre in France.^ There are certain variations in the incidence of colour-blindness, among classes of the population and among races, which are of interest, and may possibly bear on the significance of colour-blindness. Among the professional classes (medical students, etc.) the Ophthalmological Society's Committee found the proportion to be 2.5 per cent.; among Eton boys 2.46 per cent.; among the boys and masters at Marlborough School (according to the Anthropological Committee of the British Associa- tion) it is 2.5 per cent. On the other hand, among the police and in schools of the same social rank the Ophthalmological Society's Committee found pronounced cases in the proportion of 3.7 per cent., and in middle-class schools 3.5. In Ireland the sons of labourers are twice as liable to colour-blindness as the boys of the wealthier classes. A comparison of urban and rural populations, so far as it shows anything, points to colour-blindness being more common in the country. Jews and Quakers are more subject to colour-blindness than the ordinary population. Among (730) females of Jewish extrac- tion, 3.1 per cent, were affected; among females belonging to the Society of Friends, 5.5; they were, however, slight cases. It was the same among the males; among 949 of Jewish extraction 4.9 were affected; among (491) Quakers, 5.9. It must be noted that the Jews were on the whole of poorer condition of life than the average, and their defects ^ Communication to the Academie des Sciences in 1878. 154 MAN AND WOMAN. were of pronounced character; the Friends belonged to the middle class, and their defects, chiefly con- fined to the paler shades, were slight; the wealthy- Friends were less colour-blind than the poor, though still, among males, exceeding the average.^ Jacobs and Spielmann found no fewer than 12.7 per cent, of London Jews to be colour-blind; it must be added that while in the East End the proportion was as high as 14.8 per cent., in the West End it was only 3.4 per cent. ; these observers associate this tendency to colour-blindness with the absence of great painters among the Jews and the bad taste in dress shown by Jewesses belonging to the lower social graxies.^ It is necessary to take a somewhat wider survey , in order to appreciate the significance of colour- blindness. Although among civilised races colour- blindness is more prevalent in the lower than in the higher social classes, among barbarous and savage races it is very infrequent. One of the earliest investigators of colour-blindness. Professor George Wilson, examined several foreign students in England — Chinese, Kaffir, etc.: " their appreciation of colour," he remarks, " is excellent, and certainly superior to that of the majority of our own students, who have not accidentally or designedly made colour a special object of study. The most expert of them all was the young Caffre." ^ Later and more extended investigation has shown very clearly the freedom of lower races from colour-blindness as well as their delicacy of colour-perception. Schellong among the Papuans of the New Hebrides found that the colour- sense is highly developed; they are able without hesitation to distinguish even delicate shades of difference, although their colour vocabulary is ex- tremely limited, and they possess only one word for ' "Report of the Committee on Colour- Blindness of the Ophthal- mological Society." ^ Journal Anthrop. Institute, Aug. 1889. "' Researches on Colour- Blindness, Edinburgh, 1855, p. 77. THE SENSES. 155 green and blue.^ Among 1200 Japanese soldiers 3.4 per cent, were colour-blind. An examination of 600 Chinese men and 600 Chinese women showed that 19 men (or 3.2 per cent.) and only i woman (or .17 per cent.) were colour-blind.^ Favre among Algerian tribes found only 2.6 per cent, colour-blind. Dr. L. Webster Fox, in a lecture delivered before the Franklin Institute, Philadelphia, stated that in an examination of 250 Indian children, of whom 100 were boys, he did not find a single case of colour- blindness; on a previous occasion he had examined 250 Indian boys and only found 2, or less than i per cent., colour-blind; he finds the proportion among white boys of the United States to be at least 5 per cent. Blake and Franklin of Kansas University also examined Indians, and found that among 285 males there were only three cases of colour-blindness, or scarcely more than i per cent., while among 133 females none were found to be colour-blind.^ In Chili colour-blindness is decidedly rarer than in northern Europe. In a graduation thesis on colour-blindness at the University of Santiago, Senor Conrado Rios states that he has examined 1200 male persons, including 520 boys of from five to fifteen years of age, with the result that 3 per cent, of the boys and 2.1 per cent, of the men presented more or less colour- blindness. He also examined 320 females, including 143 girls of from five to fifteen years of age. One girl could not distin- guish between blue and violet, and a few confounded faint shades of green with yellow. Some other girls also showed a little hesitation in picking out certain colours, but none of the adult women presented any want of appreciation of colours at all. When an examination was made some years ago by a Swedish commission of 500 naval cadets and other persons in Chili, only one or two cases of colour-blindness were found. {Lancet, August 1890.) Dr. Rios attributes this slighter preva- lence of colour-blindness in Chili to the frequency of alcoholism in Europe; it is probable, however, that a native Indian element in the population of Chili has also to be reckoned with. ' " Beitrage zur Anthropologie der Papuas," Zei/schrifi fiir Eth., 1S91, heft iv. p. 186. ^ Science, 14th Nov. 1890. • ^ Ibid., 2nd June 1893. 156 MAN AND WOMAN. Colour-blindness is clearly not a result of disease, nor is it associated with diseased conditions. It is true that it is rather more common among deaf- mutes than among the average of the population, but the deaf-mutes examined have largely belonged to the low social class in which colour-blindness has been found most prevalent. Among imbeciles colour-blindness is rare. Among criminals also if has not usually been found common. Among cretins the colour sense is usually present, although speech, hearing, and smell are nearly always very defective.^ And, on the other hand, Jews, among whom colour- blindness is specially prevalent, are a healthy class of the population (except for their tendency to nervous disease), and show a very high average of ability; and the Quakers also are a distinguished class of the community. The precise significance of the sexual difference regarding colour-blindness cannot yet be determined. The whole question of colour-blindness and of the mechanism of colour-vision generally is still under discussion. But there can be little doubt now that the greater liability of males to colour-blindness is inherent and of world-wide extension. Training has little to do with it; and comparisons between children under ten years of age and adults (in the hands of the Ophthalmological Society's Committee) have shown few differences. On the other hand, its hereditary nature is well recognised; it is sufficient to mention one case: Dr. Pliny Earle, Professor Wilson tells us, out of 32 male and 29 female relations had 20 who were colour-blind, only two, however, being female. The undoubted fact that women are more familiar with the names of colours has been considered a source of fallacy, but modern methods of examination do not require any acquaint- ance with names. The greater familiarity of women 1 Professor Horsley, Art. "Cretinism" in Hack Take's /^/c/w/a^j of Psychological Medicine, 1892. THE SENSES. 157 with dress has been considered to account for the difference; the colour-bhndness of Quakers, who are usually considered as indifferent to dress and favour- ing sombre hues, might be brought forward to support this theory. But it can scarcely be used to explain the very marked sexual difference among lower races; and it may be quite as reasonably argued that the Society of Friends found a specially large number of recruits among individuals indifferent to colour and defective in perceiving it. It is doubtless significant that such scanty evidence as I have been able to gather concerning keenness of colour-perception does not seem to agree with the very clear evidence concerning colour-blindness. It is noteworthy that in Professor Nichols' experiments — though these were not on a decisive number of persons — the colours in regard to which the men were especially more sensitive than the women were red and green, precisely the colours that are defec- tively seen in colour-blindness. And Mr. Green found that exceptional range of colour-perception occurred exclusively in males. It would seem that we are dealing with two different classes of pheno- mena. Colour-blindness is a defect comparable to albinism and to the other congenital abnormalities that are more common in males. It has nothing to do with keenness in sensory discrimination, and it is probable that, as seems to be true in regard to some other sense perceptions, there is greater range and acuteness of colour-perception in men. COLOURED HEARING. This is one of the names for the best known of a large group of slightly abnormal psychic phenomena. A person is the subject of coloured hearing when a particular sound immediately and involuntarily brings a particular colour to the mental eye. Usually each of the vowel sounds has a colour of its own, and 158 MAN AND WOMAN. words are coloured accordingly. Besides coloured hearing we may have other automatic sense-asso- ciations, such as coloured gustation, coloured olfac- tion, coloured tactility, coloured motility.^ Mr. Francis Galton many years ago investigated various of these associations. He seems to have found colour association more common in women than in men; he also found that it "appears to be rather common, though in an ill-developed degree, among children." ^ The allied phenomenon of the " number-form " (" the sudden and automatic appear- ance of a vivid and invariable form in the mental field of view, whenever a numeral is thought of, and in which each numeral has its own definite place ") was also found by Galton to be more common in women; speaking roughly, it exists in i out of 30 males, and in i out of 15 females. Number-forms originate at an early age, and are commoner in young persons than in adults.^ Fechner collected 73 cases of coloured hearing, 35 of men, 38 of women ; they were nearly all adults and of the educated classes.* Krohn found that coloured hearing and ^ See Art. " Secondary Sensations," by Bleuler, in TuUe's Did. of Psych. Med.; Griiber's "L' Audition Coloree et les Phenomenes similaires " in Proceedings of the International Congress of Experimental Psychology, London, 1892; and Krohn's " Pseudo-Chromsesthesia " in American fournal of Psychology, October 1892. The last contains a full bibliography. ^ Inquiries into Human Faculty, p. 147. '^ Ibid., p. 119, Galton remarks that the somewhat allied power of visualising — or of unconsciously storing up in the mind mental pictures which may be voluntarily recalled — "is higher in the female sex than in the male, and is somewhat, but not much higher in public school- boys than in men. . . . There is reason to believe that it is very high in some young children, who seem to spend years of difficulty in distinguishing between the subjective and objective world. Language and book-learning certainly tend to dull it." (P.. 99.) The men of science he spoke to knew nothing of it. " On the other hand . . . many men, and a yet larger number of women, and many boys and girls, declared that they habitually saw mental imagery, and that it was perfectly distinct to them, and full of colour." Cross-examination brought out the truth of these assertions. (P. 85. ) ■* Fechner, Vorschule der Aesthetik, Zweiter Theil, p. 316. THE SENSES. I5g similar phenomena are more common in women than in men. An investigation at Wellesley College, an American women's college, of 543 persons, showed that nearly 6 per cent, possessed the faculty of coloured hearing, while about 18 per cent, showed either coloured hearing or number-forms, or both combined. This is certainly a high proportion, although I do not know of any similar investigation at a men's college with which to compare it. The results were verified and confirmed by questioning the subjects after an interval of two months.^ Large, however, as this percentage is, it is greatly exceeded by the results of a subsequent investigation at the same college on the students who entered in the autumn of 1892; out of 203 persons not less than 32, or 15.7 per cent., were colour-hearers, while 61, or 30.2 per cent., had " forms," and 17, or 8.4 per cent., showed both psychic abnormalities.^ It may be asserted with little fear of contradiction that all investigators who have given attention to the point have found coloured hearing and allied pheno- mena more common in women than in men. If we sum up the results as regards the various senses we find that women are unquestionably superior to men in general tactile sensibility, and probably superior in the discrimination' of tastes; as regards the other senses the evidence is less con- clusive, but it would not seem that in regard to any sense men are clearly and decidedly superior to women. The balance of advantage is certainly on the side of women, but it is less clear and emphatic- ally on their side than popular notions would have led us to expect. There can be little doubt that the popular behef, although it happens to be in the main ' Mary Whiton Calkins, "Experimental Psychology at Wellesley College," American Journal of Psychology, vol. v. No. 2 (November 1892). '■' MaryW. Calkins, "A Statistical Study of Pseiido-Chromesthesia and of Mental Forms," American Journal of Psychology, July 1S93. This is an interesting and carefully detailed study. l6d MAN AND WOMAN. correct, is really founded, on the confusion of two totally distinct nervous qualities — sensibility and irritability, or, as it is perhaps better called, affectability. The first means precision and in- tensity of perception of stimulus; the second is the readiness of motor response to stimulus. These two nervous qualities may, and usually do, vary in- dependently.^ The clear distinction between sensi- bility and irritability in the present connection has been of late clearly stated by Sergi, and by Lombroso and Ferrero, but the keen intuition of Coleridge had long before noticed that an important sexual difference is the greater irritability of women, the deeper sensibility of men. It was also perceived some years ago by Galton, who was the first to make accurate investigations of sexual sensory differences. "At first," he remarks, "owing to my confusing the quality (sensitivity) of which I am speaking with that of nervous irritability, I fancied that women of delicate nerves who are distressed by noise, sunshine, etc., would have acute powers of discrimination. But this I found not to be the case. In morbidly sensitive persons both pain and sensation are induced by lower stimuli than in the healthy, but the number of just perceptible grades of sensation between them is not necessarily different. I found as a rule that men have more delicate powers of discrimination than women, and the business experience of life seems to confirm this." ^ When we come to consider the affectability of women this important distinction will become still clearer. ' The greater affectability or irritability of women may be perceived at a very early stage of primitive culture and confused with greater sensibility. An interesting example is furnished by Mr. im Thurn, who tells us that women sometimes take part in the very vigorous whipping game of the Arawacks of Guiana; on such occasions a wooden figure of a bird is substituted for the whips, and a gentle peck given in place of the more serious lash. {Journal Anthrop. Imtitute, February 1893, p. 198.) ^ F. Galton, Human Faculty, p. 29. i6i CHAPTER VII. MOTION. MUSCULAR STRENGTH WOMEN'S JOINTS SMALLER RIC- CARDI'S EXPERIMENTS SHOWING MAXIMUM ENERGY MORE QUICKLY REACHED BY WOMEN — REACTION-TIME RATE OF MOVEMENT SLOWER IN WOMEN — BRYAN'S EXPERIMENTS ON RATE OF MOTION RARITY OF WOMEN ACROBATS — WOMEN AND PHYSICAL TRAINING SEXUAL DIFFERENCES IN VOLUNTARY MOTOR ABILITY- — WOMEN TELEGRAPH CLERKS — HANDWRITING women's SLIGHTER MUSCULAR ENERGY PROBABLY AN ORGANIC CHARACTER MANUAL DEXTERITY — OPINIONS OF TEACHERS THE GENERAL OPINION THAT WOMEN HAVE LESS MANUAL DEXTERITY THAN MEN — DEXTERITY OF WOMEN IN VARIOUS TRADES — SENSE-JUDGMENTS BUSINESS EXPERIENCE — VARIOUS EXPERIMENTS— WOMEN PROBABLY AS WELL ABLE TO FORM ACCURATE SENSE- JUDGMENTS AS MEN. Whatever doubt there may be about sexual differ- ences in the sensory appeal there is little doubt as to the sexual differences in motor response, at all events in its coarser outlines. Except among certain lovs^er races, and then almost exclusively in that more passive form of muscular activity involved in carrying burdens, women everywhere reveal a somewhat less capacity for motor energy than men and a less degree of delight in its display. Among civilised races the difference is great and obvious to all. There is no form of vigorous muscular action, with the sole II l62 MAN AND WOMAN. exception of dancing, for which civilised women show greater attraction and aptitude than men. Even at that period in the evolution of puberty when girls are in most respects ahead of boys, they still remain, as Pagliani and others have shown, both in vital capacity and muscular power, very much behind boys. Roughly speaking, the force of the female hand, measured by the dynamometer, is one- third less than that of the male hand; boys can carry about one-third more than girls; and while a man can carry about double his own weight a woman can carry only about half hers (Landois and Stirling). While the average male golf player (according to Whitney) can lift the ball from 120 to 140 yards, the average female player lifts it only from 70 to 100 yards. At the Bath meeting of the British Asso- ciation the mean strength of squeeze was 35-40 kilos in men, 20-25 in women. The Anthropometric Committee of the British Association found that women (chiefly shop assistants and pupils in training institutions for school-mistresses) are little more than half as strong as men.i Manouvrier, comparing weight of femur with dynamometric pressure, found that muscular force is to body -weight as 87.1 to 100 in men and only as 54.5 to 100 in women. Sargent found that in strength of expiratory muscles the weakest boys are stronger than the average girl, and although in strength of back, legs, chest, and arms, the girls are slightly better, still 50 per cent, girls fail to reach a point of strength surpassed by go per cent, boys.^ Galton found in his laboratory that of some 1600 women of various ages the strongest could only exert a squeeze of 86 lbs., or about that of a medium man. " If we wished to select the 100 strongest individuals," he remarks, " out of two groups, one consisting of 100 males chosen at 1 Report Anth. Com. Brit. Ass., 1883. " Sargent, "Physical Development of Women,'' Scridner's Mag., 1889, MOTION. 163 random and the other of 100 females, we should take the 100 males and draft out the 7 weakest of them, and draft in the 7 strongest females." ^ The fundamental character of the sexual difference in motor activity appears to be indicated by the fact that not only are the muscles smaller and muscular energy less in women, but the joints are also decidedly smaller. Dwight (" Range and Signi- ficance of Variation in the Human Skeleton," Boston Med. and Surg. Jour., July 1894) states that "small size of joints is char- acteristic of woman." Hepburn found that the same holds true among savages. G. A. Dorsey has found the same difference among skeletons from the mounds of Ohio, North-West Coast Indians, and Peruvians {Boston Med. and Surg. Reporter, 22nd July 1897); "the average maximum diameter of the head of the humerus in the male is 46.3 mm., in the female 37.7 mm. The average maximum diameter of the femur in the male is 47.3 mm., in the female 41 mm. The average maximum diameter of the head of the tibia through the condyles in the male is 78.5, in the female 67.4." An interesting sexual difference in muscular force has been clearly brought out by Riccardi ; experi- menting with the dynamometer on over 350 men and women, he found that while, with the right hand, 36 per cent, only of the men exhibited their maxi- mum force at the first attempt, 38 per cent, at the second attempt, and 16.8 per cent, at the third, 57.8 per cent, of the women gave a maximum result at the first attempt, 20.4 at the second, only g.g at the third. For the left hand the results were : for the men, 49.8 at the first attempt, 24.8 at the second, 21.9 at the third, and for the women, 49 per cent, at the first attempt, 36.2 at the second, and 9.9 at the third. This result, showing that weaker women reach their maximum quicker than men, and that the weaker left hand of men resembles women in this respect, indi- cates a connection between weakness and promptness of reaction, and perhaps has some bearing on the general character of motor action in women.^ ^ Journal Anthrop. Institute, 1885. 2 P. Riccardi, Arch, per T Antrof. , Fasc. 3, 1889. 164 MAN AND WOMAN. Herzen made a series of experiments at Florence into the influence of age and sex in modifying reaction- time — that is to say, the time taken in reacting to a signal. He was impressed by the slowness with which children co-ordinate or associate two move- ments, as of the hand and foot. His figures show that girls react at first more quickly than boys, but while in the latter the reaction accelerates regularly up to adolescence, in the former it accelerates less rapidly, and stops short at a lower rapidity than that of the masculine sex.i Various investigations have been made in recent years with regard to reaction-time. Thus Gilbert, in a very careful series of experiments on over 1000 children in the schools of New Haven, Connecticut, found that children grow steadily quicker in simple reaction-time as they grow older, and that boys are rather quicker than girls at all the ages investigated (6 to 17) ; the bright children were quicker than the dull children, though at some ages this difference was not found. When discrimination and choice were involved in addition to simple reaction, the sexual difference was diminished, and the girls were almost as quick as the boys.^ Albert L. Lewis, who made a large- number of experiments on reaction-time (for light, sound, and electric shock) in different classes of persons, found that the order of decreasing rapidity was American men, Indians (these two groups being equal), Negroes, American women ; the Negroes, how- ever, came last in response to light.^ Reaction is quicker (according to Buccola) among the educated than among the uneducated, but the investigation of some Italian men of genius has shown that in them reaction-time is slow,* and Wissler found that reaction time is a very ^ A. Herzen, Le Cerveau et I activite cerebrale, pp. 96-98. ^ J. Allen Gilbert, Studies from the Yale Psychological Laboratory, vol. ii., 1894, p. 77. ■'' Psychological Rev., Mar. 1897.. * Archivio di Psichiatria, 1892, pp. 394, 395. MOTION. 165 poor measure of mental efficiency.^ It is also very slow in the insane, and extremely slow in idiots. Some Japanese jugglers examined by Herzen reacted very slowly. The north Italians, he found, reacted more quickly than the south Italians, and a Nor- wegian reacted most quickly of all. Several series of investigations have been carried on concerning sexual differences in the rate of voluntary movements. Cattell and Fullerton found that this rate, which is very constant, is decidedly slower in women than in men.^ Jastrow found, among the students of Wisconsin University, that normal move- ments, when no special direction is given, are quicker in women, but that the maximum movements, parti- cularly in the case of longer movements, are quicker in men.^ Bryan has made an elaborate study of rate of movement on about 800 school children (the sexes being nearly equally divided) belonging to Worcester, Mass. A fairly simple instrument was devised to receive tapping movements on the button of a Morse key and to record them on a clock face ; the amount of force required was insignificant, and the tapping movements could be executed by the arm, forearm, or finger, so as to give the rate for the various joints. The differences between boys and girls were not found to be considerable, but there was a slight superiority of boys over girls on the whole. It must be noted, however, that the best single record was made by a girl of twelve, who " looked the type of robust health," and when asked if she played the piano, replied, " Only by ear ; but I play baseball though," adding, " I can strike two over an octave on the piano." Another interesting record was that of a girl of thirteen who had taken lessons on the violin for two years, and who showed the influence of ^ " Correlation of Physical and Mental Tests," Psych. liev. Mono- graphs, vol. iii. , 1901. ^ On the Perception of Small Differences, Philadelphia, 1890, p. 114. ' Am. Journal Psych., April 1892, p. 425. l66 MAN AND WOMAN. special practice by the high rates of the joints involved in playing the violin and the low rates of others, such as the left shoulder, not thus exercised. The superiority of the boys over the girls increases slightly from the age of 6 to that of 9, and more decidedly from 14 to 16. They are nearest together between 10 and 12. At 13 the girls are superior to the boys for each of the eight joints tested. The period from 12 to 13 is one of retardation of rate in boys and acceleration in girls. Boys are more superior to girls as regards the right side than as regards the left, so that the two sides are more alike in girls than in boys. The acceleration of rate in girls between 12 and 13 is followed by a retardation between 13 and 14; while in boys between 13 and 14 there is an acceleration followed by a decline between 14 and 15. It is significant' that the decline and antecedent accelerations are more extreme in girls, and that the recovery is slower ; so that girls of 13 almost reach, and sometimes surpass, girls of 16, and girls of 13 also surpass in every joint boys of 13, and in the case of four joints are faster than boys of 14. Comparison of the increments of rate in boys from 15 to 16 with those in girls from 14 to 15 shows the former to be decidedly greater in the case of every joint, and in the case of seven of the eight joints the increment of rate in boys from 15 to 16 is greater than in girls from 14 to 16. Some additional experiments with reference to precision of movement also showed a slight superiority of boys. In summing up his general results, Bryan remarks : " It would seem something more than a reasonable surmise that the general acceleration of the rate in girls from 12 to 13, and in boys from 13 to 14, is an expression of high tension in the nerve-centres in many individuals at those ages; that the decline following is an expres- sion of nervous fatigue consequent upon the functional charges at those periods ; and that the re-acceleration is a sign of recovery from that fatigue. It is signifi- MOTION. 167 cant that the antecedent acceleration and the dechne are more extreme in girls than in boys, and that the girls recover more slowly. It seems not unlikely that these facts may prove of hygienic significance."! It is interesting to compare these results with what we know as to the rate of growth in boys and girls about the period of puberty, and the accelerations and re- tardations in that growth; it is very probable that there is a real connection. Delaunay (" Les Mouvements centripfetes et centrifuges,'' Revue Scientifique, 25th December 1880) has argued with much ingenuity that motor evolution is from the centripetal to the centrifugal ; that centripetal movements, of adduction and of pronation, predominate among species and individuals little advanced in evolution, and among these he includes quadru- peds, apes, the lower human races, women, children, and unin- telligent persons; while centrifugal movements, of abduction and supination, predominate among the higher human races, in men and in intelligent persons. Corkscrews, etc., are worked from left to right; so are watches, though formerly from right to left; and writing, which was formerly, and still often is among children, from right to left, is now from left to right. (It appears to be a fact in harmony with Delaunay's argument that mirror- writing, from right to left, is found more frequently in girls than in boys. Jour. Ment. Science, July 1897, p. 361.) "Women," he remarks, "preferably execute centripetal movements. Thus they give taps or slaps with the palm of the hand, men with the back. According to my observation, men make circumferential movements like the hands of a watch, women in the opposite direction. Again, all women's garments, from chemise to mantle, button from right to left, while men's garments button from left to right. When a woman puts on a man's coat she buttons it with the left hand, with a centripetal movement." It may be added that, apart from evolutionary progress, the char- acteristically masculine attitude of aggression is centrifugal, the characteristically feminine attitude of defence centripetal; com- pare, for instance, the poses of the Apollo Belvedere and the Venus de Medici. In strength, as well as in rapidity and precision, of movement women are inferior to men. This is not a conclusion that has ever been contested. It is in harmony with all the practical experience of life. It ' W. L. Bryan, " On the Development of Voluntary Motor Ability," Am. Journal Psych., November 1892. l68 MAN AND WOMAN. is perhaps also in harmony with the results of those investigators (Bibra, Pagliani, etc.) who have found that, as in the blood of women, so also in their muscles there is more water than in those of men.^ To a very large extent it is certainly a matter of differences in exercise and environment. It is prob- ably, also, partly a matter of organic constitution. That this latter factor can in any case account for more than a small proportion of the immense muscular difference which exists between civilised men and women is impossible, when we consider the muscular strength displayed by the women among some savage races. But it is suggested by 7 *■ y /tf // /a 'i /y ff /•< /7 /t ^9 the parallelism between rate of movement and rate of growth. Gilbert, among Iowa school children, found indeed that the strength of girls, as measured by wrist-lift was fairly regular in its increase, but there was a marked sexual dividing point at the age of fourteen, boys then beginning their most rapid increase, while the rate of development of the girls was slightly but permanently retarded, so that at the age of nineteen a boy is able to lift just about twice as much as a girl (see Diagram). It is a significant fact that on the music-hall stage feats of strength are, comparatively, rarely performed by women, and the proficiency they reach is less. A ' Arch, per i'Anirop., vol. vi. p. 173. MOTION. i6g very competent authority remarks: " It is a question whether women should ever be trained as acrobats; it is certain that they can never attain the same pro- ficiency as men. As a matter of fact very few women are trained for this particular kind of performance, and in some apparent exceptions — in the well-known Frantz family, for instance, where some one dressed as a woman holds a man on the shoulders and two girls at arms' length — the performer is a man in woman's clothes. Compare, too, the professional ' strong women,' such as Athleta, who is very good in her way, with the ' strong man,' such as Sandow, and you will see that no comparison or competition is possible." It must be remembered that acrobats are frequently the children of acrobats, and receive the most skilled and careful training from the earliest age, and that girls probably have as good a chance of becoming successful acrobats as men. The general tendency of men to violent muscular action, and the greater tendency of women to repose and the storing up of force, has been expressed by saying that men are katabolic, women anabolic; this generalisation, which is perhaps a little too wide, does not explain; it simply states. The motor superiority of men, and to some extent of males generally, is, it can scarcely be doubted, a deep- lying fact. It is related to what is most funda- mental in men and in women, and to their whole psychic organisation. It was not an accident that at Pompeii and Herculaneum, while the men were found in a state indicating violent muscular efforts of resist- ance, the women were in a condition of resigned despair, or clasping their children. If we proceed to inquire into the relative sexual differences of muscular strength in the various parts of the body, we may find precise information in a study by Kellogg of 200 men and 200 women, made with a specially devised dynamometer. He shows that the muscles of the chest are notably weak in lyo MAN AND WOMAN. women, agreeing with the weak inspiratory power of women; the muscles of the baick are also very weak in women (whence probably the frequency with which they complain of back-ache); weakest of all are the flexors of the arm and the pronators and supinators of the forearm. It is in the legs, and especially in the thighs, that women are relatively strongest; the abductors and adductors of the thigh are the strongest muscles of the average woman. This is in accordance with the fact, already considered in a previous chapter, that thigh circumference is the only large external proportion of body in which women surpass men absolutely as well as relatively, and indicates that the larger thighs of women are not due merely to greater amount of adipose tissue.^ The marked weakness of the muscles of the back in women, due to defective body movements, is not only, as Kellogg notes, connected with the frequent tendency to back-ache; we must certainly associate it also with a much more serious condition. It is well known that lateral curvature of the spine (or scoliosis) is much more frequent in females than in males. Thus Bradford and Lovett, among 2,300 cases, found that there were 84.5 per cent, females to only 15.5 males, and Bernard Roth,^ among 1000 cases, found a still higher proportion of females, 87.8 to 12.2 males. The majority of these cases occur between the ages of ten and fifteen, and there can be no doubt that defective muscular development of the back occurring at the age of maximum development — and due to the conventional restraints on exercises involving the body, and also to the use of stays which hamper the freedom of such move- ments — is here a factor of very great importance. In the introductory chapter I have referred to the evidence which shows that among the lovi/er races in many parts of ' J. H. Kellogg, "The Value of Strength Tests," a paper read to Am. Ass. Advancement Phys. Education, 1895. 2 Brit. Med. Jour., 9th Oct. 1897. MOTION. ■ 171 the world, the women appear to be often nearly or quite as strong as the men, if not indeed stronger. It may be proper at the present stage to point out that while such facts are un- doubtedly reliable, and it would be easy to multiply them, they require some analysis before we properly understand their significance. I am in complete accord with the comments on this point of Professor Waldeyer, who remarks that the ap- parently greater strength of the women among, for instance, many Negro races is simply due to the division of labour by which the women act always as porters. As Waldeyer observes, a man will tire of carrying a baby before a nursemaid will ("UeberdieSomatischen Unterschiede der beiden Geschlechter," Corresp.-Blatt. der Deutsch. Anthrop. Gesellschaft, 1895, No. 9). It is thus that we must explain the ability of the wives of Negro soldiers (in whom the left foot had been cut off according to Abyssinian custom), after the battle of Adowa, to carry away their husbands, often finely developed men, on their backs, a distance of several miles (Fiaschi, "A Report on the Mutilated and Evirated at the Battle of Adowa," Brit. Med. Jour., 29th Aug. 1896). The muscular development and strength of the women among many savage races is thus doubtless the result of special cultivation, and mostly confined to the bearing of burdens. It is not, however, without significance, since it shows the physical advantages derived from a cultivation of the muscles much greater than is common among civilised women. These ad- vantages are, however, obtainable in Europe, as, indeed, is sufficiently indicated by the English pit-brow women of Lanca- shire collieries. "Their work" (I quote from a newspaper account written by a lady) "consists of stacking coal and pushing hand waggons from the shaft to a stock heap. Others stand below a large sieve which is worked by machinery, and pick stones and rubbish from the coal as it is carried on an endless iron belt from the apparatus and dropped into the railway truck beneath. Some are employed in keeping the shoot clear down which coal passes as it is shot into a canal boat. A doctor, who works in a mining village in Lancashire, considers ' the pit-brow girls much more healthy and hardy than mill girls.' Another gentleman, also a dweller among them, re- marked on the fine physique of the women and the splendid child- ren they produce." An American observer writes of the pit-brow girls of the Wigan district :— " You cannot find plumper figures, prettier forms, more shapely necks, or daintier feet, despite the ugly clogs, in all of dreamful Andalusia. . . . In the village street or at church on Sunday, you could not pick her out from her com- panions, unless for her fine colour, form, and a positively classic pose and grace of carriage possessed by no other working women of England." It is much to be regretted that the jealousies of male workers, aided by prejudices concerning the "unwomanly" 172 MAN AND WOMAN. nature of muscular development, are in England driving women out of healthy out-door avocations into unhealthy indoor avoca- tions. A distinguished American gynecologist, Dr. G. J. Engelmann, finds that the experiences of colleges and high schools show improvement in the functional health of women running parallel with greater attention to sports and physical training. " Physical training begun in early life," he remarks, "the habit of exercise, will do much to remove the suscepti- bility to injury during the physiological fluctuations of the functional wave, as we are'taught by the acrobat, who, under constant training from childhood on, persists in her trying feats, requiring the greatest nerve and muscle strain, and the highest co-ordination of all powers, unaffected by the menstrual period" (G. J. Engelmann, "The American Girl of To-day," Trans. Am. Gynecol. Soc, 1900). At the same time it is very important to remember that the inferior strength and muscular development of woman, as compared to man, is in relation to her inferior size and to various fundamental and organic characteristics. It is highly desirable that women should pay attention to their muscular development and their physical training, but it is not desirable that this should be done with the ambition of competing with men, for since men are placed at a natural advantage, the extra strain thrown upon women in the effort to compete with men necessarily leads to serious sacrifices in other respects. To women the involuntary mus- cular system is of special importance, more especially in its bearing on the maternal functions, and it does not appear that development of the voluntary muscles has any necessary beneficial effect on the involuntary muscles. I have noticed that well-developed muscular and athletic women sometimes show a very marked degree of uterine, as well as vesical, inertia in childbirth, while on the other hand the processes of parturition are often carried out in the most admirably efficient manner in fragile women who shew a minimum development of the external muscles. So far as I have made any inquiries, this observation is in harmony with the opinion of experienced observers. Thus Dr. Engelmann, who, as we have seen, insists on the importance of physical training for women, yet writes (in a private letter) : " In regard to this interesting and suggestive question, it does seem a fact that women who exercise all their muscles persistently meet with increased difficulties in parturi- tion. It would certainly seem that excessive development of the muscular system is unfavourable to maternity. I hear from instructors in physical training, both in the United States and in England, of excessively tedious and painful confinements among their fellows — two or three cases in each instance only, but this within the knowledge of a single individual among his friends. I have also several such reports from the circus MOTION. 173 perhaps exceptions. I look upon this as a not impossible result of muscular exertion in women, the development of muscle, muscular attachments and bony frame leading to approximation to the male." It is true that peasants and labouring women are not specially hable to suffer in this way, but in such cases the muscular development is generally gradual and diffused, and probably less likely to lead to any disturbance in the nervous balance of the body. The physical development of women should not, therefore, proceed along the same lines as that of men, and Lagrange, Mosso, and others are on sound ground when they argue that it should not be athletic in its methods. The points of greatest weakness in modern women are, as we have seen, the respira- tory muscles of the chest with those of the arms, and the muscles of the back with the complementary muscles of the abdomen. Such movements as are involved in some of the slower Spanish dances are admirably adapted to correct these defects, and, as Marro insists {La Puberty, ch. xiii.), swimming is even more valuable. (In Stratz's Schonheit des Weiblichen Korpers is an interesting chapter on posture and movement in women, ex- cellently and fully illustrated by photographs of the nude.) It may be added that, as Mosso has pointed out in a lecture on the physical education of women (translated in Pedagogical Seminary, March 1893), these respiratory and abdominal defects are of quite modern appearance, and by no means necessarily inherent in women. He points out that the models for the Venus of Milo and the Venus of Cnidos must cer- tainly have been women trained in gymnastics and games. The conformation of the arm-pit of the Venus of Milo indicates a high degree of muscular development of the chest, and the mus- cular development is particularly noticeable in the modelling of the abdomen; "the rectal muscles of the abdomen are clearly seen; the upper part of the belly as far as the navel is divided by a line in the middle and one side, and on the other are seen two furrows marking the outer margin of the rectal muscles. I have not seen a modern statue in which this great development of the abdominal muscles was so well indicated." There is no group of muscles which it is more desirable for a woman to possess in a developed condition than those of the abdomen. Gilbert 1 has investigated the sexual differences in voluntary motor ability with the aid of a special reaction-board with a button which the subject was required to tap as rapidly as possible for five seconds. Among over 1000 children at New Haven, between 1 Studies from the Yale Psychological Laboratory, vol. ii. p. 63. 174 MAN AND WOMAN. the ages of six and seventeen, it was found that rapidity increased with age to twelve years, being slightly lowered at thirteen, then increasing to a maximum at seventeen. Boys throughout showed a higher rate of tapping than girls.i Both sexes fall off at twelve, but while the. boys go on increasing in rapidity at thirteen, the girls continue to lose up to the age of fourteen,, when there is the maximum sexual difference, and again fall off at sixteen, when the boys are steadily increasing in rapidity. The tendency of the girls to fall off at these ages is un- doubtedly due, as Gilbert remarks, to the influence of puberty; and sexual physical development retards nervous development in other directions. In another series of experiments the tapping was continued for forty-five seconds, in order to judge of the influence of fatigue. This influence was found to be least marked at the age of fifteen ; when the data were calculated separately for boys and girls, it was found that girls tire more easily at thirteen than at twelve, while for boys this occurs between thirteen and fourteen. Boys tire more quickly than girls. At this point Gilbert makes some observations which are of considerable significance. " Boys tire more quickly throughout," he remarks, "in voluntary movement than girls. But the statement that boys tire more easily than girls could scarcely be made upon the basis of my data, for the rate of tapping by the boys was faster than that by the girls. The statement that boys tire more easily is unwarrantable, for, by averaging and comparing the rate of tapping for all boys and girls separately, it is found that the girls ^ In another similar series of experiments at Iowa City, Gilbert found that from six to eight the girls excelled the boys, though the boys tapped faster from nine on to nineteen ; the decline of the girls in rapidity at the age of fourteen was, however, less than at New Haven. It may be noted, as possibly bearing on this difference, that the physical development of the Iowa children, irrespective of sex, was superior to that of the New Haven children. (Iowa Studies in Psychology, vol i 1897, p. 27.) ^ MOTION. 175 on the whole tap slower than the boys, who lose but little more than the girls by fatigue, leaving the balance in favour of boys. The average boy, includ- ing all ages, taps 29.4 times in five seconds, the average girl taps 26.9 times, thus tapping 8.5 per cent, slower than boys. The average boy, including all ages, loses 18.1 per cent, by fatigue; the average girl loses 16.6 per cent. In other words, the boys oys & Girls -Boys. Girls. AVERAGE NUMBER OF TAPS'gIVEN IN FIVE SECONDS. {Gilbert.) lose 1.5 per cent, more by fatigue than girls, and yet boys tap 8.5 per cent, faster than girls. This leaves the balance greatly in favour of boys when voluntary motor ability and fatigue are considered together." This is an aspect of that more continuous character of women's activity, and more intermittent nature of men's, to which reference was made at the beginning 176 MAN AND WOMAN. of Chapter I. When women are working at their own natural level of energy, they tire less quickly than men do when working at their natural level of energy; but when women attempt to work at the masculine level of energy, they tire very much more rapidly than men.i In practical life sexual differences in motor ability as shown in tapping may be studied in the telegraph offices. I am indebted to Mr. C. H. Garland for the following observations: — "Possibly you may know that in telegraphing use is made of a system of short and long currents, which, passing through electro magnets, move an armature working against a spring, depressing it for a longer or shorter time. This armature pro- duces either a sound or prints a dash, or dot, on a paper ribbon. The currents are sent by a ' key,' which is essentially a brass lever pivoted in centre, one end of which bears a handle. The other end is depressed by a spiral spring. When the handle is depressed the two contacts strike together and complete the circuit, and the electro magnets at the distal end of wire move armature in corresponding -manner. Sending by hand on such a key requires considerable skill and delicacy, especially when high speeds of 30 to 35 words per mmute are obtained. Mr. J. Grant, speaking before the Postmaster-General on December 1 8th, 1893, made some interesting calculations, from which it appears that even when sending at the moderate rate of 20 words per minute, 300 signals are sent in each minute. The signals differ in length, and spaces have to be made of varying lengths between letters and words. From an experience of thirteen years, I can say that women are on an average slower senders than men. The men can for short periods send even at the rate of 45 words per minute, necessitating over 600 signals. The signals of the male clerks are cleaner cut, the distinctions between dots and dashes being more regularly and better made. The sending of women tends, as we express it, to 'drag.' The ' Many other series of experiments, chiefly carried on in America, confirm those summarised above. Thus Christopher, experimenting on Chicago school children, with the ergograph, found the boys superior to the girls throughout; the girls reached their maximum at fourteen, and from then on to twenty remained stationary ; the boys increased continuously up to twenty, when their energy was nearly double that of the girls. Mary Harmon, among kindergarten children, found that in flexion and extension of the arm girls are notably slower than boys. Lewis, in comparing rate of movement in flexion and extension of arms, found that American males were decidedly superior to American females, and that Indians were intermediate. MOTION. 177 signals seem to slur into one another. The formation is more frequently faulty, although there are many excellent female clerks and many indifferent male clerks. I speak of averages. The handling of the key is another peculiar point. The normal method, and that producing the best results, is obtained when the key is grasped lightly by tips of index finger, middle finger, and thumb. This is the common method by males. The females, however, show a tendency to 'dance' on the key. That is to say, they frequently change the method of operation, alternately tapping the handle with the tips and the middle joints of index and middle finger, and grasping it. The hand is frequently lifted from the key in a sort of flourish, and has a peculiar effect when watched. The females on occasions change the position of their hand on the key two or three times during the formation of a single word. The rule seems to be to tap dots with tip of finger and dashes with middle. An experienced operator can in most cases distinguish by the marks received whether he has a male or female operator sending to him. Females also exhibit symptoms of fatigue on circuits, very quickly becoming impatient, and certainly appearing less able to talk and work at the same time. In conclusion, I might say that those stations where women are almost exclusively em- ployed are notorious as being impatient, 'snappy,' and intolerant of any stumble." In confirmation of Mr. Garland's observation that telegraph operators can always form an opinion as to the sex of the operators with whom they are in communication, I may mention that I have been told by a female telegraph clerk that she has from time to time been addressed through the wires as "old man" by clerks who cannot be persuaded that she is a woman. Sexual differences may be traced in handwriting, though such differences are not easy to study by methods of scientific precision. Of recent years, however, efforts have been made to study handwrit- ing exactly, with the aid of a special curvimeter and other instruments of precision, more especially by Gross and Diehl. The latter, working in Kraepelin's laboratory at Heidelberg, finds that women write more rapidly than men. Their writing is also larger than men's, and the pressure they exert in writing is scarcely half as much as that exerted by men. But the women cannot increase their rapidity of writing to the same extent as the men, and such greater rapidity as they attain is due to diminution in the 12 178 MAN AND WOMAN. size of the writing, while in men it is produced by putting forth a greater effort.' Manual Dexterity. — Carl Vogt, whose opinion is entitled to consideration, speaking of his university experience in Switzerland, where there is so large a number of women students, while bearing witness to their quickness and excellent memory for what they have learned by heart, stated that they are not skilful with their hands : " What makes laboratory work par- ticularly difficult to women is — though one would hardly believe it — that they are often awkward and unskilful with their hands. Laboratory assistants are unanimous in complaining that they are questioned on the smallest matters, and that one woman gives more trouble than three men. One would have thought that the delicate fingers of these young women were specially adapted for microscopic work, for the mani- pulation of thin lamincB of glass, and the preparation of minute sections ; but it is • the contrary that really happens. One recognises the place of a female student at a glance by the fragments of glass, broken instruments, notched knives, the stains of chemicals and colouring agents, the spoiled preparations. There are exceptions without doubt, but they are excep- tions."^ This point is of some interest, and throug'h the kindness of a friend I have obtained the opinions of several experienced and well-known teachers as to the relative awkwardness of men and women in manual operations. The letters in response cover rather more than the ground of awkwardness, but they are worth quoting. Professor M'Kendrick, of Glasgow University, writes : — " My experience has been that women are, on the average, as neat and strong and deft in manipulation as men. By ' strong ' I mean that they possess sufficient and well co- 1 A. Diehl, " Ueber die Eigenschaften der Schrift bei Gesunden,'' Psychologische Arheiten, vol. 3, 1899, p. 37. 2 Carl Vogt, Revue (C Anthropologie, 1888, quoted in Ploss, Das Weib, Band i. p. 34. MOTION. .179 ordinated muscular power in their fingers, hands, and arms. Lightness and firmness of touch always imply a well-ordered muscular mechanism. In my opinion there is no average difference between the sexes as regards the capacity of performing dexterous mani- pulations. A certain percentage of both men and women are clumsy and inept in the movements of their fingers, and my experience does not lead me to think that the percentage is greater in women than in men. Some men possess delicate touch combined with much patience in manipulative work, and some women show the same excellences. At the same time I cannot admit that women, on the whole, are better adapted for delicate manipulative work than men. It really resolves itself into this, that many women can, in this matter, do what any man can do, and that many men can do what any woman can do. This is the result of experience in teaching women for about twenty years." Professor Halliburton, of King's College, London, writes : — " My answer would be of much more value if I could give definite statistics, but as I have kept none, all I can do is to state my general impressions. The success of women students at examinations in science will in part answer your inquiries, but though examinational success is evidence of one kind of ability, it is not, unless taken in conjunction with other things, of superlative value in my eyes. I should rather look to the general work of the students, such as one sees in a practical class. On the whole, then, I should say that women students are on the average better than men students. This may be in part owing to the fact that women do not take up scientific work unless they are earnest about the matter and have some scientific ardour; with men one finds a large class who have no interest in their work, and who, in spite of their laziness or stupidity, or both, have been sent to college by their parents and guardians. The best women students are not, l8o MAN AND WOMAN. however, so good as the best men. They do not get the same grasp of the subject ; they are more bookish and not so practical; they excel, however, in an infinite capacity for taking pains, such as one seldom if ever sees in a man. With both men and women one often finds that good ability, intelligence, in- dustry, and extensive theoretical knowledge are com- bined with an inability to do practical work. This is not, however, the rule in either sex. Still, every now and then we come across instances of people who are not able to use their fingers, be they never so indus- trious or gifted in other ways ; and my further impression is that one meets with this more oftein in women than among men." Mr. Vaughan Jennings, who has taught Biology to mixed classes at the Birkbeck Institute for several years, writes : — " I think that in the matter of manipu- lation men are on the whole better than women. In a class equally divided I should expect, I think, to find more men than women showing natural skill in dissection or in using delicate apparatus. (If one had to select a number of untrained recruits to learn such work one would choose them mainly from sailors.) At the same time the men who have no capacity for such work are likely perhaps to be worse than the average woman, probably because they take less trouble. It is difficult to say where the difference lies. It is impossible to tell how much inherited habit has to do with any of the mental differences between the sexes. Some difference in the nervous system seems to be at the root of most of it. A certain lack of initiative and a hesitation about ' taking the next step ' seems to cause a good deal of apparent slowness. I am sure also that greater nervous irritability is responsible for much. The ordinary words 'nervousness,' 'impatience,' etc., do not express what I mean — but there is a sort of almost unconscious and automatic exhaustion of the nervous system which often spoils delicate handi- MOTION. l8l work ; and the strong man with the heavily-balanced nerves has a far greater advantage than is generally believed. However, this is only theory. My opinion is by no means a strong or decided one, but I think on the whole it goes to the masculine side." It will be seen that the writers of two of these letters (which, I may add, were addressed to a lady) cautiously support Professor Vogt's experience, though with nothing of his characteristic brusquerie of expression. The opinions as to the greater awk- wardness of women students in manipulation are three to one, while Professor M'Kendrick, who forms the minority, guards himself from the assertion that women are less awkward than men. That women possess in specially high degree the "well co-ordinated muscular power" which, as Professor M'Kendrick points out, is involved in skilful manipulation, there is, so far as I am aware, no precise experimental evidence to show; while, as we shall see later on, the "nervous irritability" invoked by Mr. Jennings is an important factor in the activities of women. It is not easy, as I have elsewhere had to point out, to compare the relative skill of men and women workers, because men and women rarely perform the same work under the same conditions. The cigar and cigarette trades furnish a good field for compari- son; this work requires in its more important branches very considerable manual dexterity and neatness, and a quick, accurate eye. It does not call for great muscular strength, and is therefore well fitted for women ; as a matter of fact, in East London and Hackney cigar-makers are in the proportion of about 800 men to iioo women and girls.^ The women, however, speaking generally, are set to do a lower class of work; they receive from 15 to 40 per cent, less wages than the men, and it seems to be 1 See in Booth's Labour and Life of the People, 1889, vol. i., the interesting Chap. vi. on "Tobacco Workers," from which the facts stated above are mainly talcen. l82 MAN AND WOMAN. generally agreed that their work is inferior. It should be added, however, that the physique and intelligence of the men are reckoned as above the average. A large number of women and girls are employed as cigarette-makers. This, it need scarcely be said, requires long practice and great dexterity, especially when, as is now the case, so narrow a margin of the paper is allowed to overlap. All the best work is at present done by men; the women are employed chiefly in what is called "push work," which means that the paper wrapper is first constructed and the tobacco inserted subsequently; this is much less skilled work and prpduces an inferior kind of cigarette. In Leeds also, according to Miss Collet, experience seems to be in favour of men's work; in the cigar trade there men are said to have a lighter touch than women, and to produce cigars, as a rule, of more equal quality.^ In cotton weaving (though not in cotton spinning), both in England and France, it appears that men and women are equal, and women (even as far back as 1824) have earned as much or nearly as much as men. There is, finally, at least one occupation, chiefly involving manual dexterity, in which women are stated to be distinctly superior to men. Women stitch the serge linings to saddles as well as men and 40 per cent, more quickly. They are paid at the same rate, and earn 35s. a week as against 25s. formerly earned by men. It is an occupation for which women have been more highly trained than men.2 There is a general belief that women are nimble and dexterous with their fingers. If, however, we except needle-work, in which women are as a rule ^ Clara E. Collet, "Woman's Work in 'Leeds,'' Econoiiiic Journal, September 1891. ^ I quote the two last cases from a very able discussion by Sidney Webb, " Alleged Differences in the Wages paid to Men and to Women for Similar Work," Economic Joiiriial, 1891, p. 635, MOTION. 183 forced to possess the skill that comes of practice, there seems reason for concluding that on the whole the manual dexterity of women is somewhat inferior. This deficiency seems to be more marked in the more special and skilled departments of work. Thus, as Mr. Webb remarks, " women weavers can seldom ' tune ' or set their own looms. Women heraldic engravers have, curiously enough, never been able to point their own gravers, and have, in consequence, nearly abandoned that occupation." In such cases as this we have, no doubt, to deal not so much with defective manual dexterity as with a certain lack of resourcefulness and initiative. Sense-judgments. — Under this heading we may include various phenomena which, although closely related to pure sensory impressions, are more highly complicated by muscular, reflex, and intel- lectual factors. The power of forming rapid and accurate sense-judgments is of very great importance in practical life. Unfortunately, it is not easy to find or even to devise reliable investigations regarding the relative skill of men and women in forming sense- judgments; it is rare to find men and women working under absolutely the same conditions at absolutely the same work. In the business affairs of life, where we may reason- ably expect to find natural selection operating to effect a true sexual distribution, the evidence is conflicting. In salt-making, women often perform work elsewhere done by men, and are said to be more "neat-handed" in "tapping the squares"; at the same time they do less work than men, two men taking the place of three women.i In America an experienced peach-grower has asserted that women have quicker and defter fingers than men (as well as more natural honesty), and that they make better graders and packers than men.^ As money-counters, 1 S. Webb, "Alleged Diflerences, etc.," Economic Journal, 1891. ^ World's Work, July 1902. 184 MAN AND WOMAN. women' in America are said to be much more expert than men, seldom making a mistake or passing counterfeit coin. They can tell a bad bill by feeling it only, it is asserted, and a bank cashier will make a hundred mistakes where they make one.^ All these assertions are a little dubious. If we turn to the more accurate and measurable determination of sexual differences in the formation of sense-judgments, it is possible to find a few, though not many, attempts to measure accuracy of motor response to sensory impressions. A few tests were applied at the Anthropometric Laboratory during the Bath meeting of the British Association. It was found that in dividing a line in half women's eyes, were absolutely correct in 10 per cent, more cases than those of men — i.e., 35.6 per cent, of the men were successful, against 45.5 per cent, of the women. The division of a line into thirds was done about equally correctly by both sexes, while the men were consider- ably more accurate than the women in estimating a right angle — i.e., 63 per cent, men were correct, against 33.7 per cent, women. In investigating New Haven school children Gilbert found that in judgment of weight-differences both boys and girls improve with age. At six the boys are decidedly superior to the girls, from seven to thirteen they oscillate but on the whole keep pace with each other ; after that there is a decided superiority of boys. At Iowa Gilbert further investigated the accuracy with which space is judged in terms of movement: the subject having first had an opportunity of measuring the distance between two points vi'ith his eyes, had then to mark it off with eyes covered. Accuracy increased with age ; between the ages of six and ten girls were more ac- curate, but after that boys became more accurate. In the estimation of length by sight, it may be ^ raU Afal! GazeL'e, z^ih September 1886. Tlie authority for this statement is not given. MOTION. 185 remarked, Gilbert found that at nearly all ages boys are more accurate than girls. ^ Franz and Houston in New York found that in estimating time, distance, proportion, and in quanti- tative measurements generally, boys are more exact than girls.^ Professor Jastrow, in experimenting on the male and female students of Wisconsin University, devised a series of tests of sense-judgments, though he was only able to complete a small portion of them, namely, those relating to pressure and one relating to the space-sense of the skin. The subjects were first required to pour as much shot in the palm of their right hands as they thought would weigh an ounce; the men on the average decided on 47 gm. — ■ an exaggeration of 65 per cent.; the women on the average chose 22 gm. — an under-estimation of 21 per cent. The subjects were next asked to pour shot into a box so that both shot and box should weigh an ounce; in this test a well-recognised illusion was involved, as a stimulus appears less intense when spread over a larger area; both men and women largely exaggerated the amount necessary, but the exaggeration was somewhat greater in the case of the men. When the operation was repeated with the intention of making box and shot weigh one pound there was a slight exaggeration with the men, but the women's error was very small. The subject was then given the box which he considered to weigh one pound, and asked to put sufficient shot into another box to make it weigh double the first; in this test the women were very slightly more success- ful than the men. The space-test consisted in separating the points of the sesthesiometer on the back of the subject's hand until he regarded the 1 Gilbert, Sludiesfrom The Yale Psych. Lab., 1894; ib., Iowa Univ. Studies in Psych., 1897. ^ Franz and Houston, " The Accuracy of Observation and of Recollec- tion in School Children," Psych. Rev., Sept. 1896. These results aq;ree with those of Bolton. l86 MAN AND WOMAN. distance between the points to be one inck ; both men and women over-estimated the separation necessary, the men shghtly more than the women.^ Jastrow's observations without exception show greater accuracy of judgment on the part of the women; here, how- ever, it must be borne in mind that the experiments were made through the medium of the dermal sensa- tions of the hand, and, as has already been pointed out, such experiments place men at a disadvantage from the outset, and have little value in determining sexual differences in natural faculty. They have, however, a certain value in relation to the practical affairs of a world in which men and women must be accepted as they stand, since it is thus demon- strated that the coarsening of the skin by rough usage is a real disadvantage in forming sense- judgments.^ ^ Jastrow, "Studies from University of Wisconsin," ^wer. yii«?-«a/ Psych., April 1892. ^ Those who wish to follow in greater detail the considerable body of recent experimental work, bearing on the sexual differences brought out in this and the following chapter, will find ample material in the Psychological Review, the American Journal of Psychology, and the Pedago^cal Seminary. Various other periodicals and year-books may also be consulted, such as the Zeitschrift fiir Psychologie und Physio- logie der Sinrtesorgone, the Annie Psychologique, and the Archivio di Psichiairia. 1 87 CHAPTER VIII. THE INTELLECTUAL IMPULSE. THERE IS NO PURELY ABSTRACT THOUGHT — DIFFICULTY OF ACCURATELY INVESTIGATING INTELLECTUAL PROCESSES JASTROW'S INVESTIGATIONS INTO THOUGHT-HABITS AND ASSOCIATIONS MEMORY — RAPIDITY OF PERCEP- TION WOMEN READ RAPIDLY THE READY Vi^IT OF WOMEN THEIR TENDENCY TO RUSE, AND ITS CAUSES — PRECOCITY — MORE MARKED IN GIRLS — CONDUCT — PUBERTY AND MENTAL ACTIVITY INDUSTRIAL AND BUSINESS CAPACITY EXPERIENCES OF THE POST OFFICE ABSTRACT THOUGHT — THE GREATER INDEPENDENCE OF MEN WOMEN AS PHILOSOPHERS AND MATHEMA- TICIANS RELIGION RELIGIOUS SECTS FOUNDED BV WOMEN — THEIR GENERAL CHARACTER WOMEN'S CON- TRIBUTIONS TO THE STRUCTURE OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH — POLITICS. Under this heading we may conveniently consider various tendencies to think and to act according to what are usually considered rational motives. As a matter of fact even our most abstract mental pro- cesses are not abstractly rational. The dryest light of the intellect is coloured in infinite ways. If we could conveniently investigate, for example, the multiplication table — an apparently abstract posses- sion common to most persons — as it exists in in- dividual minds from early childhood onwards, we should find it curiously tinged with emotional and pictured associations, from the simplest shadings up to the elaborate visions of the colour-hearer. It may l88 MAN AND WOMAN. be safely said that no two persons possess the same multiplication table. The fact that even in so simple a shape the intel- lectual impulse is highly complicated makes the definite objective knowledge of psychic processes a very vast and difficult field. It is the more difficult because to get reliable results we must secure uni- formity and simplicity of method working on a large body of subjects. Introspection frightens and paralyses our psychic processes ; they are, as Pro- fessor Jastrow well expresses it, like children who romp and express themselves freely in the privacy of the family circle, but become bashful, silent, and conventional before strangers. At present an objec- tive knowledge of mental processes has been sought at so few points and by so few investigators, each of them usually adopting his own methods, that our knowledge of sexual differences in the manipulation of the intellectual impulse is fragmentary and incom- plete, and this character will be reflected in the present chapter. What has been said as to the comparatively little light thrown on sexual difference by the study of the brain applies, at present, in a still higher degree to the study of intellectual processes. To arrive at any reliable knowledge of mental sexual differences it is no longer enough to formulate suggestive impressions or brilliant theories. These have a certain interest and value, it is true, but they have no part in any knowledge that can be called science. It is along the lines of precise experiment that we may reasonably hope to obtain a more definite and objective knowledge of sexual mental differences. Two series of investigation by Pro- fessor Jastrow, one of the -first to inaugurate such investigations, may here be mentioned.^ They were ^ "A Study in Mental Statistics,'' New Review, December 1891. " A Statistical Study of Memory and Association," Educational Review, New York, December 1891. THE INTELLECTUAL IMPULSE. 189 carried out on male and female university students. The first investigation was into community of ideas and thought-habits, the nature of the more usual types of associations, and the time-relations of these processes. Fifty students (twenty-five of each sex) were asked to write down one hundred words as rapidly as possible, and to record the time. Words in sentences were not allowed. There were thus obtained 5000 words, and of these nearly 3000 were the same, showing how great is the community of our thoughts. This community of thought is greater in the women; while the men use 1,375 different words, their female class-mates use only 1,123. Oi 1,266 unique words used, 29.8 per cent, were male, only 20.8 per cent, female. If the words are all divided into classes it is seen that among the men there was a much more frequent occurrence of words referring to the Animal Kingdom, Proper Names, Verbs, Implements and Utensils, Adjectives, Vegetable Kingdom, Abstract Terms, Meteorological and Astronomical, Occupations and Callings, Convey- ances, Other Parts of Speech, Geographical and Landscape Features. Among the women there was a decidedly greater tendency than among the men to use words referring to Wearing Apparel and Fabrics, Interior Furnishings, Foods, Buildings and Building Materials, Mineral Kingdom, Stationery, Educational, Arts, Amusements, Kinship. The re- maining classes of words which were used with almost equal frequency by both sexes were Parts of Body, Miscellaneous, and Mercantile Terms. The group into which the largest number of the men's words fall is Animal Kingdom (254 to 178) ; the group into which the largest number of the women's words fall is Wearing Apparel and Fabrics (224 to 129); " the inference from this that dress is the predominant category of the feminine (or the privy feminine) mind is valid with proper reservations; but we should remember that the dress of a woman is more con- igo MAN AND WOMAN. spicuous, more complex, and more various than that of a man, and that she has more to do with the making of it." In regard to Foods the difference is very great, much greater in fact than in regard to almost any other class of words ; while the men only use 53 words belonging to this class, the women use 179 ; whether the part played by women in the preparation of food is sufficient to account for this great disproportion Professor Jastrow refrains from deciding. " In general," Professor Jastrow concludes, "the feminine traits revealed by this study are an attention to the immediate surroundings, to the finished product, to the ornamental, the individual, and the concrete; while the masculine preference is for the more remote, the constructive, the useful, the general, and the abstract." Another point worth mention is the tendency to select words that rhyme, and alliterative words; both these tendencies were decidedly more marked in men than in women. In regard to the time taken by the whole process there was practically no sexual difference. Another series of experiments was made by Pro- fessor Jastrow in order to test the processes of memory and association. The withdrawal of a screen revealed a word upon the blackboard, whereupon each mem- ber of the class wrote upon a slip of paper the first word suggested by the word on the board, and then folded the paper so as to conceal what had been written; another word was then shown and the process repeated until each student had written ten words. (The ten words on the blackboard, it should be said, were simple monosyllables, including most of the words which the previous experiment had shown to be most generally uppermost in thought.) Ex- actly two days later, and without the slightest expectation on their part, the students were asked to write as many as possible of the words they had written forty-eight hours previously, and in the same order. Tjie original ten words were then again written on THE INTELLECTUAL IMPULSE. IQI the board, and the students asked to write as many as possible of the associations recorded two days before. The results of the first test may be called the " original lists," of the second the " A lists," of the third the "B lists." The first showed the most accessible associations to ten common words; the "A" lists show to what extent such can be recalled by memory alone, upon short notice, and when written with no expectation of future use; the "B " lists show to what extent the recollection is aided by the presence of the suggesting words. It was found that of the words written by the men 40 per cent, were completely forgotten, and 50 per cent, correctly recalled, while the women forgot only 29 per cent, and correctly remembered 58 per cent.; that is to say, that the women showed distinct superiority in memory. On the other hand, the " B " lists are substantially alike in both men and women ; in other words, the furnishing of the original word aids the men more than the women, and this makes the proportion of totally forgotten and correctly recalled words the same for both sexes. It was also found that while men favour associations by sound and from part to whole, women prefer asso- ciations from whole to part and from object to quality. Professor Jastrow also organised some experiments on similar lines at the Milwaukee High School, and here also was shown, and in a still higher degree, the superiority of the feminine mind in the matter of memory. Here, also, the difference between the sexes was lessened when the suggesting word was supplied. The sexual differ- ence was clearly greater in the high school ; it also appears that while university boys remember better than high school boys, high school girls remember better than university girls. In many small points curious and unexpected sexual differences were found to be identical at the university and at the high school. In both, finally, there was found as usual ig2 MAN AND WOMAN. greater community of association in girls than in boys. In a subsequent series of experiments to test the nature of associations (the results of which Pro- fessor Jastrow kindly communicated to me) each student wrote five words to each of the same ten words. A comparison of the men and the women suggested that masculine preferences are probably for associations by sound (as man-can), from whole to part (as tree-leaf), from object to activity (as pen- write), from activity to object (as write-pen), and perhaps by natural kind (as cat-dog) ; while feminine preferences are for associations from part to whole (as hand-arm), object to quality (as tree-green), quality to object (as blue-sky), and miscellaneous (including all that are ambiguous or not easily classi- fied). This more special study of sexual differences in the association-element in thought does not entirely confirm the results suggested by the previous study; and it need scarcely be remarked that a few series of investigations can only lead to provisional results. Such investigations place our knowledge of psych- ology upon a sure and positive foundation, but they need , to be extended to a very large number of indi- viduals before any wide-reaching generalisations can be attained. Various series of experiments have been made during recent, years on memory in school children. The general tendency is to show a slightly greater superiority in the girls, although this superiority is not found in every kind of memory. Thus in an elaborate series of 'experiments made by Max Lobsien on over 450 children at Kiel,* it was found that the total increase in memory power during school years was greater in the girls than in the boys; in girls there was a general development in all kinds of memory about the age of twelve, but this uniformity ^ Max Lobsien, " Experimentelle Untersuchungen liber die Gedacht- nissentwickelung bei Schulkindern," Zl. f. Psych, u. Phys. d. Siniies- organe, Bd. 27,- heft, i and 2, 190:. . THE INTELLECTUAL IMPULSE. I93 was not marked in boys; the memory of .girls for sounds rose chiefly about the thirteenth year, and for visual representations about the fourteenth year. When a comparison is made between boys and girls of the age of ten to eleven, there is, on the whole, a very slight superiority of girls; between twelve and thirteen — when the precocity of girls comes into play — there is a decided superiority of girls, shown in six kinds of test out of eight; at the final stage, between the ages of thirteen and fourteen and a half the superiority of glials has very slightly fallen, but is still shown in six tests. The memory for words and also for visual representations was decidedly better developed in the girls. In tests involving reproduction in exact succession boys were slightly superior as regards figures and sounds, but in the sphere of real objects the girls were decidedly superior. In an article by Professor Stanley Hall on " The Contents of Children's Minds on entering School" {Pedagogical Seminary, June 1891 ; also Berlin Siddtisches Jahrbiich, 1870, pp. 59-77), a detailed summary is given of an investigation carried on at Berlin into the ideas and knowledge of several thousand children on entering school. Although the carrying out of this investigation was left to the teachers, certain fairly reUable results seem to emerge. The familiarity of the children with 75 different objects and ideas was tested, and it was found that " the easily and widely diffused concepts are commonest among girls, the harder and more special or exceptional ones are commonest among boys. The girls clearly excelled only in the following concepts: — Name and calling of the father, thunder-shower, rainbow, hail, potato-field, moon, square, circle, Alexander Square, Frederick's Wood, morning-red, oak, dew, and Botanical Garden, The girls excel in space concepts, and boys in numbers. Girls excel in fairy tales [girls 60.5 per cent, to boys 39.5], and boys in religious concepts [boys 60.3 to girls 39.7]. As the opportunities to learn both would not probably differ much, there seems here a difference of disposition. Rothkappchen was better kno^wn than God, and Schneewittchen than Christ. More boys could repeat sentences said to them, or sing musical phrases sung to them, or sing a song, than girls." Professor Hall proceeds to give an account of a more careful study on similar lines of several hundred children at 13 194 MAN AND WOMAN. Boston. The results, although not earned out on a sufficient number of children, confirm on the whole those reached at Berlin. " In 34 representative questions out of 49 the boys surpass the girls, as the German boys did in 75 per cent, of the Berlin questions. The girls excel in knowledge of the parts of the body, home and family life, thunder, rainbows, in know- ledge of square, circle, and triangle, but not in that of cube, sphere, and pyramid, which is harder and later. Their stories are more imaginative, while their knowledge of things outward and remote, their power to, sing and articulate correctly from dictation, their acquaintance with numbers and animals, is dis- tinctly less than that of the boys. The Berlin reports infer that the moi'e common, near, or easy a notion is the more likely are the girls to excel the boys, and vice versa. . . . Boys do seem I more likely than girls to be ignorant of common things right ' about them." These interesting data bear on the respective capacity of men and women for abstract thought and for prac- tical life, which it will be necessary to touch on later. One other series of observations may be mentioned. Pro- fessor C. S. Minot sent out cards with the following request ; — " Please draw ten diagrams on this card, without receiving any suggestions from any other person, and add your name and a'ddress." Five hundred sets were received from persons of both sexes. Circles were most common, then squares, then triangles, then four-sided figures, and so on. It was found that repetitions much preponderated among the women, though this is not true of all classes of diagrams; the men exhibit on the whole much more variety than the women. (C. S. Minot, " Second Report on Experimental Psychology : Upon the Diagram Tests," Proceedings Am. Soc. for Psych. Research, vol. i.. No. 4, 1889.) Rapidity of Perception. — This is an interesting example of a characteristic which has been nearly always attributed to women, but which cannot be said to have yet been demonstrated in a very satis- factory manner. It cannot, however, be entirely passed • over. We must for the most part speak of it as complicated with various motor and intellectual processes such as have been in part discussed in the previous chapter. Reaction-time merely indicates the more or less rapid manner in which a person can respond muscularly to a signal. It is perhaps in more com- plicated processes, involving a larger element of THE INTELLECTUAL IMPULSE. I95 intelligence, that we may expect to find more marked sexual differences. Romanes once tested rapidity in reading; the same paragraph was pre- ' sented to various well-educated persons, and they were asked to read it as rapidly as they could, ten seconds being allowed for twenty lines. As soon as the time was up the paragraph was removed, and the reader immediately wrote down all that he or she could remember of it. It was found that women were usually more successful than men in this test. Not only were they able to read more quickly than the men, but they were able to give a better account of the paragraph as a whole. One lady, for instance, could read exactly four times as' fast as her husband, and even then give a better account than he of that small portion of the para- graph he had alone been able to read. But it was found that this rapidity was no proof of intellectual power, and some of the slowest readers were highly distinguished men.^ In youth we read rapidly, but it is within the experience of many of us that on reach- ing adult age we come to read more and more slowly. It is as though in early age every statement Were admitted immediately and without inspection to fill the vacant chamber of the mind, while in adult age every statement undergoes an instinctive process of cross-examination; every new fact seems to stir up the accumulated stores of facts among which it intrudes, and so impedes rapidity of mental action. It is the same with the impulse to action; in the simply organised mind this is direct and immediate; " I do just what I think of," said to Dr. Mendel an imbecile who had committed an offence against morality; "afterwards I consider it." In the more highly organised brain the consideration comes before 1 G. J. Romanes, " Mental Differences between Men and Women," Nineteenth Century, May 1887. There is a discussion on " Perception in Man and Woman," but without any contribution of new facts, in Dr. H. Campbell's Differences in the Nervous Organisation of Man and Woman, Part II., chap. xii. igS MAN AND WOMAN. the action and retards it. We may say that the impulse and the action form the two ends of a circuit which at the centre of its course is intellectual. The longer and more infolded the intellectual portion of the circuit the longer it will be before the impulse is transmitted into action. ' The masculine method of thought is massive and deliberate, while the feminine method is quick to perceive and nimble to act. The latter method is apt to fall into error, but is agile in retrieving an error, and under many circumstances this agility is the prime requirement. Whenever a man and a woman are found under compromising circumstances it is nearly always the woman who with ready wit audaciously retrieves the situation. Every one is acquainted with instances from life or from history of women whose quick and cunning ruses have saved lover or husband or child. It is unnecessary to insist on this quality, which in its finest forms is called tactfulness. ^ The method of attaining results by ruses (common among all the weaker lower animals) is so habitual among women that, as Lombroso and Ferrero remark, in wom en deception is " almos t physio- logical." As Diderot somewhere says, the one thing ffiat women have been thoroughly well taught is to wear decently the fig-leaf they have inherited from their grandmother Eve. The same fact is more coarsely and ungraciously stated in the proverbs of many nations, and in some countries it has led to the legal testimony of women being placed on a lower footing than that of men. But to regard the caution and indirectness of women as due to innate wicked- ness, it need scarcely be said, would be utterly irrational. It is i nevitab le, and results from the constitution of women, actmg in the conditions under which they are generally placed. There is at pre- sent no country in the world, certainly no civilised country, in which a woman may safely state openly THE INTELLECTUAL IMPULSE. 197 her wishes and desires, and proceed openly to seek their satisfaction. Lombroso and Ferrero have admirably analysed this habit of mind, the persistency of which in women no one will doubt, and which is found to some extent even in the most highly intel- lectualised women. They trace it to seven causes, which all act chiefly or exclusively on women : (i) Weakness j for cunning and deception are the necessary resort of the weak and oppressed; only the strong_ can-.afiEord- tO- be_irank. (2) Metistruationj this function is treated with a certain amount of disgust, therefore women try to conceal it ; so that every month they are exercised in dissimulation for three or four days, during which they either endeavour to conceal their condition altogether, or else simulate some trivial malady. (3) Modesty; thus in a woman - any demonstration of love which has not been invited by a man is regarded as immodest, whence a training in deception which in tjie excitable nervous systems of women is peculiarly severe; again, in women the exercise of the natural functions of urination and defecation is regarded as immodest, so that any natural call of this kind must either be repressed, or some ingenious ruse must be invented in order to gain an opportunity for its satisfaction; the jacts concerning sexual relationships, again, are also regarded as immodest, and are so faFas possible concealed from women and girls; when women find them out,, as they inevitably do sooner or later, they have become habituated to the idea that to be modest means tellmgJies about such things, and so they continue the tradition. (47 Sexual Selection; a woman instinctively hides her defects, her disorders, if necessary her age — anything which may injure her in the eyes of men, including even her best qualities, if she thinks that these may call out ricLicuIe or dislike. A woman usually finds it easy to mould herself on the iHeal of the man she is with at the moment, provided she admires him. He would usually be repelled if she were inde£endently to assert hev own individuality. The artifices of the toilet have the same source, although, as has often been pointed out, they no longer refer to men alone, but are also intended to impress other women, or to obtain a triumph over them. (5) The desire to be interestzjio, leading to simulated weaknesses, etc., and a supposed need for protection; this seems to be merely an extension of the previous heading. (6) Suggestibility ; the greater suggestibility of women (elsewhere pointed out, Chap. XI.) necessarily involves an overlapping of the real and the simulated — which is really unconscious and involuntary. (7) The ditties of Matertiity j a large part of the education of the infantile mind at the hands of mothers co nsists of a series of more or less skilful lies, told with the object of hiding from igS MAN AND WOMAN. children the facts of life which are not considered proper or right for them to know; frequently also various false ideas are taught in order to frighten or otherwise influence children; so that in training their children women are also training them- selves in dissimulation. {La Donna Delinquente, 1893, pp. 133-139.) I think it might be added that another cause of dissimulation lies in their compassion, a feminine quality on which . Lombroso and Ferrero elsewhere rightly insist; an exaggerated desire to avoid hurting or shocking others is one of the most frequent causes of minor dissimulations, and works moi'e powerfully in women than in men. I would also add that this tendency to caution and ruse is by no means confined to the human female; it appears to be a fact of considerable zoological extension, and is rooted in the necessity the female is under of guarding her offspring from danger. (See, e.g., " Les Ruses Maternelles chez les Animaux," iJ^T/. Sci., igoi, pp. 80-84.) Female monkeys are more cautious and cunning than the males, and it is said that trappers on the average can only catch one nursing mother and three or four females of any kind for two score specimens of the less wary sex. Buckle has dignified the ready wit of woman by terming it a tendency to start from ideas rather than from the patient collection of facts : men's minds, he asserted, are naturally inductive, women's deductive.^ It would perhaps be more correct to say that women start more readily, perhaps without any conscious intellectual process, from the immediate fact before them. It is unquestionably a valuable possession, and, as Buckle remarks, women's tine and nimble minds are no doubt often irretrievably injured by " that preposterous system called their education." He refers to the notable superiority of women in quickness of intelligence among the lower classes, and to the fact that a stranger in a foreign land will always find that his difficulties are more readily understood by women. I think there can be little doubt as to the more ready intelligence of women among the uncultivated classes, whatever the cause may be. In the solitude of the Australian bush, for ^ "The Influence of Women on the Progress of Knowledge," Buckle's Miscellaneous Works, vol. i. THE INTELLECTUAL IMPULSE. igg instance, one finds repeatedly that while the settler is embarrassed and silent, or scarcely able to utter more than monosyllables, his wife is comparatively fluent and in possession of a fairly rich and precise vocabu- lary. It may b& thought that this is merely the result of greater practice in the course of domestic avoca- tions, but Fehling states that the little girl's command of speech is superior to the little boy's at a very early age, and it is a curious but undoubted fact that women are seldom liable to stammer.^ Marro found that among school-children the only active class of faults that prevails more among girls than boys is sins of the tongue; otherwise, the faults of girls were mainly passive. It may be said that this facility of apprehension has been generally recognised in women. An eminent physician, Currie, mentions (according to Buckle) that when a labourer and his wife came to consult him it was always from the woman that he gained the clearest and most precise information, the intellect of the man moving too slowly for his purpose. This is by no means an uncommon medical experience. It appears also that Parisian lawyers have discovered that women can explain things best, and they say to their working-class clients, " Send me your wife."^ Precocity. — Rousseau long ago said in £mile that girls are more precocious in intelligence ,than boys. This is in harmony with what we know of the physical development of the sexes. Thus Delaunay remarked that among children under the age of twelve, teachers in mixed schools find that girls are ^ Men are three limes more liable to this defect, according to SsikorsUi, Ueber das Stotleni, 1891. Hartwell, director of physical ^training in the Boston Public Schools, who has studied the pheno- menon of stuttering in a very interesting manner, found that among Boston school children the exact proportion of stutterers was 1. 12 per cent, of all boys and .42 per cent, of all girls. Chervin states that the proportion of female to male stutterers is only i to 10. This is associated with the' generally greater variational tendency of men. The proverbs of many nations bear witness to women's facility of speech ; see, for example, Lombroso and Ferrero, p. 175. - Delaunay, Revue Scieniifique, 1881, p. 309. 200 MAN AND WOMAN. cleverer than boys.i Bellei, again, in Italy found that school-girls of an average age of nearly twelve years were more developed mentally than boys of the same class, and nearly the same age.^ Shaw, also, in investigating memory in .school children, found that the chief difference was the greater pre- cocity of the development of memory power in girls.' Among looo Washington school children, Macdonald's elaborate data show that on the whole the girls are at the usual school age ahead of the boys.* In average ability the girls were superior in nine studies, inferior in four, and equal in one. The precocity of girls seems to extend beyond the school' age ; in America Scott Thomas has found that young women graduate at an earlier age than young men in the same college.'' It is an interesting fact, and perhaps of some significance, that among primitive races in all parts of the world the child- ren at an early age are very precocious in intelligence. It is so among the Eskimo as well as among the Australians. Among the African Fantis, Lord Wolseley remarks, " The boy is far brighter, quicker, and cleverer than the man. You can appar- ently teach the boy anything until he reaches puberty, then he becomes gradually duller and more stupid, more lazy, and more useless every day." Kaffir lads, also, Galton was told, are often ahead of white boys in the early stages of education, but the limits of their development are soon reached. Among the lower yellow races the same phenomenon is witnessed. Thus Lecl&re, in his study of the Cambodgians, found that the children are very intelligent when young, but that at the age of fifteen they ' Revue Scientifique, 1881, p. 308. ^ Rev. Sper. di Fren., vol. xxix., p. 446. ' Pedagogical Seminary, Oct. 1896. Earl Barnes writes: "With a study now in progress on 2900 children from Monterey County, Cali- fornia, following BineL's tests in perception, we are certainly able to demonstrate that the girls in that county from eleven to thirteen years old have a considerably more detailed and extended knowledge of common objects about them than is possessed by boys of the same age, or else they have superior power of expression." — Pedagogical ■Seminary, March 1893. * Education Report, 1897-98, pp. IO43, 1046. " Pop. Sci. Monthly, June 1903. THE INTELLECTUAL IMPULSE. '201 become stationary and less active; a certain obscurity — un peu de miii — comes on their minds, and at the same time their features become less regular and beautiful than they were before. (Leclfere, " Moeurs et Coutumes des Cambodgiens," Revue Scientifique, 21 Juin 1893.) It seems that the lower the race the more marked is this precocity and its arrest at puberty. It is a fact that must be taken in connection with the peculiarly human characters of the youthful anthropoid apes and the more degraded morphological characters of the adults. Among the civilised European races - precocity of intelli- gence, speaking generally, is not a fact of good augury for intelhgence in after-life. This statement is scarcely qualified by the fact that among persons of abnormal intellect or genius, extraordinary precocity is sometimes found. The average results of precocity on after-development cannot at present be definitely stated as regards intelligence, but appear more clearly in other fields which are more easily open to exact observation. Thus Gallon, considering the results of certain tables of the height of the male population which he had prepared, and which appear in the Report of the Anthropometric Committee of the British Association (1881), remarks: "Precocity is, on the whole, of no advantage in later life, and it may be a disad- vantage. It is certain that the precocious portion do not maintain their lead to the full extent; it is possible that they may actually fall back, and that many of those who occupied a low place in the statistical series between the ages of 14 and 16 occupy a high place after those years." It is probable that results of interest in reference to sexual differences in intelligence and its develop- ment would be obtained by the careful use of school-records. Something has already been done in this direction by Roussel, by Riccardi, and others; and such questions are now being seriously taken up in America. RousSel, for instance, has com- pared the punishments received by boys and girls at different Belgian schools. He found that out of 100 boys, g or lo are punished for pilfering ; out of 100 girls not one; out of 100 boys, 54 are punished for quarrelling and striking ; out of 100 girls only 17. On the other hand, he found that girls are more idle than boys in the proportion of 21 girls to 2 boys. On the whole, during 1860-79, 31 per cent, of the boys were punished, 26 per cent. 202 MAN AND WOMAN. of the girls.^ Riccardi finds from an examination of several hundred school children of Modena and Bologna that girls have a greater fondness for study than boys (6i per cent, against 43 per cent.); that girls have also a greater fondness for manual vs^ork (27 per cent, against 22 per cent.) ; while the number of boys without any preference is much greater than of girls (35 per cent, against 12 per cent.). Riccardi considers that women have greater educability, socia- bility, domesticity, diligence, and a more profound psychic atavism than men.^ It is not until after the age of sixteen that the intellectual superiority of boys asserts itself. It will be seen that Riccardi's results do not seem quite to accord with Roussel's as to the frequency of idleness among girls. It may be added that in lunatic asylums there is usually said to be more difficulty in persuading the women to work than the men. The best iield for studying objectively the development of sexual differences in character and mental development is in mixed schools. It would appear from various series of observations that in both sexes the onset of puberty has a very considerable effect in modifying, heightening, or depressing mental activities. It may not be out of place to refer here to its very marked influence on conduct. This is clearly seen in the investigations made by Marro in North Italy.^ The value of Marro's observations is due to the fact that in both boys and girls he distinguishes between those who did and did not show the signs of puberty. Considering age alone, he found that there is a descent from the age of eleven, when conduct is good, to fourteen, when it is at its worst; after that age there is a steady and unbroken rise up to the age of eighteen. It was found that at the ages of thirteen and fourteen the conduct of those boys who had reached puberty was ^ T. Roussel, Enquele sur les Orphelinats, etc., 1881. '^ Riccardi, Aiitropologia e Fedagogia, Part I., 1891, pp. 121, 161. ^ Marro, La Puberti, pp. 67 et set]. THE INTELLECTUAL IMPULSE. 2O3 worse than that of those who had not; in the two following years, however, the reverse was the case, so that it would appear that delayed puberty is associated with tendencies to bad or abnormal con- duct. In the well-nourished classes it was found that the period of bad conduct was reached sooner than in the lower classes. Among girls, also, it was found that good conduct was much more constant before the first appearance of menstruation, after which conduct was very variable, being at its worst at the ages of fourteen and fifteen, when it began to im- prove steadily. The maximum of bad conduct in women, Marro remarks, would appear to be asso- ciated with the maximum of physical development and the appearance of menstruation, and so to be dependent partly on increased nutritive assimila- tion and partly on sexual nervous disturbance. Irregularity of conduct at this epoch is, however, less marked in girls than in boys. Industrial and Business Capacities. — The gradual opening up of various occupations has caused many practical ejfperiments to be made concerning sexual differences in business capacity, though it can scarcely be said that the results have been very accurately observed and recorded.^ It must be added also that it is by no means easy to find men and women doing the same work under the same conditions ; a process of sexual differentiation seems always to come immediately into operation by which the women are enabled to do lighter -syork under easier conditions; this is so even in the Post- office, where a very large number of women are employed. ^ The opportunities for such observation are rapidly increasing; thus, for instance, in Massachusetts the proportion of women employed in "gainful occupations," which in 1875 was 21.3 per cent, of the whole, had increased to 30 per cent, in 1885; or, stated in another way, while the female population had increased 17.7 per cent., employed women had increased 64.6 per cent. See also " Contribution au Mouvemcnt Femimsle," yoiirna/ des £conomisies, Mars 1883. 204 MAN AND WOMAN. Delaunay consulted a number of merchants con- cerning sexual differences in industrial occupations, and they generally agreed that "women are more industrious but less intelligent than men;" thus in printing establishments, for instance, women were found to work mechanically, with minute attention to detail, but without fully understanding what they were doing, so that they composed very well from printed copy, but not so well from manuscript as men.i Mr. Sidney Webb remarks that the Prudential Life Assurance Company employs considerably over 200 ladies in routine clerical work (copying letters, filling up forms, etc.). "This work they perform, I am assured, rather better and more rapidly than men. But they are absent from sickness (usually only slight indisposition) more than twice as much as the men." Moreover, it has been found impossible to entrust them with more than routine work, which is a drawback to their advantageousness to the employer.^ In routine work, however — that is to say, continuous work at a low pressure — it is probable that they are superior to men, possessing thus greater application and patience ; this seems a characteristic of the work of both civilised and uncivilised women.^ It seemed to me a matter of some interest to ascertain the experiences of the Post-ofhce, so large an employer of both men and women, as to sexual differences in capacity. It is not altogether easy to obtain such information, and it does not seem possible at present to obtain it in a definite and precise form. I have, however, received from an authoritative source a number of opinions which represent the experience of various large post-offices in different parts of the kingdom, and which are regarded as being typical and reliable results. Thus, one of the chief post- ' Revue Scientifique, 1881, p. 307. "^ S. Webb, "Alleged Differences in the Wages paid to Men and to Women for Similar Work," Econoinic Journal^ 1891, p. 635. ^ Lombroso and Ferrero (pp. 177-178) bring forward evidence on this point. THE INTELLECTUAL IMPULSE. 205 masters is of opinion that as counter and instrumental clerks, doing concurrently money order and savings bank duties, taking in telegrams, and signalling and receiving telegrams, and in attending to rough and illiterate persons, women clerks are preferable to men. They keep their stocks in neater order, and are more careful with money; they speak better, as a rule, and are more patient. In another (west country) district where the telegraph work is entirely performed by women, it is stated to be admirably done. At a very large provincial office it is found that women compare favourably with telegraphists of the other sex, doing their work, as a rule, with equal intelligence and accuracy. But it is found that their handwriting is not usually so good, and that they rarely exhibit the same desire as men to obtain a technical knowledge of telegraphy. On the postal side they are also regarded as a distinct success at the city in question. Complaints from the public of inattention and in- civility are less frequent in the case of offices where women are employed ; and women keep their stamp stocks in better order, are less troublesome in matters of discipline, and are regarded as less liable to go wrong in money matters than men. As a rule they do their work with intelligence and accuracy, and under ordinary conditions they probably do it almost as quickly ; but at times of pressure they are not able to maintain a competition with men at the heavier kinds of work, especially at Wheatstone circuits, etc., owing to a lack of staying power. Another report also expresses doubt as to the strength and staying power of women for the continuous work of a heavy head office counter, and male assistance has been required. As a general rule, in the opinion of another post- master, female telegraphists perform counter duties satisfactorily, but in cases of emergency they are not equal to male officers, and the proportion of errors is generally greater among females than males. The latter also are found better able to maintain order 206 MAN AND WOMAN. and discipline among the messengers. As regards instrument room duties, women work moderately busy circuits just as well as men, but it is considered generally necessary to staff the busiest circuits with male telegraphists; this applies more particularly to news wires, the work being too heavy for women, who do not seem to possess the wrist-power requisite for rapid writing, and at the same time for making the required number of copies. Moreover, for this class of work male telegraphists are better qualified because, as a rule, they are much better informed on all topics of general public interest, which is an element of importance in dealing with news traffic. According to another opinion, finally, as supervising officers women cannot so well stand the continuous walking about the instrument room which is regarded as very necessary, and it is also found that they evince no desire to acquire technical knowledge. The general sense of these and other authoritative opinions is fairly harmonious as to the relative capacity of men and women for post-office duties. There appears to be general agreement that women are more docile and amenable to discipline ; that they can do light work equally well ; that they are steadier in some respects; but that, on the other hand, they are oftener absent on account of slight indisposition, they break down sooner under strain (although con- sideration is shown them in the matter of hours, etc.), and exhibit less intelligence outside the ordinary routine, not showing the same ability or willingness (possibly because they look forward to marriage) to acquire technical knowledge. In London it is the general experience that women are lacking in courtesy to the public ; many complaints are received concern- ing the discourtesy of the female clerks, and some post-officers have an objection to the employment of women on this account. In some of the large pro- vincial offices, however, it is found that women are more courteous than men. These results seem to THE INTELLECTUAL IMPULSE. 207 coincide fairly with those obtained from other sources. The employment of women in the Post-office is much cheaper (by about 25 per cent.) than that of men, but from the official point of view it is attended by various disadvantages : (i) They are much more frequently absent on account of sickness, the average for London (1900) being 11.4 days to 8.1 days for men. (2) They are not required to work at night, and it is at night that a large part of the work is done. (3) They cannot do much overtime work, and at Christmas, etc., there is great additional pressure. (4) In offices where women are employed (as at Hatton Garden) it is necessary to have the presence of a man during part of the day to affijrd protection in case of an attempt at lobbery. When women are substituted for men an office worked by three or four men will require four or five women, chiefly, it seems, because it is not considered safe to leave a woman alone at any time. (5) The provision of separate lava- tories, etc., for women is expensive arid often, for want of space, impracticable. The last reason, more perhaps than any other, has militated against the immediate employment of women in provincial offices generally. It is to be regretted that the Post-office authorities by no means offer facilities for the registration, or at all events for the publication, of facts regarding sexual differences in capacity. Now that the employ- ment of women is becoming so widespread this question becomes one of considerable general interest and importance. Instead of discouraging such in- quiries (which need not involve the publication of any facts it is for any reason desirable to with- hold) a post-office official, whose sole duty it would be to obtain returns regarding such sexual differences, and to put them into statistical shape, would be performing a useful public duty. His reports would give, in a reliable and well-supported form, valuable indications as to the advantageousness of employing men or women in a variety of occupations. Mr. Sidney Webb, who has studied someof the points touched on in this section, although from an economic rather than a psychological standpoint, reaches the following conclusions : — '' The attraction to the employer of women's labour is often less 208 MAN AND WOMAN. in its actual cheapness than in its 'docility' and want of com- bination. ' Women strike less,' says one. A similar fact is recorded as to the employment of the negro in manufacturing industries in the 'New South' (United States). ... I find it difficult to draw any general conclusion from the foregoing facts. But they suggest to me that the frequent inferiority of women's earnings in manual work is due, in the main, to a general but not invariable inferiority of productive power, usually in quantity, sometimes in quality, and nearly always in nett advantageousness to the employer. . . . The problem of the inequality of wages is one of great plurality of causes and intermixture of effects, and one might not improbably find that, as is often the case, there is no special women's question in the matter." (Sidney Webb, "Alleged Differences in the Wages," etc.. Economic Journal, 1891.) It is interesting to find that the experience of the Post-office in England is confirmed by the experience of other European countries. This question has been studied by Mr. C. H. Garland, Secretary of the Postal Telegraph Clerks' Association, in a paper on " Women as Telegraphists," in the Economic Journal (June 1901). He finds that in 35 of the 47 Adminis- trations of the Postal Union women are employed or have been employed as telegraphists. Belgium no longer receives women into the telegraph service, and female telegraphists are a mori- bund class in Germany. The Austrian Administration finds that women are not inferior to men in all occupations more or less mechanical, but that they are not satisfactory in the higher grades, not having sufficient energy to obtain authority over other persons, so that it is always necessary to entrust the surveillance of women to men. In France, as in England, it is found that in replacing a male by a female staff the number must be considerably increased, and sick-leave is much greater in the case of women. Retirement is not compulsory on marriage, but it is found that marriage decreases their interest and energy in their work; and although it is considered that the employment of women is on the whole satisfactory when the work is regular and equal, their technical knowledge is found to be defective, they are less rapid than men, and more liable to become con- fused. Germany is undecided in its opinion, and in the mean- while no more are being admitted into the service. Belgium has come to the conclusion that, although women are apt and intelligent in telegraph work, their employment is not compatible with the highest efficiency, as they could not work at high pres- sure or meet sudden emergencies, and were more frequently ill. In Holland they are found quicker to tire than men, and the sexual ratio of sick absence is as i to 2 or even 3. Sweden and Denmark in the north and Roumania in the south alike speak of the lack of endurance. In Italy, women are appointed THE INTELLECTUAL IMPULSE. 2^9 to high-grade posts in the service after passing examination in a variety of subjects, but they are found to laclc authority over their staff, to be wanting in judgment and decision, and unable to apply effectively the technical knowledge they possess. The characteristics thus revealed resemble those found in England, but it must be added that on the whole English women telegraphists seem to compare favourably with their Continental sisters. Possibly on account of the greater freedom of English life they seem to show more business capacity, nor are there any complaints in the English service of the inability of women to exercise supervision over their own sex, though the discipline in the female sections is less severe and mechanical, and the higher duties of organisation and management are always in the hands of a male superintendent. Mr. Garland mentions that one of the divisions of the Central Telegraph Office in which practically all classes of ordinary telegraphic work are performed, and in which the wires are of considerable import- ance, is staffed and supervised entirely by women under the further surveillance of a man. " It is admitted that the staff is a picked one, but the results obtained are stated to compare even to the disadvantage of the average male division." Abstract Thought. — It is easier to compare the higher and more exceptional intellectual qualities of men and women than their average mental qualities, although in both cases we have the same difficulty — which cannot at^ present be definitely resolved — '■ in determining precisely the boundary between organic constitution and education. It is doubtless in accordance with what Buckle termed the special deductive bent of their mind that in science it has always been in the mathematical field that women have attained the highest amount of success.^ This has been the case for some centuries past, and even to-day, when the biological sciences are so widely cultivated and are everywhere open to women, it would still appear that it is in the more mathematical regions of physics that they attain most success. ^ Possibly there is some connection between this fact and the fact, which we may regard as unquestionable, that mathematicians tend to show more admiration for the intelligjence of women than do men belonging lo any other branch of science. 14 210 MAN AND WOMAN. There is no such thing, however — one cannot too often repeat it — as pure rationality. The thought that we call abstract has its foundation in the organic and emotional character of the individual. Abstract thought in women seems usually, on the whole, to be marked by a certain docility and receptiveness. Even in trivial matters the average woman more easily accepts statements and opinions than a man, and in more serious matters she is prepared to die. for a statement or an opinion, provided it is uttered with such authority and unction that her emotional nature is sufficiently thrilled. This is allied with woman's suggestibility, and it seems to have to some extent an organic basis, so that while the culture of the more abstract powers of thought may make it impossible to obey this instinct, there is still a struggle ; or else the more purely rational method is attained — and often distorted in the attaining — by the complete suppression of the other elements. Professor Stanley Hall, in the course of a series of very careful and suggestive observations on children, remarks that " the normal child feels the heroism of the unaccount- able instinct of self-sacrifice far earlier and more keenly than it can appreciate the sublimity of truth." ^ In this respect women remain children, and that they do seems to result from the organic facts of women's life.^ I think we may agree that, as Burdach said long ago, " Women take truth as they find it, while men want to create truth." The latter method leads further, if only further into error. It is not simply that women are more ready than men to accept what is already accepted and what is ' "Children's Lies," Am. Journal of Psychology, January 1890. ^ There are far more women than men who can say with Mrs. Besant : "Looking back to-day over my life I see that its key-note — through all the blunders and the blind mistakes and clumsy follies — has been this longing for sacrifice to something felt as greater than the self." — Autobiography, xiv. While the instinct of self-sacrifice is common among women it cannot be said that the appreciation of " the sublimity of truth " is a masculine characteristic in anything like a corresponding degree. THE INTELLECTUAL IMPULSE. 211 most in accordance with appearances^ — and that it is inconceivable, for instance, that a woman should have devised the Copernican system — but they are less able than men to stand alone. It is difficult to recall examples of women who have patiently and slowly fought their way at once to perfection and to fame in the face of complete indifference, like, for instance, Balzac, — apart from the fact that a woman of talent is usually in more command of her means and able to reach a certain degree of success at an early period. It is still more difficult to recall a woman who for any abstract and intellectual end has fought her way to success through obloquy and con- tempt, or without reaching success, like a Roger Bacon or a Galileo, a Wagner or an Ibsen. Not only does the woman crave more for sympathy, but she has not the same sturdy independence. The hero of Ibsen's Enemy of the People, who had realised that the strongest man in the world is the man who stands most alone, could scarcely have been a woman. When a man is attacked by general paralysis he usually displays an extravagant degree of egoism and self-reliance ; when a woman is the victim of the same disease it is not self-reliant egoism but extreme vanity which she displays. The disease liberates the tendencies that are latent in each — the man's to in- dependence, the woman's to dependence, on the opinion of others. It must be added to this that ^ The influence of education must here be taken into account ; women are trained to accept conventional standards. Thus a careful investigation (inaugurated by Professor Stanley Hall) of many hundred American children as to their ideas of right and wrong showed that the answers of the girls differ from the boys in two marked ways ; they more often name specific acts and nearly twice as often conventional ones, the former difference being most common in naming right, the latter in naming wrong things. Boys say it is wrong to steal, fight, kick, break windows, get drunk, stick pins into others, or to "sass," "cuss," shoot them, while girls are more apt to say it is wrong not to comb the hair, to get butter on the dress, climb trees, unfold the hands, cry, catch flies, etc. — Pedagogical Seminary, vol. i., 1891. p. 165. 212 MAN AND WOMAN. what appears to be women's tendency to be vividly impressed by immediate facts, and to neglect those that are remote, is fatal to the philosophic thought which must see all things sub specie ceternitatis. It is probably to such causes as these that we must attri- bute the fact that in the first rank of those who have devoted themselves to metaphysics there is not one woman, while in the second and third ranks, from Hypatia to Constance Naden, it is very hard to find women who occupy an honourable place. It can scarcely be said that we have much warrant beyond her fame for assigning a high place to Hypatia. That she was of a curiously analytical and unemotional — to the ordinary masculine person it may even seem cynical — habit of mind is indicated by the untranslatable anecdote recorded by Suidas (though we cannot accept this as unquestionably authoritative): " Cum de auditoribus quidam cam deperiret, pannos mensibus fosdatos illi ostendisse dicitur et dixisse: 'Hoc quidem adamas, o adolescens ' ; et sic animum ejus sanasse." It is a curious fact, referred to by Lombroso and Ferrero (p. 171), that among the Greeks thirty-four women distinguished themselves in the Pythagorean school of philosophy, and scarcely three or four in any other school, only one among the Cynics. This is due, according to these writers, to the Pythagorean school being " a sort of company of Jesus, appealing to the emotions rather than- the intelligence, a monastic association with rites possessing special moral aims and inculcating family virtues." That Con- stance Naden possessed in a high degree the purely metaphysical impulse there can be no doubt, although, whether in consequence of her early death or otherwise, she achieved no monument of philosophic thought. It is worth while to quote Herbert Spencer's estimate of her intellect and remarks on intellect in women generally (contained in a letter published in the news- papers a few years ago): — "Very generally receptivity and originality are not associated, but in her mind they appear to have been equally great. I can think of no woman, save George Eliot, in whom there has been this union of high philosophical capacity with extensive acquisition. Unquestionably her subtle intelligence would have done much in iurtherance of rational thought, and her death has entailed a serious loss. While I say this, however, I cannot let pass the occasion for remarking that in her case, as in other cases, the mental powers so highly developed in a woman are in some measure abnormal, and in- volve a physiological cost which her feminine orgaiiisation will not bear without injury more or less profound." THE INTELLECTUAL IMPULSE. 213 Paul Lafitte {Le Paradoxe de PEgalite, 1887, pp. 117 et seq.) has some observations on the differences in the higher mental qualities of men and women which are worth quoting, as they are much fairer and more judicious than such observations usually are. He remarks that m women the receptive faculties are most developed, and continues: — "When children of both sexes are educated together, it is the girls who are at the top during the first years; it is at that time above all a question of receiving impressions and keeping them, and we see every day that women by the vivacity of their impressions and their memory are superior to the men who surround them. To this facility in seizing and retaining facts must be added the taste for symmetry which seems innate in them; you will understand the aptitude which they always show for the study of geometry. In the same way at the examinations at the School of Medicine we may see young women shine in physiology or pathology; they have seized the series of facts with a clearness which strikes the examiners; but for the most part they are inferior in the clinical tests which bring other mental faculties into play. Generally speaking, a woman seems more touched by the fact than by the law, by the particular idea than by the general idea. If it is a question of pronouncing an opinion on a known indi- vidual, that of the man will perhaps be more exact in general outline; but if we pass to shades of character, the woman immediately has the advantage: a familiar gesture, a word employed more often than another, a wrinkle forming at certain moments, a look, a smile, all are noted by her, catalogued, and appreciated at their just value. The same differences are found in literary works: a woman's book, whether by Madame de Stael or George Eliot, is worth more in detail than as a whole. No one questions that women are superior to us in the epistolary style. Whence comes this superiority ? We compose a letter as we would draw up a report, and write coldly: a woman, on the contrary, writes under the impression of the facts; she re- traces them, leaving to each its own physiognomy, and naturally, without research or rhetoric, she finds life and movement at the tip of her pen. The habit of mind differs as the faculties differ; we are more interested in the relations of things than in the things themselves. La Bruy^re, on more than one side, is a feminine genius; Descartes is the type of the masculine genius; it would have been possible for a woman to write the Carac- ieres, but I doubt if any woman could ever remake the Dis- coiirs de la Methode. In a word, there are equivalent faculties, but they are not the same: the woman's mind is more concrete, j the man's more abstract." It may be added that a certain number of women have at- tained eminence in mathematics, although none are associated with any great achievement. Thus Maria Lewen published a 214 MAN AND WOMAN. book of astronomical tables in the seventeenth century; the Marquise du Chatelet translated Newton's Prindpia; Sophie Germain was a highly gifted mathematician; Madame Lepaute contributed to her husband's work, and assisted Lalande; Maria Agnesi wrote a book on the Differential and Integral Calculus which has been highly praised by mathematicians; Laura Bassi was appointed to a professorial chair at Bologna; Miss Herschel was distinguished as an assistant to her brother; Mrs, Somer- ville obtained a wide reputation by her mathematical and general scientific abilities; and Sophie Kowalevsky possessed great mathematical powers, which obtained for her a professorial chair in Sweden. I take many of these facts from J. Boyer, " Les Femmes dans la Science " (with portraits), Kevue des Revues, 15th September 1898; Mrs. G. C. Frankland, "Women and Science," Nature, 19th July 1894; and cf. D. Beale, Reports issued by the Schools' Inquiry Commission on the Education of Girls [no date], p. xiii. In this collection of Reports by highly competent inquirers will be found a number of interesting opinions on the mental capacities of women, as well as on the nature and results of their educational training. Even within the philosophical field it appears that women have certain rather restricted tastes. Ladies' philosophers, according to the experience of a well- known West End bookseller, are Schopenhauer, Plato, Marcus Aurelius, Epictetus, and Renan.^ That is to say, that women are attracted to the most con- crete of all abstract thinkers, to the most poetic, to the most intimately personal, and above all to the most religious, for every one of these thinkers was saturated through and through with religious emotion. Religion. — This leads us to inquire what part women have had in the creation of religions. No one will question women's aptitude for religion, whatever the organic basis of that aptitude may be : what part have women had within historical times in the making of religions ? In order to answer this question I have searched A Dictionary of all Religions published in' the early part of the last century. It constitutes a fasci- nating but painful page in the history of humanity. '■ Wesltiiimter Gazette, I3lh May 1893. THE INTELLECTUAL IMPULSE. 215 Some record is here given of about 600 religious sects, and I find that of these only seven were founded by women. That is to say, that of all the great religious movements of the world nearly 99 in every 100 have received their primary impulse from men, however willing women may have been to follow. The seven sects in question are the Bourignonists, the Buchanists, the Philadelphians, the Southcottians, the Victims, the Universal Friends, and the Wil- helminians. (Some others could be added from more recent times, but it is not probable that the per- centage would be greatly changed.) It is of some interest to determine the character of these sects, which are all of a more or less Christian tendency, and mostly arose within the last few centuries. Madame Bourignon was a native of Flanders, and so deformed that at birth there was some question of stifling her as a monster. She combined great intel- lectual power with a broad and tolerant mysticism — a combination by no means uncommon — inculcating reliance on inward impulses, the rejection of outward forms of worship, and acquiescence in the divine will. She was equally opposed to Catholicism and Pro- testantism, and her personality was greater than any movement she initiated. Mrs. Buchan, of Glasgow, belonged to a different type. She believed she was the woman spoken of in the Apocalypse (Rev. xii.), and that she could conduct her followers to heaven without dying, but she soon died and her sect with her. She was probably insane. The Philadelphians were a sect of mystics and universalists founded by Jane Leadley in the latter part of the seventeenth centurj'. Her views in many respects resembled Madame Bourignon's, and the Philadelphian Society was a body of considerable importance, including many men of learning. Joanna Southcott and her delusions produced so great an impression at about the beginning of the last century that she is still well remembered. She was scarcely sane. The 2l6 MAN AND WOMAN. Society of Victims was a curious body of ascetics founded by Madame Brehan in the eighteenth century; it was of somewhat crazy character, and appears to have had no elements of vitality. The Universal Friends were established by Jemima Wilkinson in America in the last century. She had a trance in early life, became inspired and able to work miracles, seceded from the Quakers, and founded a town called Jerusalem. She was an eloquent preacher, and is said to have been an ambitious and selfish woman who died very wealthy from the donations of her followers. The Wilhelm- inians were the disciples of Wilhelmina, a Bohemian woman of the thirteenth century. She believed that the Holy Ghost was incarnated in her anew, and she had the somewhat beautiful thought that while the blood of Jesus only saved devout Christians, through her there was salvation for Jews, Saracens, and un- worthy Christians. On the whole, it can scarcely be said that this group of sects shows badly ; they were mostly tolerant, with a strong tendency to mysticism and disregard of ritual and method, and with a very pronounced element of human charity. Still the curious fact emerges that while women usually form the larger body of followers in a religious movement, as well as the most reckless and devoted, they have initiated but few religious sects, and these have had little or no stability. Women have usually been content to accept whatever religion came to hand, and in their fervour they have lost the capacity for cold, clear-sighted organisation and attention to de- tails. They can supply much of the living spiritual substance, if a man will supply the mould for it to flow into. The study of the Salvation Army, the most remarkable religious movement of recent times, is instructive from this point of view. Women have played a very large part in Christianity from the first, though in early times it was an undistinguished part. As a rule women take but a small part in revolutions THE INTELLECTUAL IMPULSE. 217 (although a large part in revolts which are of more hasty and temporary character), but an analysis of the mortuary epigraphs from the Catacombs of Rome, contained in De Rossi's works, La Roma Sotterranea, showed that 40 per cent, of them were of women. (Lombroso and Laschi, Le Crime Politiqtce, 1S92, tome ii. p. 10.) They doubtless played an equally large part in reli- gion before Christianity arose. Among the donaria, or votive offerings of grateful Romans to the gods of healing, are found heads of every size and age; "some few," says Dr. Sambon, "are of bearded men, a large number of youths and children, but the great majority is of women of every age " (Luigi Sambon, " Donaria of Medical Interest," Brit. Med. Jour., 20th July 189s). ■ _ If we ask what definite and permanent contributions to the structure of the Catholic Church have been made by its vast army of women followers, we may find a brief but authoritative ans,wer by Cai'dinal Manning in his Preface to the translation of St. Catherine of Genoa's very beautiful little devotional work, the Treatise on Purgatory : — "Two of the greatest festivals of the Catholic Church had their origin in the illumination of humble and unlearned women. The Feast of Corpus Christi was the offspring of the devotion of the Blessed Juliana of Retinne; the Feast of the Sacred Heart of that of the Blessed Margaret Mary: to St. Catherine of Sienna our Lord vouchsafed the honour of calling back again the Sovereign Pontiff from the splendid banishment of Avignon to the throne of the Apostolic See; to St. Teresa the special gift of illumination, to teach the ways of union with Himself in prayer; to Blessed Angela of Foligno the eighteen degrees of compunction, and His own five poverties; and to St. Catherine of Genoa an insight and per- ception of the state of Purgatory, which seem like the utterances of one immersed in its expiation of love." Politics. — It is somewhat remarkable that women have shown far less intellectual ability in the creation of religions than in the very different sphere of politics. More than sixty years, ago Burdach re- marked that women are probably more fitted for politics than men, and he instanced the largd number of able queens.i J. S. Mill many years afterwards also made some remarks to the same effect in his Subjection of Women. Among all races and in all parts of the world women have ruled brilliantly and with perfect control over even the most fierce and ' Physiologie, tome i. p. 338. 2l8 MAN AND. WOMAN. turbulent hordes. Among many primitive races also all the diplomatic relations with foreign tribes are in the hands of women, and they have sometimes decided on peace or war. The game of politics seems to develop very feminine qualities in those who play at it, and it may be paying no excessive compliment to women to admit the justice of old Burdach's remarks. Whenever their education has been sufficiently sound and broad to enable them to free themselves from fads and sentimentalities, women probably possess in at. least as high a degree as men the power of dealing with the practical questions of ■ politics. It cannot be said that in this chapter we have reached many definite results. A few careful ex- periments which need confirmation and extension, a certain number of observations on irregular masses of data, accumulated in the practical experiences of life, which have their value although they are open to varied misinterpretation— this is about all that experimental psychology has yet to show us in regard to the intellectual differences of men and women. Beyond that is mere speculation, founded, to what extent we cannot yet tell, on temporary social and educational diiferences. 2ig CHAPTER IX. METABOLISM. THE BLOOD RED CORPUSCLES MORE NUMEROUS IN MEN — AMOUNT OF H/EMOGLOBIN GREATER IN MEN SPECIFIC GRAVITY HIGHER IN MEN THE SEXUAL DIFFER- ENCES IN THE BLOOD COINCIDE WITH THE APPEARANCE OF PUBERTY — RISE IN THE SPECIFIC GRAVITY OF THE BLOOD OF WOMAN IN OLD AGE — THE PULSE-RATE ALWAYS HIGHER IN SMALL THAN IN LARGE ANIMALS SEXUAL DIFFERENCES IN THE HUMAN AND OTHER SPECIES — NOT NOTABLY GREATER THAN DIFFER- ENCES IN SIZE WOULD LEAD US TO EXPECT. RESPIRATION VITAL CAPACITY MUCH GREATER IN MEN MEN PRODUCE MORE CARBONIC ACID COSTAL RESPIRA- TION OF WOMEN AND ABDOMINAL RESPIRATION OF MEN — RECENT INVESTIGATIONS SHOWING THAT THIS SEXUAL DIFFERENCE IS PURELY ARTIFICIAL IT DOES NOT EXIST AMONG SAVAGE WOMEN, NOR AMONG THOSE WHO DO NOT WEAR CORSETS THE ORIGIN OF CORSETS — THEIR INFLUENCE ON THE ACTIVITY OF WOMEN DEVELOP- MENT OF CHEST — ITS RELATION TO CONSUMPTION — TEMPERATURE — NO SEXUAL DIFFERENCE YET CLEARLY SHOWN. EXCRETION URINE PROBABLY RELATIVELY GREATER IN AMOUNT IN WOMEN, AND UREA RELATIVELY LESS SPECIAL INFLUENCES AFFECTING WOMEN. SUSCEPTIBILITY TO POISONS — SEXUAL DIFFERENCES IN THE SELECTIVE ACTION OF POISONS ON DIFFERENT ORGANS ARSENIC OPIUM MERCURY^SPECIAL SEXUAL SUS- CEPTIBILITIES TO POISONS CHLOROFORM LEAD ALCOHOL THE BEST EXAMPLE OF SEXUAL SELECTIVE 220 MAN AND WOMAN. ACTION ON NERVOUS SYSTEM — TENDS TO ATTACK THE BRAIN IN MEN, THE SPINAL CORD IN WOMEN. HAIR AND PIGMENTATION — SEXUAL DIFFERENCES IN DIS- TRIBUTION, ETC., OF HAIR — THE EYES AND PROBABLY HAIR ARE DARKER IN WOMEN POSSIBLE ADVANTAGES OF PIGMENTATION. THE BLOOD. By " metabolism " vi^e mean the intimate vital process — SO far as chemistry and physics can reveal it — which is for ever changing and renewing the tissues of the body. When we reach the blood we come close to the central metabolic process of life, for it is the blood which is the direct source of the material for this process. Except such elementary creatures as the Protozoa, all animals possess blood, though with great individual varieties with regard to con- stituents, character, and colour. Roughly speak- ing, the blood of vertebrates consists of three elements, the plasma or fluid portion, the white cor- puscles, and the red corpuscles. Of these, the plasma is the most primitive, and the red corpuscles the latest to appear in the course of evolution. In the human species during childhood we naturally find that there are fewer red corpuscles than in adult age, and also that the hsemoglobin (the oxygen-carrying element in the red corpuscles) is less in amount, while the white corpuscles are more abundant than in later life (Hayem). Denis, and afterwards Lecanu, were the first to draw attention to the fact that there are any sexual differences in the blood; and the results of these in- vestigators, confirmed at a somewhat later period by Becquerel and Rodier, showed that the blood of men contains less water and more red corpuscles, and is consequently of a higher specific gravity, than that of women; these statements have since often been demonstrated. There appears to be no evidence showing con- METABOLISM. 221 clusively that the white corpuscles are more or less numerous in women than in men/ but all physiological chemists are agreed that there are more red corpuscles in the male than in the female, not only in man, but also in many lower animals. Cadet found in men on an average 5,200,000 red corpuscles to 4,900,000 in women, and Korniloff, using a different method — Vierordt's spectroscope — found a similar slight difference. (See Hayem's great work, Du Sang, Paris, 1889, pp. 184 et seq.) Welcker gives the number of red blood corpuscles per c. mm. as 5,000,000 in men, 4,500,000 in women; or, otherwise ex- pressed, as 100 to 90. Laache, in an analysis of sixty cases, has found the mean to be 4,970,000 per c. mm. for men, and 4,430,000 per c. mm., for women. Macphail finds 5,075,000 for healthy men, and 4,676,000 for healthy women. (Macphail, Art. on "ijlood of the Insane" in Did. Psych. Med.) Ehrmann and Siegel found 5,560,000 in men to 5,000,000 in women; Otto, 4,990,000 in men to 4,580,000 in women. During menstruation,; as Gowers, Stockman, and others have found, there is a reduc- tion to the extent of from 10 to 20 per cent. It is, however, by the amount of hsemoglobin that we more accurately measure the functional power of the blood. Leichtenstern states that women from the ages of eleven to fifty average 8 per cent, less haemoglobin than men.^ According to M'Kendrick, there is 14.5 per cent, hsemoglobin in man's blood, 13.3 per cent, in woman's; according to Preyer, it is 22 to 15 per cent, in man, 11 to 13 per cent, in woman; during pregnancy the amount of haemoglobin is only about 9 to 12 per cent. Bunge has suggested that a storage of the iron in haemoglobin takes place in the maternal organs even before the first conception, in readiness for the supply of the foetus through the placental circulation, and he has supported this ' Rubin asserted that they are more numerous in women ; Ilayem has denied it. Dilution of the blood tends, however, in general to increase of the white cells, as has been shown by, for instance, Beard and Wilcox, ' ' Studies in the Metabolism of the Body Fluids," Brit. Med. Jour., 13th November 1897. - Unlersuchungen iiber den HaniogloUngehaU des Bittles, Leipzig, 1878. 222 MAN AND WOMAN. pjT fey / ^.(0 ^ r^- ^ / i^ -^' 7" iS / ts 1- 7 IZ £S - ,^ 7] ? -j __ Sic " 4 i l~ " I L - I " t^ s^ ■ jS! " -> ^ IS* t kS sS J s_ s^ "Z" ^ ' ft - J^ ^ ■ »* ?* • *s 7 s? IS 7 B* : ^t» i!* '. JjS "c : "^ '. s^ " s -»» "I : t' SS - t I^S T _ . «« ± L ra _t: ■■n ± ■, I I V -^t Jj* z A -t--t^ nili 5^ _ -J - • o'" "sv^ ""^ *-' ■^ ■^T ' V* f!r 8 S o o \ OO f^ U3 u ;?i in in i; o o o c 5 S S - ^ 2 o o o $ 5 s ? 2 o o ■3 position by show- ing that young animals contain a much greater amount of iron than adult animals. In harmony with these observations are the results of Friedjung, who found that human milk contains a small but steady amount of iron, not diminishing in the course of nursing; there is less iron in the milk of mothers of mature age, and its diminution is liable to produce derangement of nourishment in the infant. We may say, as Lloyd Jones expresses it, that this is part of a general storing up of tissue food, partly as fat, partly as proteids, and a general reduction of katabolic energy. A convenient and widely - used method for esti- mating the quality of the blood is by obtaining its specific gravity. It is well recognised that the specific METABOLISM. 223 gravity of the blood is higher in men than in women, and that it falls in pregnancy (though very slightly), after exercise, and after taking food (especially if much water is drunk). In this country the specific gravity of the blood has been very carefully investigated with interesting results by Dr. Lloyd Jones.^ He has taken the specific gravity of the blood (by Roy's method) of over fifteen hundred persons, in ordinary health, of both sexes and all ages, from birth to over ninety. The specific gravity, Lloyd Jones has found, is at its height at birth, and although generally lower in women than in men, it is about the same in both sexes before the fifteenth year, and is higher in old women than in old men. In males the specific gravity is about 1066 at birth, and falls during the subsequent two years, being about 1050 in the third year; thence it rises till about seventeen years of age, when it is about 1058. It remains at this height during middle life, and falls slightly in old age. In females the specific gravity, starting at about 1066 at birth, falls in infancy, as in males, to about 1049 in the third year. Thence it rises till the fourteenth year, when it is 1055.5. Between seventeen and forty-five years of age it is lower than at the age of fourteen, and is about three degrees lower than in men. Lloyd Jones also points out that the specific gravity of the blood varies with individual constitution; it is lower in persons with light than with dark hair, eyes, and complexion. He suggests that this difference is perhaps due to the incomplete fusion of British races, and that the more watery blood may belong to the Saxon and Scandinavian elements. "By the appearance of an individual, noting the age and sex and the ^' E. Lloyd Jones, " On the Variations in the Specific Gravity of the Blood in '&^^\h" Journal of Physiology , 1887; "Further Observations on the Specific Gravity of the Blood," September 1891. The latter paper is a lengthy and important monograph. Also the same author's " Preliminary Report on the Causes of Chlorosis," Brit. Med. Journal, 23rd Sept. 1893. 224 MAN AND WOMAN. AGE 12 13 14 15 16 17 13 19l20'21J2 2 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 47 ■ 46 - n 45 11 44 43 i ' i 42 ,n *' m *° 'J 39 O 38 U. 37 O 38 a: 35 m ^ 2 .33 - 3 32 2 3, 30 29 . 28 27 28 25 24 - 23 t 22 21 - 20 1 18 / IB 1 17 - S 16 "4 '= - - O '- u. '3 1 O 12 cc " a '° K - _ S. 9 L r V ■1 3 8 -z — - 1/ \ 1 1 \ 6 r u 1 S A 4 3 V V 2 V v. A 1 » J, w, ■• Age 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 212 223 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 ^3 AGE FREQUENCY IN 314 CASES OF CHLOROSIS. (Byrojii Brainwell. ) METABOLISM. 225 colour of the iris, hair, and complexion, one can form a fairly accurate estimate of what the specific gravity of his or her blood ought to be." Lloyd Jones has recently made the interesting discovery that, notwithstanding the general low specific gravity of the blood in women, the plasma in women has a somewhat higher sp. gr. than in men, rising at puberty, while in men it remains stationary. It will thus be seen that it is at puberty the sexual difference becomes marked. The appearance of menstruation coincides with low specific gravity, and the periodical recurrence of menstruation appears to produce a slight fall in the specific gravity. A very noteworthy sexual difference is the great range in the specific gravity of the blood, consonantly with health, in girls from the ages of fifteen to twenty-two; and the lower limit during this period falls to a very low point. It is the age of anaemia, and Dr. Lloyd Jones makes the very reasonable suggestion that chlorosis, which is essentially a disease of young women, is but an exaggeration of a condition which is physiological at this age. (See chart on opposite page.) In old women the specific gravity rises, and Dr. Lloyd Jones suggests that this rise may be a factor in the greater longevity of women. It is certain that good physique is associated with high specific gravity of the blood, and poor physique with a low specific gravity; the blood of Cambridge undergraduates is of very high specific gravity; the blood of workhouse boys of very low specific gravity. This difference in the quality of the blood of men and women is fundamental, and its importance can- not be exaggerated; although it is possible that its significance may be to some extent neutralised by other factors. Pulse-rate. — The rapidity of the heart's action varies very greatly among animals, the heart beating more slowly in proportion to the animal's greater size, but the rule not being perfectly correct if we compare, for example, birds with mammals. The pulse-rate 15 226 MAN AND WOMAN. usually preserves with the respiration-rate a relation of about 4 to I. In birds the pulse-rate is very rapid ; in the mammalian series we find, for instance, that the pulse-rate of the mouse is 120, that of the dog 75, of the horse 42, of the elephant 28. In the same species there are differences which are clearly associated with the bulk of the organism. Large vigorous races of dogs have a slower pulse than smaller races. Dr. Seymour Taylor remarks that he has taken the pulse-rate of gigantic muscular men employed in quarrying and other laborious occupa- tions, men of the Cumberland fells, accustomed to violent struggles in the wrestling arena but of naturally ponderous, deliberate nature, and has been surprised to find that their hearts, when at rest and in perfect health, have gone through but 60 cycles in the course of a minute, in one case only 40.^ There are variations among human races which seem to be accounted for by considerations of size, and not, as Delaunay^ tried to show, by a connection between inferiority and a quick pulse: thus if we take 72, which is B^clard's standard for the Frenchman, the pulse-rate of the small-bodied Javanese is said to be as high as 84, that of the Chinese and Nicobar Islanders ']'], while Jousset states that among Asiatics and Africans generally the pulse-rate varies between 77 and 86. Among Bashkirs, however, whose average height was not more than mm.- 1661, Weissenberg found that the average pulse-rate was 63. Among nearly all animals the heart of the male beats more slowly than that of the female. In some animals, if we are to accept observations that are probably not very reliable, the differences are con- siderable: the lion's pulse-rate is 40 (Dubois), the lioness's 68 (Colin); the bull's 46, the heifer's 56 ^ "Remarks on the Slow Heart," Lancet, June 6th, 1891. ''■ See his .interesting discussion of the various influences which modify the pulse, Etudes de Biologie Comparia, 2in= Partie, " Physiologie. " METABOLISM. 227 (Girard); the ram's 68, the sheep's 80.^ In the human female there is a sHghter but still well-marked difference. According to Frankenhausen, the pulse- rate of the male before birth 'is 124 to 147, of the female 135 to 154. Depaul, from an examination of 41 male and 29 female foetuses during pregnancy, found that the average pulse-rate in the former is 139, in the latter 142. At birth and for some time later the two sexes remain very near together; in old age the pulse-rate of women seems to have a greater tendency to increase than that of men. Guy's table of the pulse-rate, according to sex and age, is as follows : — ^ Age. Male. Female. 2- 7 years 97 98 8-14 „ 84 94 14-21 ., 76 82 2r-28 ,, 73 80 28-35 „ 70 78 35-42 „ 68 78 42-49 ,^ 70 77 49-56 „ 67 76 56-63 ., 68 77 63-70 „ 70 78 70-77 „ 67 81 77-84 „ 71 82 The observations of Gilbert on school children in Iowa tend to show that the pulse is not at all ages slower in boys than in girls. He found that at six the boys' pulse is slower; from then to eleven, how- ever, faster than that of the girls; between thirteen and fourteen faster; and again slower from sixteen onwards. There appeared to be an acceleration in both sexes at puberty, more marked in boys.^ On ^ Delaunay, Etudes, etc., p. 47. ^ Todd's Cyclopedia of Anatomy and Physiology, p. 181, and Guy's Hospital Reports, vols. iii. and iv. See also Raseri, Arch, per I'Antrop., 1880, pp. ifieiseq. ^ Studies in Psychology Univ. of Iowa, vol. i., 1897, p. 32. 228 MAN AND WOMAN. the whole, we may say with M'Kendrick, that, at all events in Northern Europe, 72 is the usual pulse-rate in men, 80 in women; other observers give the average difference as somewhat greater; thus, accord- ing to Hardy and B^hier, women show 10 to 14 more pulsations a minute than men. Quetelet's figures (absolutely rather lower than Guy's), giving a rather greater sexual difference for early manhood and womanhood, a rather less difference for adult age, produce the same average difference as Guy's. Accepting, therefore, Guy's careful figures, we see that the average pulse-rate of civilised women is the same as that of boys about the age of puberty. It cannot be said that this difference is very notably greater than the general physical proportions of the sexes would lead us to expect. RESPIRATION. It is well recognised that the "vital capacity," as the breathing power indicated by the spirometer is commonly called, is decidedly less in women than in men. Even during that stage of the evolution of puberty when the girl is heavier and taller than the boy, she is still, as Pagliani and others have shown, very markedly inferior in vital capacity as well as in muscular force. Gilbert found, by the examination of several thousand school children, at New Haven and at Iowa,i between the ages of six and nineteen, that the boys were throughout superior in lung capacity; the difference was slight until the age of twelve, but while the girls had almost reached their maximum lung-capacity at that age, it was not until after the age of thirteen that the period of most rapid in- crease even began in boys. Among the Iowa children, who were better developed than those at New Haven, it is noteworthy that not only was the lung-capacity * J. A. Gilbert, Studies from the Yale Psychological Laboratory, 1894, p. 75; ib., Iowa University Studies, 1897, p. 23. METABOLISM. 229 greater in both sexes, but that the initial difference between the sexes was less. In adult age, when there is the same height and circumference of chest. 3400 3200 3000 / 280O / aeoo / 2400 ^ -^ 2200 / 2000 _J / _-- .^ ISOO ,'' y'/^ 1600 1400 / ■ y^~ _..— ' 1200 1000 eoo 10 12 13 . Boys & Girls -Boys 14 15 16 17 Girls LUNG CAPACITY OF KEW HAVEN CHILDREN. [Gilberi.) the ratio is 10 to 7 (Halliburton). The vital capacity of a man i^ metres in height is usually 2350 c. cm. ; in a woman of the same height, 2000 c. cm. (M'Kendrick). The vital capacity is 3 litres in 230 MAN AND WOMAN. women to 3J in men, at equal height the volume expired being 700 c. cm. less in women. Accord- ing to Arnold, for an increase in height of 25 centimetres, there is in men an increase in vital capacity of 150 c. cm., in women of only 130 c. cm. (Delaunay). The investigations of the British Asso- ciation have shown that in England in males the mid breathing capacity is 217 c. ins., in females about 132 c. ins., the maximum difference being at the ages of 20-40, after which there is a regular decrease in the breathing capacity of men, but less falling off in that of women. The number of respirations at birth is 44 per minute, and gradually decreases to 18 in the adult, being very slightly higher in women than in men (Quetelet). Size has much to do with the number of respirations' in every zoological group; thus the rhinoceros has 6 respirations a minute, the rat 210. This matter has been studied in recent years by Richet,^ who argues that it is one of the greatest laws of comparative physiology that " all the functions in their activity and in their intensity are determined by the size of the animal." According to Sibson, the ratio of inspiration to expiration in male adults is 6 to 7; in women, children, and old persons, 6 to 8 or 9 ; other observers give rather different results. Men produce more carbonic acid than women. According to Andral and Gavarret, the amount of carbon burnt per hour is, from eight to fifteen years of age, in the boy 7 gr. 8, in the girl 6 gr. 4; from sixteen to thirty, in the man 11 gr. 2, in the woman 6 gr. 4; that is to say, the amount consumed in man rises at puberty to nearly double that consumed in woman. There is an increase in women during pregnancy, and also after the cessation of the menses. Energetic people excrete more than less active people of the same weight, and, relatively, a child gives oif twice as much as an adult. ' La C/ialeiir Animale. METABQLISM. 23I One result of this marked sexual difference is that women have a less keen need of air. This was noted by Burdach, who remarked that it began at birth. It appears that when both men and women are exposed to charcoal fumes, women, having less need of oxygen, possess a greater chance of surviving. In the process of salt-making, according to Mr. S. Webb, it is found that women can work better than men in the heat of stoves. The same result has been alleged to follow when the privation of oxygen is due to extreme altitude, so that women can live at heights where men would soon fall ill (Delaunay). It is possibly in part owing to this cause that women criminals have survived hanging much mqre frequently than men, from the time of Tiretta de Balsham, who was pardoned by Henry III. in 1264 because she had survived hanging, onwards; sbmetimes they have revived from the jolting of the cart on being conveyed from the gallows, and at other times by the skill of surgeons to whom the body had been given for anatomical purposes; Sir William Petty acquired popular fame by thus restoring to life a woman who soon afterwards married and lived for fifteen years. During normal respiration in civilised races, when the individual is awake, man's respiration is diaphragm- atic or abdominal, woman's is costal, the chest chiefly moving. The cause of this apparent sexual difference was at one time much disputed. Boerhaave noticed the difference of type in male and female infants; this has not, however, been confirmed by later inves- tigators. It is now, as Dr. Ballantyne remarks,^ " usually admitted that respiration is chiefly abdominal in type during the first three years of life." The diaphragm is thus the most important respiratory muscle in the infant as well as in the adult male, or to an even greater extent. The characteristic costal ^ Introduclion to Diseases of Infancy, p. 170. It is not, however, universally admitted. Depaul, Sergi, and others take for granted that children's respiration is costal. 232 MAN AND WOMAN. breathing of women begins, according to Sibson, about the tenth year of life. Sibson, as well as Walshe and other investigators, attributed its appear- ance to the use of corsets and similar external impediments. Jonathan Hutchinson studied the matter carefully,^ and came to the conclusion that the difference of breathing was not due to the restraints of clothing, for he found costal breathing in young girls who had never worn tight-fitting clothes. He argued that it was a natural adaptation to the child- bearing function in women. Hutchinson's investi- gations were for many years accepted as final; it became at least necessary, as Rosenthal pointed out, to admit that the costal breathing of women had become fixed by heredity into a secondary sexual character. During the last few years, however, some fresh series of investigations, on a wider basis and with more accurate methods, have changed the accepted aspect of the matter. At the Birmingham meeting of the British Medical Association in 1890, Dr. Wilberforce Smith read a paper concerning some investigations he had made " On the Alleged Differ- ence between Male and Female Respiratory Move- ments." "^ Using Burdon Sanderson's stethograph in a modified form. Dr. Smith took tracings of about fifty persons at ,the anterior middle line, over (i) sternum, (2) liver below ensiform cartilage, (3) just above navel, (4) just below navel, (5) midway between navel and pubes. The dress was entirely loosened; and it was rightly regarded as of considerable import- ance to keep the subject of the experiment ignorant of its object. It was found that at the sternal level of the chest in both sexes there was free respiratory movement, and also that over the liver there was free and regular movement in both sexes; just above ' Todd and Bowman, Cyclopcedia of Anat. and Phys., Art. "Thorax." ^ Published in the Brii. Me J. Journal, nth Oct. 1890. METABOLISM. 233 the navel the results were variable, and between the navel and pubes in many cases there was no respira- tory movement. The most characteristic differences occurred just below the navel: among the men a principal group showed free movement, while a smaller group, having soft abdominal walls, only showed slight movement ; among the women, habitu- ally dressed and corseted in the usual manner, a large group showed excessive diminution or entire abolition of movement, while a smaller group of young and muscular women, wearing corsets, retained free move- ment ; among women habitually wearing no corsets, a large group showed free movement in no degree less marked than among males, and in at least one case actually freer than among most males, and a smaller group of non-corseted women, having soft abdominal walls, showed only slight movement. Dr. Smith also independently examined nine ayahs; they all wore Oriental dress and had all borne more than one child. Without exception they exhibited respiratory movement below the navel not less free than in average English men. As a result of his investigations. Dr. Wilberforce Smith concluded " that the tracings exhibited tended to invalidate the routine physiological teaching that there is a natural difference in the respiratory move- ments of the sexes, and they tended to confirm the belief of Sibson that the alleged difference is chiefly or wholly due to the effects of woman's conventional dress." Professor Cunningham, after the paper was read, remarked that these physiological experiments confirmed his own views, founded on anatomical grounds, that there ought to, be no essential differ- ence in respiratory movements in man and woman. Charpy, I may add, had also previously come to the conclusion, from extensive anatomical investigations, that up to the age of 15 boys and girls have identical chests, and that the thoracic type of breathing is only found in women of at least 25 years of age who 234 MAN AND WOMAN. bear on their viscera, especially the liver, signs of deformation produced by tight clothing.^ Dr. Smith made the following supplementary remarks in a private letter (5th Oct. 1892): — "I might have added in 1890 that the cases of which I had obtained graphic record were preceded by daily observation for many years without such record. They have been followed by similar daily observation ever since, and are, I have no doubt, founded on unalterable truth. "The only fact of interest I have to add is, that so far from pregnancy affording a reason for a different mode of respiration, it is associated with marked abdominal respiratory movements. 1 take it that the comparatively firm mass of the gravid uterus, like the liver, readily conveys movements of the diaphragm to the surface. " The same difficulty occasionally occurs in men where the action of the diaphragm is impeded by an enlarged stomach, the result of a recent meal, or undue corpulence." I may here add that Mr. Lennox Browne, from another point of view, had reached the same conclusion that there are no sexual differences in respiration. He wrote in a private letter : " It is only where the corset confines the lower rilbs or in cases of pregnancy or abdominal tumours that diaphragmatic breathing is impaired, and that costal breathing is resorted to." Simultaneously with the publication of Dr. Smith's investigations, additional evidence on the same point from America was published in a paper by Professor H. Bewail (Michigan University) and Myra Pollard.^ Some original observations were here given by Dr. Mays, of Philadelphia, made by means of the graphical method on the respiratory movements of female de- scendants of an uncivilised race. He writes: — " In all I examined the movements of 82 chests, and in each case took an abdominal and a costal tracing. The girls were partly pure and partly mixed with white blood, and their ages ranged from between ten and twenty years. Thus there were 33 full-blooded Indians, 5 one- fourth, 35 one-half, and 2 were three- ' A. Charpy, " U Angle Xiphoidien," I^ezitted'Jn/kropolngie, 1884. ■" "On the Relations of Diaphragmatic and Costal Respiration, wiih particular reference to V\itxis.\S.OT\" Journal of Physiology, l8go, No. 3. METABOLISM. 235 fourths white; 75 showed a decided abdominal type of breathing, 3 a costal type, and in 3 both were about even. Those who showed the costal type, or diver- gence from the abdominal type, came from the more civilised tribes, like the Mohawks and Chippewas, and were either one-half or three-fourths white; while in no single instance did a full-blooded Indian girl possess this type of breathing." Dr. J. H. Kellogg of Michigan supplied the authors of this paper with unpublished observations (made with a Marey's stethograph and rotating cylinder) to the same effect. He wrote : — " I observed the breathing of 20 Chinese women and the same number of Indian women, and I found the abdominal type very marked in every case. The tracings given by the Chinese women were not like those of robust men, but were identical with those from men of sedentary habits. . . . Of the Indian women 14 were of the Yuma tribe, the most primitive Indians in the United States. . . . The majority of them still wear their bark dresses; the only garment in addition to this is a long strip of red cloth thrown over the shoulders and folded about the body. . . . The waist is, not restrained in the slightest degree. In these women the abdominal movements were 4 to 6 times as great as the costal movements. I examined several of the Cherokee and Chickesaw women in the Indian Territory. These women had all worn civilised dress, and some of them had worn corsets. Those who had worn corsets and tight dresses gave tracings like civilised women; those who had worn only loose dress gave normal tracings. I also found a few civilised women who had never worn corsets or tight bands, and obtained from them tracings like those from the Chinese and Yuma women." Dr. Kellogg has somewhat more recently made, and caused to be made, various series of observations on women in different parts of the world which confirm and extend these conclusions. ("The Value of Exercise," Trans. Am. Ass. Obstetricains, vol. 236 MAN AND WOMAN. GERMAN PEASANT WOMAN. AMERICAN WOMAN. {,After Kellogg.) METABOLISM. 237 iii., 1891, and an interesting pamphlet on The Influence of Dress, both fully illustrated.) The two accompanying figures are reproduced by Dr. Kellogg's permission. One represents a German peasant woman, aged 29, who had never been trained in gymnastics, but who had been accustomed to carry heavy weights on her head up to the age of 20; she shows the natural healthful female form. The other figurrf is that of an ordinary American woman of the same age, who wore the ordinary civilised dress and took little exercise. When in England Dr. Kellogg went to the "black country" to study the women nail- makers and brick-makers, and found among them some of the best developed women he had ever seen. He ascertained also that they are extremely healthy. It may be mentioned that Hultkrantz, of Upsala, endeavour- ing to avoid the possible fallacies of external measurement in estimating the influence of the diaphragm in respiration, intro- duced an elastic ball into the stomach and then inflated it. His experiments were performed on too small a number of persons to lead to any general conclusions, but he was able to demonstrate the lesser diaphragmatic movement in women, and also to show that pressure by a band in men produced lessened diaphragmatic movement. (" Ueber die respira- torischen Bewegungen des menschlichen Zwerchfells," Skan- dinavisches Archivfiir Physiologie, 1890, heft i.) The evidence clearly points to the conclusion that the sexual differences in respiration found among civilised races are not natural secondary sexual characters, but are merely the result of the artificial constrictions of the dress usually worn by women. It would be interesting to trace the origin and development of the modern waist in women. The Greeks of the finest period knew nothing of it, but during the period of decadence women began to compress the body with the apparent object of emphasising the sexual attraction of a conspicuously large pelvis. Hippocrates vigorously denounced the women of Cos for constricting the waist with a girdle. Among the Romans, who adopted this practice from the depraved Greeks, Martial often alludes to the small waists of the women of his time, and Galen speaks much in the same way as a modern physician regarding the evils of tight-lacing. Since then matters have changed but very slightly. The apparent development of the pelvis has been further artificially exaggerated by that con- trivance which in Elizabethan times was called a "bum-roll," and more recently a " bustle." The tightening of the waist does not merely emphasise the pelvic sexual characters; it also 238 MAN AND WOMAN. emphasises the not less important thoracic sexual characters; as Dr. Louis Robinson expresses it (in a private letter) : — " I think it very likely one of the reasons (and there must be strong ones) for the persistent habit of tightening up the belly-girth among Christian damsels is that such constriction renders the breathing thoracic, and so advertises the alluring bosom by keeping it in constant' and manifest movement. The heaving of a sub-clavicular sigh is likely to cause more sensation than the heaving of an epigastric or umbilical sigh." This double effect of waist-constriction upon hips and chest is fully sufficient to account for its origin, and it has been kept up partly by custom and partly from that " sense of support " always felt by those who have for years been subjected to the practice. All the evidence that has since appeared confirms the conclusion that there are no true and natural sexual distinctions in respiration. Thus, among the Japanese Baelz has found that only those women who bind themselves round by the broad woman's girdle (obi) show thoracic respiration, while the peasant women who do not thus constrict themselves breathe abdominally like the men.'^ Fitz, in an important paper,^ has also studied the whole question thoroughly, and found no sexual differences. The idea that waist-belts and corsets may perform a useful purpose in assisting the flow of blood to the brain and muscles (as suggested by Roy and Adami) appears to be without foundation; and, in any case, such methods are unnecessary, since perfect compen- sation is attained under normal conditions.^ On the other hand, there is reason to believe that the in- fluence of women's clothing in causing costal respiration and so diminishing the action of the diaphragm has an injurious influence, not only on the thoracic but also on the abdominal viscera. Thus it is everywhere found that women suffer much more from gall-stones than do men. In a careful and ■ thorough study of this question Dr. Clelia ' Z/. f. Eth., 1901, heft iii. p. 211. ''■Jour. Exper. Med., vol. i. p. 677. ' Leonard Hill, Cerebral Circulation, 1896, p. 112. METABOLISM. 239 Mosheri found that in America the Hability of women to gall-stones is 9.4 per cent., and of men only 5.6 per cent., while in Germany the frequency of gall-stones among women is twice as great, and in the negro race less. In the first line of causes for this sexual difference she mentions the costal respiration of women induced by clothing, the absence of dia- phragmatic action producing stasis of the bile, and she refers to the experiments of Heidenhain and his pupils, showing experimentally that the action of the diaphragm is an important factor in. emptying the gall-bladder. Meinert has shown reason for believing that too tight-fitting clothes, even in those who have never worn corsets, may be a factor in the causation of ansemia, through the abdominal constriction leading to gastroptosis, or falling of the stomach, and con- sequent sympathetic nervous disturbances.^ Of 31 young girls i"eceived into the training-school for servants at Dresden, 12 of whom had never worn corsets though their clothing was too tight, 28 were found with gastroptosis; of the 28, 17 had chlorosis, and 3 ansemia of non-chlorotic character. Meinert refers to the fact, to which attention was drawji by Hirsch, that chlorosis was unknown in antiquity and in the Middle Ages; in Saxony it is said to have appeared among the peasant girls since they adopted modern fashions; in Persia, where no constriction of the thorax takes place, it is said by European physicians to be unknown; and in Japan only to appear among those who have adopted European dress. While, however, constriction of the lower thorax may well be, as Meinert argues, an exciting cause in the production of chlorosis, there is probably, as we have already seen, a special predisposition to ansemia in women. ^ John Hopkins Host. Bull, Aug. 1501. ^ Verhandl. d. zehnien Versammhing d. gesell. f. KinJei heilk, 1893. 240 MAN AND WOMAN. That costal respiration will become less common, and this artificial sexual difference be gradually abolished, we may reasonably expect, now that the advantages of allowing free play to the diaphragm are being slowly recognised. It is prob- able, as Professor Sewall and Miss Pollard (in the paper in the Journal of Physiology already referred to) point out, that diaphragmatic contraction by pressing upon the abdominal' viscera has an important function in squeezing blood to the heart and so assisting circulation; it also promotes, as these authors show, the mechanical mixture of air in the lungs, thus causing in the most perfect manner possible the mixture of fresh with foul air, which is the great function of respiratory movement. It is noteworthy that women who expend an unusual amount of energy in work in a large number of cases find it better to discard or minimise the use of corsets. So far as accurate observation has gone, it is also clear that the corset- wearing woman is inferior in muscular power and physical endurance to the non-corset-wearing woman. This is, for instance, well shown in some observations on the pupils at the North London Collegiate School for Girls, the results of which were published in the Women's Gazette, January 1890, by Mrs. Bryant. The trial included a high leap, a long leap, a tug-of- war, and a running competition. The struggle was between " loose stays and none," and there were sixteen girls on each side. In a brief muscular effort, such as leaping, the corset- wearers came out as well as the non-corset-wearers, but in efforts requiring more sustained endurance, as in running and the tug-of-war, the non-corset-wearers had much the best of it. The results, as measured by the pulse-rates and breathing capacity, after " endurance running," were decidedly unfavour- able to the corset-wearers. Dr. Sargent, of Harvard University, has also recorded some interesting experiments on women students ("The Physical Development of Women," Scribner's Magazine, 1889)1 — "In order to ascertain the influence of tight clothing upon the action of the heart during exercise a dozen young women consented this summer to run 540 yards in their loose gymnasium garments and then to run the same distance with corsets on. The running time was two minutes and thirty seconds for each person at each trial, and in order that there should be no cardiac excitement or depression following the first test, the second trial was made the following day. Before beginning the running the average heart-impulse was 84 beats to the ininute ; after running the above-named distance the heart-impulse was 1 52 beats to the minute ; the average natural waist-girth being 25 inches. The next day corsets were worn during the exercise, and the average girth of waist was reduced to 24 inches. The same distance was run in the same time by all, and immediately METABOLISM. 24I afterward the average heart-impulse was found to be 168 beats per minute. When I state that I should feel myself justified in advising an athlete not to enter a running or rowing race whose heart-impulse was 160 beats per minute after a little exercise, even though there were not the slightest evidence of disease, one can form some idea of the wear and tear on this important organ, and the physical loss entailed upon the system in women who force it to labour for half their lives under such a dis- advantage as the tight corset involves. In order to ascertain the effect of tight clothing upon respiration the spirometer was tried. The average natural girth of the chest over the ninth rib was 28 inches, and with corsets 26 inches. The average lung capacity when corsets were worn was 134 cubic inches; when the corsets were removed the test showed an average lung capacity of 167 inches — a gain of 33 cubic inches." It may be added that the evidence before us does not neces- sarily prove the desirability of the disuse of corsets by adult civilised European women. Some of the most serious cases of the results of waist constriction found by Meinert were in young Bavarian women who had never worn stays at all. If a number of heavy lower garments are worn, suspension from the waist is still the most convenient method for their support, and this involves a tight waist-band. Some of the modern kinds of corsets which enable the garments to rest on the hips without undue compression of the chest and abdomen are, when sensibly used, probably better even than none at all. In this matter the position taken up hy StTa.tz {ScAbnkeii des Weibiichen Korpers, chaps, viii. and xvi.) is entirely reasonable, alike from the point of view of health and of beauty. In young girls he entirely prohibits stays and the use of garments necessitating them ; when full bodily development has been attained, and certainly not earlier than the age of fifteen (or much later if full development of hips is delayed), he recommends the use of certain kinds of corsets adapted to the natural form of the body. We have seen that the chest region tends to remain unduly undeveloped in women as compared to men. The vital capacity of women is inferior to that of men out of all proportion to the smaller size of women ; their lungs also, as we shall see reason to believe, are unduly small; while in strength of arm and of chest muscles, as we have found in a previous chapter (p. 170), they are very much weaker as compared to men than they are in strength of leg muscles, feebleness of arms and chest being indeed, 16 242 MAN AND WOMAN. I¥ J] y /■/' // // / / / ' / / , ' / y ' J / y y' / / / ■^ / / / y / / y / 1 •■jr~ - y — 7* ' / y / / / • / / / / / / / 1 / 1 / f / / / / 1 / / J y / •' If I 1 1 / / t /\ f 1 > ' 1 / / / 1 I / 1 f \ \ / X; % \v^ A 'n* >^ \ ts I \ \v \ \ \^ \ V \ \ \ \ \ \ \ h X^ S \ \ N, t ^- SL>, T\ \ ^ 1 1 1 g \ \, 1 ^*^*V. S. \ N 1 ^"•^.^ \^ s \ Q So «>,J ^^\\ \'^ t^ i^s; 01 SN ^ A "4 * to a>«D n> \\\^ 03 00 03 5 S" \ \ \ i » * \\ * 1 Q - / u / / f! ^ ■ \ 5 i 5 ^ i «J METABOLISM. 243 relatively to men, women's weakest point. It is probable that this unduly feeble condition of the chest is of much significance in connection with the special tendency of young girls to become consumptive. Constantly from i860 onwards in England and Wales the mortality of girls from phthisis, up to the age of twenty, has exceeded that of boys, in sexual ratio to the population, by as much as thirty per cent. Sir Hugh Beevor, who has specially studied the sex incidence of phthisis,^ traces this special liability of girls to consumption to the early arrest of chest growth.^ In later adult life the mortality of men is much greater than of women, but here we have to remember not only- that the women with the least resistant lungs have already been weeded out by death, but that the influence of unwholesome occupations, and also, it is probable, the greater need of good nutrition in men, exert a very important influence. Beevor's results receive valuable confirmation in Woods Hutchinson's study of phthisis and of the consumptive chest.^ He "has found that the consumptive chest really tends to exhibit a measurable degree of inferior development. It would thus appear that the special liability of girls to become the victims of this disease is in some measure due to their inferior chest develop- ment, and therefore in part avoidable, if girls were to live a vigorous life in the open air, and with less restraint on their natural activities than is now customary. It is usual for foolish parents and others to repress the impulse to climb trees, which is very often felt 1 Lancet, 15th April 1899. '^ In a subsequent paper ("Sex Constitution and its Relation to Pulmonary Tuberculosis," Medical Magazine,- ]vLne 1900), Sir Hugh Beevor is inclined to regard the arrest of lung-growth and the associ- ated greater tendency to consumption as due to ultimate differences in sex constitution. This is a conclusion which I do not think we are yet entitled to accept. ^ Studies ill Human and Comparative Pathology, chap. v. 244 MAN AND WOMAN. by girls in the country. This is, however, as Hutchinson points out, precisely the kind of exercise they need to develop their chests. " It would almost seem," remarks Hutchinson, "as if a reversion to the arboreal habits of our ancestors was the chief [requisite for proper chest development in the in- idividual as well as in the race. The well-marked child-instinct for tree-climbing ought to be regarded with respect in both girls and boys, even at the risk of torn clothing or an occasional broken limb." At present the sexual difference in mortality from con- sumption.i is even more marked in rural than urban districts; although the country boy enjoys great advantages over the town boy, his sister's life is much rhore likely to be regulated by the same maxims as that of the town girl. The natural in- stinct of girls to climb trees as well as the persistency with which it is repressed are alike evidenced by the frequency with which Stanley Hill found that girls state that climbing trees is one of the things which it is " wrong " to do. Temperature. — The evidence concerning sexual differences in temperature is small and incon- sistent. We know that increased metabolic activity, as well as a greater afflux of blood, produces higher temperature. In children and adolescents it is well recognised that the temperature is higher than in adults, and more liable to variations which are of less significance than in grown-up persons. Davy, Roger, Mignot, and Delaunay found the temperature of men higher than that of women by about .5" C. ; Ogle and Wunderlich found the temperature of women higher by about the same amount. Stockton Hough found that males have, as a rule, from the beginning to the end of life, a higher temperature than women and greater individual variations.^ We are probably justified in agreeing with those physiologists ' Paper in Philadelphia Medical Times, 8th Nov. 1873, summarised in Popular Science Monthly, 1874, p. 97. METABOLISM. 245 who assert that no sexual difference has yet been estabhshed. Waller states that the variations of temperature in women from time to time are greater than in men and of less signifi- cance. Squire found a slight rise of temperature before menstruation and a fall after it. iDr. Mary Jacobi from an examination of six cases found that "the temperature rises from one to eight-tenths of a degree during the week preceding men- struation. It falls gradually during the flow, but in the majority of cases does not even then reach the normal average." (M. P. Jacobi, TAe Question of Rest for Women during Me7istruation, New York, 1877.) Martius took the temperature of 85 domestic ducks— in the north and south of France — under various conditions, and found the temperature of the females higher (averaging 42.2 against 41.9 for the males) and also more variable. (Gavarret, Art. " Chaleur Animale," in Diet. ency. des Sciences Medicates; and in the same writer's Phenomines Physiques de la Vie, 1869, pp. 80-89, 'he temperature of a large number of animals is given.) Excretion. — The sexual differences in the metabolic processes which we have already found are also indi- cated by an examination of the excreta; the best known and most important results concern the urine. Not only does the amount of liquid and of nitro- genous food very largely influence the urine and its composition, but the kidneys are especially susceptible to a variety of influences; the nature of the food, of the salts it contains, emotional excitement, mental exertion, nervous tone,^ frequency of urination, the temperature of the air, are among the factors to be taken into account, and there is a compensatory relationship with the excreta by the skin. During ^ " Beneke [Archiv des Vereins fiir wiss. Heilk., Bd. i.)" — remarks Parkes, Composition of the Urine, p. 100 — "from observations on himself has noticed that when the nervous system is, so to speak, in good tone, z.e., when there is a feeling of vigorous health, and when all the functions are rightly performed, the amount of urine increases. On the other hand, when there is languor and depression, the urine is less in amount. The diiBculty here, of course, is to define the term, ' tone of the nervous system'; that something real is meant is certain; and the immediate influence on the amount of the urine is, I think, put beyond doubt by Beneke's elaborate inquiry. " 246 MAN AND WOMAN. the night we should expect these influences to cause less disturbance than during the day; and Beigel's observations seem to confirm this; he found that the amount of urine excreted during the night is almost equal in men and women, but that during the day- there is a marked excess in men. Beaunis has found that, notwithstanding the disturbing elements, and independently of the water drunk, a regular diurnal rhythm may be traced in the excretion of urine.i A slight sexual difference appears soon after birth, both the solid and liquid constituents of the urine of the female infant being less. At from 3 to 7 years of age the amount of urine excreted by boys during 24 hours, according to Beaunis, is 750 c. cm., by girls 700 c. cm. This is ij times more than in the adult in proportion to body-weight. The amount of urea excreted by the child is even greater relatively than that of water, and the importance of this function of elimination in children is indicated by the large size of their kidneys. At the age of eighteen the urine reaches the adult standard.^ The amount is, abso- lutely, usually rather smaller in women, but relatively it is usually greater. The amount is, roughly speaking, in a man about 1000 to 1500 i_. cm. (or about 50 ozs.), and in a woman about 900 to 1200 c. cm., during the 24 hours (Landois and Stirling); accord- ing to Yvon and Berlioz, in man 1360 c. cm., in woman iioo c. cm. {Revue M^d., viii. p. 713) ; according to Beaunis, the amount is practically identical in both sexes, and therefore relatively greater in woman, in man the average being 1875 c. cm., in woman 1812; while M'Kendrick places it at 1500-2000 c. cm. for a man, and 400-500 c. cm. less in a woman, Bec- querel and Rodier, on the other hand, as the result of a large number of experiments, came to the conclusion that the quantity of urine discharged by women during 24 hours is, even abso- lutely, slightly greater than in men, the average being as 1227 in men to 1337 in women (Becquerel and Rodier,, Traite de Chimie pathologique, 1854). Mosler found (comparing men ^ Recherches Expirimtntahs, Paris, 1884, p, 14, ^ Parkes, Composition of Urine. METABOLISM. 247 from the age of 18 to 21 with women of from 17 to 26) that while the absolute amount of urine was greater in men, in proportion to body-weight it was greater in women {Archiv des Vereins fi'tr gemeinschaft. Arbeiten sur Forderung der wissen. Heilkunde, iii., 1858, pp. 431, 441). English physiologists usually find the sexual difference rather considerable. French physiologists more frequently find the amount nearly equal, and thus rela- tively greater in women ; this is probably due to differences in national habit and custom. While the amount of water excreted by the kidneys in women is probably above what the difference in body-weight would lead us to expect, there seems little doubt that the amount of urinary solids excreted by women is both absolutely and relatively rather below that excreted by men. The urine of women is usually of lighter colour than men's, and its specific gravity is lower. All physiologists are agreed on this point,^ and the fact is a more important index of metabolism than the relative amounts of water ex- creted. Children in whom metabolism is very active excrete relatively considerably more urea and salts than adults; among adults the amount in women is relatively less than in men ; in old age, when the metabolic processes of life are low, there is in both sexes a great diminution in the excretion of both solid and liquid constituents. The urine of women, like the blood of women, is more watery than that of men. In women the influence of the. menstrual cycle, which so largely affects the organism, has its effects here also. That the urine is frequently increased in amount at this period is a matter of common observation, and according to the usual rule this increase should involve an increase in the solids. This does not, however, appear to be always the case. Delaunay stated -that menstruation diminished the urea 20 per cent., but without mentioning the extent of the data on which this opinion was founded. ^ See, for instance, E. A. Parkes, Composition of the Urine, i860, pp. 39-41. 248 MAN AND WOMAN. Beigel found lessening of urea during, and increase after, menstruation. Dr. Mary Jacobi made fourteen series of observations on six women, and found that in nine the urea was diminished during the flow, in five increased. But in the majority the urea during the menstrual period was more abundant than during the following week, when the lowest point was reached, and before the flow there was usually an increase of urea. Marro found by a series of observa- tions on eight girls and young women between the ages of eleven and twenty-six, that there was a gradual increase of urea in proportion to body-weight in the years preceding puberty, but that the estab- lishment of menstruation produced not merely arrest but even diminution in the elimination of urea. He found that the amount of urea was nearly always diminished during menstruation, slowly rising after- wards, and apparently reaching a maximum at the period most removed from menstruation.^ A larger series of observations is, however, necessary to obtain definite results. Our knowledge of the influence of pregnancy and lactation on metabolic activity, as measured by the urine, is very slight. Dr. Hagemann, at a meeting of the Berlin Physiological Society (6th June 1890), gave an account of some experiments on two dogs with reference to this point. They were supplied with a constant nitro- genous diet, and it was found that during the first half of the period of pregnancy more nitrogen was excreted than was taken with the food, so that the nitrogen requisite for the growth of the foetus must have been derived from the tissue-proteids of the mother; after this period the nitrogenous excretion sank to a condition of equilibrium in the middle of pregnancy, and then fell further, until the birth of ' Marro, La Puberte, p. 44. He believes (p. 241) that this diminu- tion of urea at puberty, in association with the diminished output of carbonic acid, constitutes a state of lowered metabolism which is one of the physiological bases of hysteria. METABOLISM. 249 the offspring; while immediately after parturition there was a very marked increase in the excretion of nitrogen, followed by a sudden fall, which led to the output being, during four weeks of the period of lactation, less than the intake. It is probable that in women the metabolic cycle during pregnancy and lactation is somewhat similar; thus Laulanid and Chambrelent have noticed a marked diminution in the toxicity of the urine of pregnant women, especially towards the end of this period (when in the dogs the excretion of urea was also lowest) ; in two experiments out of ten the urine of pregnant women was entirely free from the toxic substances present in normal urine, so that these appear to be retained towards the period of childbirth. SUSCEPTIBILITY TO POISONS. There are various ways in which the varying effects of poisons on men and women might throw an interesting light on differences in metabolism and in nervous organisation. We know something of the special susceptibilities of children with regard to poisons, when given in small doses as drugs to produce beneficial effects, and also as to their effects on various animals, but not much is known as to sexual differences. These differences are usually of so slight a character that considerable precision of observation and a large body of cases are necessary to reach definite results. The poison which has most persistently been observed to exhibit sexual differ- ences in its effects is alcohol; it is evident that this is simply because the effects of no other poison have been so widely studied. If medical men took the trouble to note systematically the effects of the drugs they administered we should be in possession of a considerable body of evidence; but they have rarely, if ever, done so on an extended scale. From our present point of view, there are various 250 MAN AND WOMAN. questions which observation of the effect of drugs would help to elucidate. For example: (i) Do any drugs tend to produce greater effect on an organ in one sex than in the other? (2) Are there in one or the other sex examples of such marked susceptibility to a poison that the therapeutical doses must be decidedly smaller than considera- tions of size, etc., would lead us to anticipate ? (3) Especially, are the higher nervous centres more apt to be affected in one sex than in the other ? (i.) Observations on a large scale, or carefully recorded in their details, tending to prove or disprove any selective action of poisons on different organs in the two sexes are, so far as I am aware, very few. I have met with a paper, by Dr. F. Augustus Cox, containing a summary of the notes of over 1700 cases treated with arsenic which had been under his observation. In this paper ^ some sexual differ- ences in symptoms are noted, although it was not found that the influence of sex was marked in the evolution of unpleasant symptoms. Gastric symp- toms were commoner in women, intestinal in men; conjunctival symptoms were met with rather oftener in the male sex; nervous symptoms were of more frequent occurrence in women. It may be added that, in Mr. Jonathan Hutchinson's experience, children and the young bear arsenic well, while the old are susceptible to it, and it is specially apt to call out the signs of nerve degeneration whenever this is present.^ Trousseau and Pidoux record some interesting observations on the varying action of opium on men and women. They found that in women it acts more on the skin, in men on the kidneys; they only observed hypersecretion of urine twice in women. They found also from observation on 22 ^ "The Administration of Arsenic," Provincial Medical Journal, Fell. 1891. ^ " Arsenic as a Drug," Brit. Med. Journal, 6th June 1891. METABOLISM. 25 1 men and 20 women that vomiting with opium, when administered by the skin, was three times more frequent in women than in men. When given internally it produced vomiting 4 out of 10 times in men, 6 out of 10 times in women. The women who vomited were mostly nervous or neuralgic. Lauder Brunton also states that women, under the influence of opium, are more liable to nausea and also to headache. Trousseau and Pidoux also found that the adminis- tration of mercury more easily produces salivation in women than either in men or in children, who easily bear large doses.^ This, also, is confirmed by Lauder Brunton. (2.) Men are said to bear the action of antimony much better than women; children bear it badly (De Savignac). Zuccarelli found in 37 cases in which he treated epilepsy by injection of atropine that the benefit was much less in the case of women than of men ; children also are very tolerant of belladonna, as is well established. Sulphonal, which is apt to pro- duce nervous symptoms, should be given to women in much smaller doses than to men; Monod found that to produce the hypnotic effect women only required half the dose required by a man.^ On the other hand, in treating the insane with somnal, Umpfenbach found that women are much less susceptible to its influence than men. Germain S6e has found that women are especially sensitive to antipyrin.^ Women are also said to be very readily affected by bromide (which affects the cerebral and especially the spinal system), while children (according to Voisin) bear it well, but (according to Radcliffe Crocker) bromide eruptions are most common in children. It is remarkable that, as first noted by English ' R. W. Parker has suggested that this is merely due to the large amount of milk taken by children, which may deprive the mercury of its irritant effects. '■* Arch, fur exp. Path, und Pharm., i. 31. ^ Paris Academic de Medecine, 14th February 18SS. 252 MAN AND WOMAN. , authors, the overwhelming majority of deaths from chloroform are in males. The materials furnished by Sansom show that, according to various authorities, the proportion is at the highest estimate two men to one woman, and according to one estimate four men to one woman, although, as Sansom remarked, chloroform is so extensively used in childbirth. The Report of the Anaesthetics Committee of the British Medical Association (1901) founded on nearly 26,000 cases, showed that the percentage of com- plications under all anaesthetics together was in the ratio of about 1.5 males to i female, while the per- centage of danger cases was still higher in males, being in the ratio of about 1.7 to i. Under chloro- form the danger-rate was found to be greater for males in the ratio of over 2 to i. Under ether, indeed, the danger-rate was somewhat greater for females than for males (.6 to i), but minor complica- tions were notably more frequent with males even under ether. Children, as the very large experience of the Moorflelds Hospital shows, bear chloroform extremely well. The robust and healthy, according to Sansom, seem more exposed to the dangerous effects of chloroform than the delicate and weakly, and the largest relative number of fatal cases has occurred in very trifling surgical cases when the general health of the patient has been tolerably good. Some allusion may here be made to the group of lead salts (which, according to Goetzke and others, primarily affect the central nervous system), as there is reason to believe that women are more susceptible to their action than men. Sir J. Alderson in his Lumleian Lectures in 1852 concluded that men are more frequently affected, but Tanquerel found that women are more susceptible to lead-poisoning, and Professor T. Oliver of Newcastle, one of the chief centres of the lead industries, is decidedly of this opinion. In his Goulstonian Lectures on Lead- Poisoning {i&qi, pp. 21-25) he remarks: — "There is, in my opinion, no doubt in regard to the very much greater suscepti- bility of the female to be contaminated with lead compared to METABOLISM. 253 the male; and this is not due simply to the fact of exposure in a lead factory to what may be regarded as the greater dangers, but depends upon sexual idiosyncrasy. This is an opinion so totally at variance with that given by several authors that 1 require to explain myself. My experience drawn from hundreds of cases is that, both as regards the acute and chronic forms of lead-poisoning, women are much more quickly brought under its influence than men. The ratio of men to women employed in lead factories is in favour of the women, and at first sight it might appear as if the liability was explained by the greater number of women exposed. Taking a period of five years, I find that 135 cases of lead-poisoning were admitted as in-patients at the Royal Infirmary, in Newcastle. Of these, ninety-one were women and forty-four were men. To me there is no comparison of the greater susceptibility of the female; and that it is not altogether a question of trade is shown by the fact that in the recent epidemic of lead-poisoning in Yorkshire, where out of 1000 cases due to the drinking of water contaminated by the metal, the special correspon- dent of the British Medical Journal, 1890, vol. i. p. 974, found the proportion of females to males to be as four to one. Against this may be urged the fact that women prob- ably drink more water than men; but allowing for this, the proportion would still be in favour of the female; Brown found 153 males as against 251 females. Not only is the female more susceptible, but she is so at an earlier age than the male, and is more likely to suffer severely, and from such nervous accidents as epilepsy. The interesting point in regard to exposure to lead is that whilst young women suffer readily from saturnine poisoning, recovering quickly from colic only to be more readily and severely affected on again exposing themselves, men may go on working for years, ten to twenty, having only one or two attacks of colic, and then, after a very lengthened period of service, may still falLvictims, either to lead paralysis, or die from the effects of a kidney leison due to the poison. . . . One of the first noticeable effects of the pernicious influence of lead is the production of anaemia or cachexia. Nearly all young women, those particularly between the ages of eighteen to twenty-four, when thus exposed suffer from deranged menstrual function; haematosis and ovarian activity are interfei;ed with, and the result is either amenorrhoea or menorrhagia. Once the functional activity of the ovaries and blood-making is interfered with, then is that woman already in a critical condition, and at any moment she may become the subject of any of those explosive outbursts of plumbism known by the name of lead encephalopathy. To sexual peculiarity I therefore attribute much of the danger from exposure to lead. Lead as a poison strikes early at the functions of blood-making 254 MAN AND WOMAN. and reproduction, producing sterility, liability to abortion, and amenorrhoea or menorrhagia. Woman, from her constitutional idiosyncrasy, is therefore more liable to be impressed by lead." Mr. W. Sevan Lewis {Text-Book of Mental Diseases, 1889, p. 350) indirectly confirms Dr. Oliver by the vivid picture which he presents of the various nervous symptoms which are found among the young girls (" white-lead ghosts " they are called in the neighbourhood) who work in lead manufactories. These include arrest of sexual development with perverted instincts and unnatural desires, hysteria, chorea, epileptiform seizures, cataleptic states, and actual insanity. If we are justified in concluding that women suffer earlier and more severely from lead-poisoning, we may perhaps connect this with the less metabolic activity of women. In lead-poisoning there is marked metabolic deficiency. If this ..is so, we should expect to find that women are more susceptible than men to all these slow poisons of which lead is the subtle and terrible type. But the evidence before us is not convincingly presented. (3.) Women, as well as children, it is generally admitted, are very sensitive to the influence of opium. "There can be little doubt," Fonssagrives states, "as to the extreme impressionability of women to opium, and most of the cases of toxic saturation following the use of opium are in women. 1 Lauder Brunton makes a similar statement. Opium acts chiefly on the nervous system, but more especially on the brain. Children possess a greater proportion of nervous tissue and brain than adults, greater cell activity, and a greater power of absorption.^ Therefore it is not surprising that children are susceptible to opium. The same is true of mammals generally. If poison is given to an adult rabbit and to a young rabbit, the poison in each case ^ Art. "Opium" in Diet. ency. des Sciences midicales. ^ The greater rapidity of absorption in children has been well shown by Yatsuty, who selected healthy male subjects from eight years old to eighty, and eKperimented with iodide of potassium and salicylate of soda. The dose was made to depend on the body-weight, and the urine was examined every three minutes. The general result was that the younger the subject the more rapid the absorption. Thus while the salicylate was absorbed in boys and young men in about fifteen minutes, in middle-aged men it required about twenty minutes, and in old men about twenty-five minutes. {Lancet, loth January 1891.) METABOLISM. 255 being proportionate to the animal's body-weight, the adult will be uninjured, the young one will succumb.^ Among female animals generally, Cornevin states, there is greater susceptibility to poison, more especi- ally nerve-poison, than among male animals; and in woman than in man. In cold-blooded animals like the frog, in which the cerebrum occupies a more sub- ordinate position in relation to the spinal cord, opium causes tetanic convulsions, as it sometimes does also in children. The best example of sexual selective action in the effect of a poison on the nervous system is, as already remarked, the case of alcohol. Alcoholism, generally is 'much more common in men than in womeii; according to Hermann's figures, the proportion is 2800 men to 400 women; that is to say, women furnish one-seventh of the cases. Notwithstanding this considerable proportion of women, the cases in which the brain is chiefly affected, and which result in the symptoms of delirium tremens, occur almost exclusively in men. Rayer (according to Lancereaux) found among 170 cases of delirium tremens only 7 women; in Italy Verga found that g per cent, of the cases were in women; at Copenhagen, Bang found only one woman in 456 cases; Hoegh-Guldberg, one woman in 173 cases; at the Charite in Berlin the proportion of cases in women is between 3 and 4 per cent.; in England Clifford Allbutt in 1882 had never seen delirium tremens in a woman. On the other hand, it is a familiar fact in England and France, and no doubt elsewhere also, that chronic alcoholism tending to affect the spinal cord and nerves, and to result in muscular paralysis, is found chiefly in women. Lancereaux, who has given special atten- tion to this matter, finds that the ratio is twelve women to only three men. Broadbent and Clifford Allbutt have made similar statements as regards England, and the fact may easily be confirmed in ^ Ch. Cornevin, Des Plantes Venineuses, Paris, 1887, pp. 27-29. 256 MAN AND WOMAN. any large hospital. It is worth mention in the same connection that Ball found that sexual excitement, as a complication of dipsomania, is more frequent in women than in men.^ This well-marked differential action of alcohol on the nervous centres in men and women is of some interest, and must be taken in connection with other facts referred to elsewhere. There is comparatively little opportunity of studying chronic alcoholism in children. Professor Demme of Berne has, how- ever, found it somewhat common among the poor in certain (|istricts, and has written a pamphlet on the infliience of alcohol ph children. I have not seeri this, but it appears that he finds that the main symptom of alcoholic poisoning in children is abnormal excitement, ending, in extreme cases, in convulsions, and followed by mental and bodily debility of the nature of paralysis {Lancet, 19th Sept. 1891, p. 691). There is here considerable resemblance to the symptoms of chronic alcoholic poisoning in women. It is also of some interest to observe that delirium tremens is an extremely rare result of alcoholism among lower races. Thus in American negroes (as Dr. Reyburn has shown from an analysis of over 400,000 negro patients treated by the Medical Department of the American Bureau of Refugees) delirium tremens is of very rare occurrence, alcohoHsm being much more apt to lead to epileptiform convul- sions or mania. HAIR AND PIGMENTATION. It is probable that the growth of the hair, its colouring, and that of the body generally, have an intimate connection with the metabolic activity of the organism. Among animals of all kinds hair, and more especially pigmentation, play a part of the first importance as secondary sexual characters. Among animals generally, in a very obvious manner, brilliant pigmentation and abundant hair predominate among the males. But in man pigmentation has become very rudimentary and comparatively stable, while sexual hair distribution has become fairly equalised. It is true that men have a growth of hair on the face, ' VEncephaU, 1882, No. 3, p. 446. METABOLISM. 257 but, on the other hand, women have a more vigorous growth of hair on their heads; even among races like the Singhalese, who preserve their hair long, that of the women is longer than that of the men, and, according to Pfaif and Waldeyer, the individual hairs are in Germany thicker in women than in men. Even among children (as Waldeyer points out) boys' hair, if left uncut, does not grow to the length of girls'.i Women do not tend to become bald either in Europe or among lower races like the Nicobarese, and do not suffer so often as men from alopecia areata. Again, while men in Europe on the average have a more extended growth of hair on the body generally, the more concentrated hair regions of women tend to be more vigorously developed ; thus on the pubes it is frequently greater in amount in women than in men, and the individual hairs in this region are also (as both Pfaff and Waldeyer have found) of greater size than those of men. The sexual differences are there- fore on the whole compensatory.^ It must be added, however, that a real sexual distinction, and one of some interest, lies in the greater persistence in women of the foetal lanugo or down. On their faces, necks, and bodies generally women retain this infantile characteristic of down to a much greater extent than men, and in some cases its presence is very marked. The presence of hair on the face in men is one of the most pronounced of all the secondary sexual characters. There is perhaps some interest in remarking that, probably as a result of this, the special prevalence of acne (or of pimples not amounting to acne) in young male adults has also been regarded as a secondary sexual character, since it is comparatively rare in 1 The average length of the hair in women is usually stated to be between 60 and 75 cm., but a considerably greater length is frequently attained ; thus in Munich Stratz found a lady, 164 cm. (about 5 ft. 4 in.) in height, whose hair was 155 cm. (5 ft. I in.) in length, and he has also met four other women with notably beautiful hair which varied between 120 and 153 cms. in length. ^ A fairly full discussion of the characteristics of the hair and its distribution will be found in Ploss and Bartels, Das Weib, 7th ed., pp. 28, 246-256. 17 258 MAN AND WOMAN. women. As Woods Hutchinson points out {Studies in Human and Comparative Pathology, p. 180), acne is a disease of the so- called sebaceous glands, which are immature or aborted hair follicles, and it is therefore impossible not to connect the occurrence of acne, which usually appears at adolescence, with the normal impulse to the growth of hair on the face at this time. There is, however, one question which, as we shall see, has a certain definite significance, and to which it seems pos.sible to give a guarded answer: Are women darker than men ? There is no doubt that children have fairer hair and fairer skins than adults in very various parts of the world, such as South America, Japan, New Guinea.^ Among many different races, also, travellers have recorded that the women are fairer than the men; Balz says that the Japanese women have a somewhat lighter-coloured skin than the men; D'Albertis found that Papuan women in New Guinea are always lighter-coloured than the men; the Ainu women are also said to be fairer than the men, while among the Veddahs (as Deschamps noted) the women are not fairer than the men, though the children are fair. Among the Fuegians Hyades and Deniker remark that the skin colour is lighter in women than in men, but before puberty darker in the girls. Among many African peoples the women are less black, though both sexes alike are exposed to the sun, and Man- tegazza made the same observation regarding the Todas in India. But among a large number of Jews and Jewesses in America Fishberg found the women much darker, 74 per cent, of Jewesses having dark skin, and only 23 per cent. Jews.^ The determination of sexual difference in skin-colour is not very satis- factory, nor can we always be sure that both sexes receive the same amount of exposure to the sun. It is of more interest to investigate the colour of ' See, for instance, Fritsch, " Eermeikungen zur anthropologischen Haaruntersuchung," Zeiischrift fiir Ethnologie, 1888, heft iii. p. iqo. '■^ Am. Anthropologist , 1903, p. 92. METABOLISM. ^59 the hair and eyes. Alphonse de Candolle stated some years ago as a general proposition that the women in a population have a larger proportion of brown eyes than the men, but without bringing forward any definite evidence on the point.^ In recent years, however, various investigators have occupied themselves with this matter. The question has been fully studied in England, and especially by Dr. Beddoe, who is unquestionably the chief authority on the matter. So far as the evidence goes, it appears that among children (in industrial and work- house schools), girls with light eyes and light hair (and also girls with light eyes and red hair) are much commoner than boys; this applies to nearly all ages between six and fifteen. Boys having dark eyes and dark hair are on the whole commoner than girls.^ The darkening of the hair has been found by Dr. Beddoe to take place in men most markedly between the ages of twenty to twenty-three; but in women it takes place somewhat earlier." This accords with what we already know as to the greater precocity of women. It is possible that the pig- mentary process being earlier established in women, becomes in them more intense. I am indebted to Dr. Beddoe for a series of figures showing the sexual differences in various parts of Great Britain; in his Races of Britain they are given without regard to sex. Dr. Beddoe recognises the fallacies that may arise from differences in the mode of dressing the hair and from cosmetics, and also by a possible difference in the mean ages of the men and women. Moreover, more young women than young men are met in the streets in most English towns, and Dr. Beddoe thinks that the women may come out with too low a pro- portion of dark hair on this account, though it seems to me that this fallacy may be counterbalanced by 1 Rev. iTAnth., 1887, p. 265. ^ Report 0/ Anthropometric Committee of British Association, 18S3. * Report of Anthropometric Committee of Brit. Ass., 1880. 26o MAN AND WOMAN, the later darkening of hair in the men, which would lead young men to be counted as somewhat fairer than if they had reached that pigmentary maturity which has been reached by young women of the same age. From an examination of Dr. Beddoe's table it appears that women have darker hair than men in Comrie (Perthshire), Thirsk, Boston, Leicester, Wor- cester, Norwich, and Southampton, while men have darker hair in Forteviot (Perthshire), Stoke-on-Trent, Shrewsbury, Hereford, and North Wales. It can scarcely be said that this particular list strongly supports Dr. Beddoe's opinion as to the prevalence of dark pigment among women. The evidence fur- nished by the eyes is clearer. Dark eyes were almost constantly more numerous in women than in men, this being found at Forteviot, Comrie, Thirsk, Boston, Leicester, Shrewsbury, Hereford, Worcester, London, Southampton, and North Wales; only Ipswich showed men to possess darker eyes, while Stoke-on-Trent and Norwich showed the sexes to be equal. Dr. Beddoe regards these results as fairly representing the facts as they would emerge from a more extensive inves- tigation of his materials, and it certainly fully illus- trates his general conclusion : " I have usually found a decidedly larger proportion of dark eyes among the women, but not so often of dark hair." I gather that he regards brown hair and brown eyes as chiefly common among women, black hair and grey eyes as more prevalent among men. An independent investigation of the members of the British Associa- tion during the Bath meeting, at a laboratory estab- lished for the occasion, entirely confirmed Dr. Beddoe's results as regards eye-colour; while the eyes of medium colour were about equal in the sexes, 44.6 per cent, of the men possessed light eyes, against only 34.2 per cent, of the women, while 20.7 per cent, of the women possessed dark eyes, against only 12.3 per cent, of the men. At the Newcastle meeting it was found that a larger percentage of the men had METABOLISM. 261 light hair and light eyes, a slightly larger percentage of the men showed light eyes and dark hair, and a considerably larger percentage of the women possessed dark eyes and dark hair ; this result in a part of the country of very different ethnological character from Bath (and 50 per cent, of those examined at New- castle were natives of Newcastle) also confirms Dr. Beddoe's results. Still more recently. Professor Haddon and Dr. Browne have investigated the hair and eyes of over 400 inhabitants of the Aran Islands, on the west coast of Ireland. They adopted Beddoe's methods, and independently confirm his results as to sexual differences. Both dark eyes and dark hair were found more prevalent among females than among males, the results being more symmetrical as regards the eyes than as regards the hair.^ In a private letter Dr. Beddoe makes some interesting remarks on sexual differences in pigmentation, and raises the question as to their causes: "It is especially on the Welsh border \t.e., for example, Hereford and Shrewsbury] that the men come out with darker hair. Th^t may have been due to the presence of more Welsh-bred men than women. I think the excess of dark women is most marked in the most purely Anglian (or, say, Teutonic) districts, such as Boston. Do the women still repeat the colours of their ancestresses, the British women who espoused the Saxon invaders? Possibly; no doubt there was intermarriage of that sort, though as the Saxons brought their cows over, I don't doubt that they brought a good many women too. Do the women deposit more pigment in their irides and hair because they have no beards wherein to expend it ?" The latter supposition may seem to find support in the fact that the darkening in women occurs at about the time at which the beard begins to grow in men; but we must remember that in amount of hair there does not seem any marked sexual inequality on the whole. The most elaborate recent investigation in Great Britain is that of Gray and Tocher in East 1 See the carefully detailed statistics, A. C. Haddon and C. R. Browne, "Ethnography of the Aran Islands," Proceedings Royal Irish Academy, 1893, pp. 782-786. In a later investigation in Galway (?i., 1899, p. 228) IBrowne found the index of nigrescence higher in girls than in boys, and much higher in women than in men. 262 MAN AND WOMAN. Aberdeenshire. These observers noted the eye and hair colour of over 14,000 children, and found that in percentage of dark hair the sexes were about equal, while as regards eye-colour the girls show a small (3 per cent.) excess of dark eyes. Among several thousand adults, however, the greater dark- ness of the women was clearly marked; the women had II per cent, more dark hair than the men, and i6| per cent, more dark eyes.^ In Germany this question has been most fully studied by the late Professor Pfitzner. At the Anatomical Institute at Strassburg, Pfitzner found that fair men are always in excess of fair women. Taking over 500 subjects, his percentages were as follow: — ^ Male. Female. Age. Fair. Dark. Fiiir. Dark. I-IO 11-20 Above 20 86.0 48.5 30-9 69.1 63-4 36.4 22.6 366 64.6 77-4 These figures show a very marked and constant sexual difference at all ages. Pfitzner endeavoured to find an explanation in the possibility of the sexes reaching the Institute in different racial mixtures. This is not impossible, but, as was pointed out in the first edition of the present book, this sexual difference is international, and has been observed among the living as well as among the dead. The same differences exist in Denmark. In that country Professor Waldemar Schmidt (as Dr. Beddoe kindly informs me) found more fair-haired and fewer dark- ' J. Gray and J. F. Tocher, "Physical Characteristics of Adults and School Children in East Aberdeenshire," yo«n Anth. /«j^., January- June, 1900. Karl Pearson and Alice Lee confirm the conclusion that the eyes of women are darker than those of men, Proc. Roy. Soc, vol. Ixvi., 1900, p. 324. Cf. K. Pearson, Phil. Trans., 1901, vol. 19s A, p. 108. '' Schwalbe's Morphohgische Aibe'.ten, Bd. ii., 1892. METABOLISM. 263 haired among the men than among the women, red hair being about equal, or rather less in the men. The eyes also in men are far more often light; there are fewer of medium colour, and immensely fewer are dark. The great majority of the men have light eyes and medium hair, while among the women fair, medium, and dark hair are about equally common, and about one-half have medium hair, and one-third dark hair. In consequence of this criticism Pfitzner took up the matter again and investigated it in a very exhaustive manner, eliminating so far as possible all fallacies, on the wider basis of over 2000 subjects of all ages. The result proved that among the native population of Lower Alsace females really are at all ages dis- tinctly darker than males, both as regards eye-colour and hair-colour. Dark eyes were found to be 6 to 7 per cent, more numerous in the females; or, according to his final results, there are 7 per cent, more fair -haired individuals among males than among females, and 3 per cent, more brown-eyed individuals among females. This greater pigmenta- tion of the female sex Pfitzner regarded as a specific sexual character.^ Elkind examined men and women working in the factories of Warsaw, all being Poles belonging to the city, and found three types — a fair, a dark, and a mixed; only 17 per cent, of the men belonged to the dark type, but 25 per cent, of the women ; this greater prevalence of the dark type among the women was at the expense of the mixed, the fair being equal. All authorities agree that Jewesses are darker-eyed than Jews, and most find them also darker-haired, but not Elkind and Fishberg.^ Among ' W. Pfitzner, " Ein Beitrag ziir Kenntriss der sekundaren Ges- chlechtsunterschiedebeim Menschen," Morfhologische Arbeiten, Bd. vii., heft 2, 1897; if>-> ^'- /• Morph., Bd. iii., heft 3, 1901. Among school children in Upper Bavaria, Daffnei {IVac/is^um i/es Menschen, p. 126) found the girls somewhat fair, but he only examined 300. 2 Am. Anlhropologist, 1903, p. 95. 264 MAN AND WOMAN. a large number of Bulgarian school children, both in Bulgaria and in Turkey, between the ages of six and twenty, Wateff has found that the dark type prevails among the girls to a slightly greater extent than among the boys, the blond type being equal in both, so that, as in Poland, there was a deficiency of the mixed type- among the girls. Considering eyes and hair separately the girls had more dark eyes, but the boys more light hair.^ We thus see that, though among children this distinction is less marked, or non-existent, women have darker hair than men, and decidedly darker eyes. We seem to be justified in concluding that this holds generally good for the fairer races of Northern Europe.^ Among the extra-European and darker races, observations ha\e been made on a smaller scale, and do not always point in the same direction. Chantre found the women darker among the Armenians to a very decided extent ; there were 5 1 per cent, dark-haired men to 71 per cent, dark-haired women, and 51 per cent, dark-eyed men to 77 per cent, dark-eyed women (dark- ness of the eyes being thus, as usually in Europe, even more marked in women than darkness of the hair) ; as regards the light-haired, there were 12 per cent, men against 3 per cent, women, and as regards light-eyed 1 3 per cent, men and no women. Among Tartars he found 63 per cent, dark-haired men to 78 per cent, dark-haired women, and 56 per cent, dark-eyed men to 72 per cent, dark-eyed women. Among the Kurds the sexes were equal as regards dark hair, but as regards dark eyes there were 66 per cent, men to 80 per cent, women. (E. Chantre, " Mission Scientifique en Arm^nie Russe," Nouv. Arch, des Miss. Set., vol. iii., 1892.) Among' the Lapps Mantegazza and Sommier found that about 50 per cent, of the women, and only about 30 per cent, of the men, had brown eyes, but there was no similar preponderance of dark hair among the women. Among the Japanese (according to Collignon) sexual differences in the colour of the hair and eyes are slight, the women being a little less dark. Among the Fuegians, according to Hyades and Deniker, there is a larger proportion of dark eyes among the men, but the hair is exclusively dark among the women, and only predominantly dark among the men. ' S. Wateff, Corresp.-Blatt. deutsch. Gesell. Atith., March 1902. ^ Cf. Ripley, The Races of Europe, pp. 322, 357, etc. 265 CHAPTER X. THE VISCERA. THE PSYCHOLOGICAL SIGNIFICANCE OF THE VISCERA — THE THYROID GLAND — ITS PHYSIOLOGICAL AND PATHO- LOGICAL VARIATIONS IN WOMEN EXOPHTHALMIC GOITRE AND ITS ANALOGY TO THE STATE OF TERROR THE LARYNX AND THE VOICE CHANGES AT PUBERTY RELATION OF THE VOICE TO THE SEXUAL ORGANS — THE THORACIC VISCERA — HEART — LUNGS — THE ABDOMINAL VISCERA — STOMACH DIGESTION LIVER SPLEEN — KIDNEYS BLADDER THE VISCERA A FACTOR IN THE PRODUCTION OF EMOTIONAL STATES. There can be no doubt that the consideration of the internal organs of the body, their varieties according to age, sex and race, and the changes they undergo under varying conditions, constitutes a study of great importance. But it has scarcely yet been undertaken in any serious or comprehensive manner. It is not yet generally recognised that just as anthropology is founded on anatomy, so psychology is founded on physiology. When we say that the suprarenal capsule is a ganglionic body moulded on to the top of the kidney, we assert an anatomical fact ; when we go on to say that the suprarenal capsule is larger in women than in men and very large in Negroes, we assert an anthropological fact. In the same way, when we accurately estimate or graphically represent the ordinary action of the heart or the pulse, we are well within the region of physiology. But when we begin to make the same observations on the heart 266 MAN AND WOMAN. and pulse under varying conditions of the individual organism, we are not far from the region of psycho- logy. Thus the elaborate physiological studies of Mosso on the vascular system have a very intimate connection with psychology. No one now can be a competent psychologist who is not something of a physiologist, just as no one can be a competent physiologist who is not something of a chemist and a physicist. The physiology of the senses leads us to the psychology of intellect, and the physiology of the viscera leads us to the psychology of emotion. If we possessed, for instance, a thorough physiological knowledge of the thyroid gland, we should probably know more of the nature of emotion than all mere introspection, or mere general picturesque descrip- tion, has ever taught us. The Thyroid Gland. — This interesting gland of the neck is intimately connected with the metabolism of the blood and the functioning of the nervous system. It is associated to a remarkable extent with the sexual system. 1 It is generally agreed that as a rule the gland is absolutely larger in women than in men, and that relatively it is very large in childhood. While in the new-born child its proportion to the weight of the body is as i to 400, or even to 420, in the adult it is only I to 1800 (Huschke and Krause). In old age the thyroid is very considerably diminished in size, and, as Kocher and others have shown, while total extirpation of the thyroid in old age is not likely to be followed by serious results, before the age of puberty it will almost certainly be followed by serious injury to health. ^ See Sir Victor Horsley, "The Function of tlie Tliyroid Gland," in the Virchow Festschrift and in the Brit. Med. Journal, 30th Jan. and 6th Feb. 1892 ; Rosario Traina, " Ricerche sperimentali sul sistema nervoso degli animali tireoprivi," 11 Policlinico, Oct. 1898; G. R. Murray, "Goulstonian Lectures on the Pathology of the Thyroid Gland," Brit. Med. Jour., nth and l8th March 1899. The literature of this subject is now very extensive. THE VISCERA. ■ 267 The thyroid gland follows closely all the variations in a woman's organism. To so marked an extent is this the case that Meckel long ago remarked that the thyroid is a repetition of the uterus in the neck. The fact that the neck swells in women in harmony with the sexual organs seems to have been an observation made in very early times. The thyroid swells at the first menstruation, and not uncommonly it increases to some extent at every menstruation; at its final suppression also the thyroid may swell, while Simpson, Engelmann, and other gynaecologists have observed enlargement of the thyroid as an accom- paniment of uterine disorder. In the dog, cat, sheep, goat, and deer it has also been observed that the thyroid enlarges during rut. Catullus refers to the influence of the first sexual intercourse in causing swelling of the neck, and it is a very ancient custom to measure the necks of newly-married women in order to ascertain their virginity. This custom has not yet quite died out in the south of France. Heidenreich found that a similar swelling occurs in men at the commencement of sexual relations. Democritus refers to the swelling of the neck during pregnancy, and in recent days Tarnier, Lawson Tait, and others have confirmed this ancient observation. Freund finds that congestion of the thyroid is almost constant during pregnancy (in 45 out of 50 cases), and further, that it increases in volume at the birth of the child, and sometimes also continues in this condition during lactation.^ In rare cases there is visible and obvious swelling of the thyroid in associa- tion with emotional states, even in men. Nearly all the diseases of the thyroid gland are more frequent in women than in men. Goitre — or simple enlargement of the gland — is decidedly more common in women ; the proportion varies in diiferent localities from one man to two women to one man to 1 Hermann Freund, Deutsche Zeitschrift fur Chirtirgie, Bd. xxxi., p. 446. 268 MAN AND WOMAN. fifteen women.i Cretinism — or idiocy resulting from disease of the thyroid gland — appears to be usually rather more common in males, but it is stated that in this country sporadic cretinism is more common in females. Myxoedema — a closely-allied physical and mental disorder dependent on degenerative disease of the thyroid — is chiefly found in middle- aged women. Exophthalmic goitre (Graves' disease or Basedow's disease) is a somewhat more compli- cated disorder, and has been termed a neurosis of the emotional nervous system (Burney Yeo). But goitre is usually a characteristic feature, and this disease is possibly a primary affection of the thyroid gland.^ Its symptoms present a picture which is the reverse of that presented in myxoedema, and are probably due to excess of thyroid secretion, as myxcedema un- doubtedly is to defect of thyroid secretion. All authorities are agreed that it is more common in women than in men; the proportions given differ from one to two to one to eight, some finding it almost exclusively in women. The appearance of the patient suffering from this disease — the staring protruded eyes, the breathlessness and rapid heart, etc. — suggests a person suffering from terror, and it is remark- able that fright has often formed the starting-point of the disease; a number of cases, for example, occurred in Alsace and Lorraine after the Franco-German war. Dr. H. W. G. Mackenzie, who has made a careful study of this disease ^ This prevalence of goitre among women is not merely found in the Pennine valleys in En,.',land and in the other parts of Europe where it is endemic, but, it would seem, in nearly all parts of the world where the disease is found. Thus Munson, who made a collective investiga- tion concerning goitre among American Indians, found that fully 80 per cent, of the cases occurred in females, the disease tending to appear at puberty ; when found in men it was a much less serious disease. From Kafiristan, to the north of India, the same report is made. " Goitre is a common disease," Sir G. S. Robertson writes in Ths Kafirs of the Hindu-Kush, " but is almost exclusively confined to women ; Bashgul men and women live under the same conditions of life, drink from the same streams, and eat more or less the same kind of food;" yet the women alone are affected. ^ See Professor Greenfield'sBradshaw Lecture on the Thyroid Gland, £nt. Med. Journal, Dec. g, 1893. THE VISCERA. 269 ("Clinical Lectures on Graves' Disease," Lancet, Sept. i8go), has some very interesting and suggestive remarks on the re- semblance between exophthalmic goitre and terror which may here be quoted : — " Fright, intense grief, and other profound emotional dis- turbance have been recognised as causes of the pathological condition, but I do not think that sufficient attention has been paid to the very close connection between the chronic symptoms of Graves' disease and the more immediate effects of terror. The descriptions given by Darwin and Sir Charles Bell of the condition of man in intense fear might almost have been written in regard to one of the patients we have been considering. The heart beats quickly and violently, so that it palpitates or knocks against the ribs. There is trembling of all the muscles of the body. The eyes start forward, and the uncovered and protrud- ing eyeballs are fi-^ed on the object of terror. The surface breaks out into a cold clammy sweat. The intestines are affected. The skin is flushed over the face and neck down to the clavicles. The hair stands erect. ' Of all emotions fear notoriously is the most apt to induce trembling.' The symptoms of terror are common to man and the lower animals. There are one or two of the minor symptoms of Graves' disease whose independent occurrence under the influence of emotions is well known. These are pigmentary changes in the skin and hair, falling out of the hair, and epistaxis. " Such being the condition resulting from severe terror, we have only to imagine the condition to become prolonged by a failure of the nervous system to recover its balance and to right itself, and we have a more or less complete clinical picture of Graves' disease. We have all the well-known symptoms — trembling, palpitation, flushing, sweating, exophthalmos, relaxa- tion of the bowels. There is no information that I know of in regard to the enlargement of the thyroid gland under the influ- ence of profound emotional disturbance. All one can say on that point is that the enlargement which takes place in those cases where the symptoms develop rapidly after such disturb- ance makes it probable that this is actually the case. If this be so, we have had associated with one another, probably as long as the human race and its ancestors have existed, the symptoms which we find in Graves' disease. The existence of a certain abnormal condition of the nervous system having been once established, we know how in time it becomes dissociated from its exciting cause, rises to independence as a disease in its own right, and may require only a minimal incitement to set it off. In many cases the disease is started anew by severe mental shock; probably in a good many more it is the expression of the unconscious memory of the individual of some such shock in an ancestor. 270 MAN AND WOMAN. "Such is what I would suggest to you as the origin and development of this very curious disease. It is likely that the alteration of the function of the thyroid body, whose importance in connection with nutrition and the transmission of nerve-force has been amply demonstrated, has a good deal to do with many of the secondary symptoms to which I have called attention, but the real disease is a widely distributed derangement of the emotional nervous system." The Larynx and the Voice. — Something may here be said of the functions of the larynx, an organ in close proximity to the thyroid, although perfectly distinct. In the lower human races generally the larynx is comparatively undeveloped, and the voice is usually inclined to be high and shrill. It is in Europe that both larynx and voice are most highly developed; all great singers are of European race, and the Euro- pean voice is the most sonorous; the Tartars are, however, said to possess the loudest and most power- ful voices, the Germans coming next.'^ On the whole, it may probably be said with truth that the tendency of evolution is in the direction of the enlargement of the larynx and of the deepening of the voice.^ Up to puberty the sexual diiferences in the larynx and in the voice are not marked, but at this epoch they become considerable. The boy's larynx en- larges to a greater degree than the girl's, while his voice " breaks " and becomes deeper. The woman's larynx and voice retain more nearly the characteristics of the child's. While the growth of the male glottis at puberty is as 5 to 10, that of the female glottis is only as 5 to 7 (C. Langer). In castrated persons, however, the larynx remains puerile, although perhaps slightly larger than in women. The old ' Sir Duncan Gibb, " The Character of the Voice in the Nations of Asia and Africa, contrasted with that of the Nations of Europe," Mem. Anthrop. Soc, vol. iii., 1870, p. 244. '^ This is the conclusion reached by Gaetan Delauiiay in an interest- ing and ingenious discussion of this point in his Etudes de Biologie ComparSe, ze Partie, pp. 97-110. THE VISCERA. 271 Italian custom of castrating boys to preserve their youthful singing voices bears witness to the close connection between the voice and the organs of sex. Delaunay remarks that while a bass need not fear any kind of sexual or other excess so far as his voice is concerned, a tenor must be extremely careful and temperate. Among prostitutes, it may be added, the evo- lution of the voice and of the larynx tends to take a masculine direction. This fact, which is fairly obvious, has been accurately investigated at Genoa by Professor Masini, who find that among 50 prostitutes zg showed in a high degree the deep masculine voice, while the larynx was large and the vocal cords resembled those of man ; only 6 out of the 50 showed a normal larynx; while of 20 presumably honest women only 2 showed the ample masculine larynx. {Archivio di Psichiatria, vol. xiv., Fasc. 1-2, p. 145.) The position of the larynx in adult normal women A. HORIZONTAL SKCTION OF MALE GLOTTIS. Ji. FEMALE GLOTTIS. {Langer.) is somewhat higher in the neck than in men; in this, as well as in the character of the larynx generally, women approach children. In nearly every dimen- sion man's larynx is larger, the entire male larynx being about one-third larger than the female. But while in the transverse diameter there is compara- tively little sexual difference, in the antero-posterior diameter there is great difference. The vocal cords are considerably longer in men.i ^ A detailed account of the anatomical differences in the larynx will be found in the Art. "Larynx" by Beclard, Dut. ency. des Sci. Med., pp. 554-565; see also Professor K. Taguchi (of Tokio), " Beitrage zur 272 MAN AND WOMAN. The difference in- voice is one of the most obvious of the human secondary sexual characters. The higher and shriller voice of woman, Delaunay re- marks, seems to have determined the nature of the grammatical feminine endings of words, and the sharper quality of the feminine endings may be well studied in the French language. This sexual vocal difference is by no means peculiar to Man: in most animals the female has a shriller and weaker voice than the male, as the hen, bitch, and mare, for example; and Buffon observed that the she-ass has a clearer and more piercing voice than the male. Darwin, discussing the loud voices of male animals at the breeding season, came to the conclusion that the most probable view is that " the frequent use of the voice, under the strong excitement of love, jealousy, and rage, continued during many generations, may at last have produced an inherited effect on the vocal organs."^ It is scarcely possible yet to speak more definitely as to the cause of this secondary sexual character, or its utility. That the deeper voice of a man, and the gentler but higher-pitched voice in woman, have their effect in heightening the pleasure of the sexes in each other's person is a well recognis- able fact. Among the lower animals it is nearly always the males that are most vocal. This is not the case in the human species. Women are both readier and more accomplished than men in the use of the voice. Thus Monroe found in America that at all ages girls surpass boys in ability to sing the scale, and also, though to a less degree, in memory for tones. ^ The Thoracic Viscera. — The heart at an early age topographischen Anatomic des Kehlkopfs," Archivfiir Anat. u. Phys., 1889, heft, v.-vi. The accompanying diagram shows roughly the main difference between the typical male larynx and the typical female larynx. 1 Descent of Man, Part II., Chap, xviii. This conclusion is not universally accepted. 2 \V. Monroe, Psych. Rev., March 1903, p. 155. THE VISCERA. 273 is as large in the female as in the male, or even larger. According to Boyd's tables, it is still abso- lutely larger in girls between the ages of fourteen and twenty, but from that age on it keeps about two ounces smaller; the maximum weight is only attained at a mature age. In Russia Falk found the heart larger in boys up to twelve years, and from then to fifteen larger in girls. According to F. W. Beneke, the child has a relatively large arterial system, but at puberty this relation is changed ; " the larger the heart relatively to the vessels the higher the blood pressure, and the earlier this becomes the case the earlier, stronger, and more complete is the development of puberty." ^ According to Vierordt's tables, the male heart from birth on- wards increases its original weight fully thirteen times, the female heart less than twelve times. Hypertrophy of the heart is about twice as common in men as in women, while atrophy is somewhat more frequent in women. The right lung, according to Boyd, is absolutely larger in the female child at birth, but between the ages of twenty and thirty the male lung has become by as much as a third of its weight heavier than the female.^ It is not easy to ascertain the normal weights of the lungs and heart, as these are so frequently in- creased or diminished through disease. It seems probable, however, that there is a tendency in early life for the heart and lungs in the female child to develop faster than in the male. If so, it may be another case of precocity resulting in diminished final attainment, for there is reason to think that in women these organs are relatively somewhat smaller than in men. This result is in harmony with what ' F. W. Beneke, Die anal. Gitcndlageii der Constitutionsanoma.'ien des Menschen, Marburg, 1 878. ^ Boyd's "Table of Weights of the Human Body and Internal Organs," founded on the results of 2600 post-mortems, Philosophical Transaclions, 1861. 274 MAN AND WOMAN. we know of the size of the thorax in women, and of their marked inferiority in vital capacity and in muscular efforts. The Ahdominil Viscera. — The stomach appears to be relatively larger in women than in men. Thus, according to Boyd's tables, it is the same size in both sexes at birth; between the ages of 14 and 20 it is still of equal size in both sexes, or indeed somewhat heavier in girls, although the tota average weight of the boys is five pounds more than of the girls. At the age of 20 to 30 it is still nearly the same size in men and women, although the preponderance of men in total weight has by this time become much greater. It is stated by Burdach and other old writers that the intestinal canal is longer in women than in men. Women are said by Burdach and others to digest more rapidly than men. Delaunay found on making inquiries from the matrons of orphan asylums that little girls become hungry much oTtener than little boys, and he also found that in almshouses for the aged where there are three regulation meals a day, the old women often put aside a portion of their meals to eat during the interval. The need for food at frequent intervals is common among the young. At the same time women eat less than men. In prisons and hospitals, according to Burdach, women take nearly one-fifth less food than men. A London vegetarian restaurant-keeper said that the average price a man pays for a vegetarian, dinner is tenpence, while the women only average sixpence. It would probably be easy to add proofs of the small appetite of women, but it must be added that when women work, are under good conditions, and not forced to economise, the sexual difference is by no means marked. ■ It has often been said that gluttony is more common in women than in men. Delaunay, who has a curious discussion on the frequency of gluttony in various classes of the com,- munity,^ came to this conclusion as the unanimous result of his inquiries; he found it Was most marked during menstruation and pregnancy. Brillat Savarin thought that women are in- clined to he ^^ourmandes, the reason being that they know it is ' Eludes de Biol. Coinfi., " Physiologie,'' pp. 16-25. THE VISCERA. 275 favourable to beauty. I should be inclined to say that womep are friandes rather than gourmandes, loving special foods, chiefly sweets, sometimes acids; such a conclusion is quite in accordance with the facts given by Delaunay. And it may be added that if women were as much addicted as men are to the use of tobacco their friandise would probably no longer be observable. The taste for tobacco and the taste for sweets seem usually to be mutually exclusive. The liver is relatively very large at birth, and according to Vierordt it is proportionately somewhat larger in women.i Boyd's figures tend on the whole to show the same result. According to Gegenbaur, however, the liver represents 28 per cent, of the weight of the body in men, and only 26 per cent, in women. Wiesener's figures show that it varies very greatly through life, and at birth is larger in the female. On the whole, it is difficult to speak definitely regarding so variable an organ, but it seems probable that if there is any sexual difference at all it is in favour of women. The spleen, according to Boyd's tables, is, on the average, absolutely larger in the female, if prematurely stillborn, if stillborn at full time, or if born alive. Up to three months it is the same size in both sexes, and after that it is of about equal size in both sexes pro- portionately to body-weight. The maximum weight of the spleen in proportion to the body, according to Gaston and Vallee, who have specially studied the organ, it may be mentioned, is attained at the age of eight ; - it is therefore essentially an organ of child- hood. Blosfeld of Kasan and Gocke of Munich have both found the spleen (according to Vierordt) abso- lutely larger in women by about 12 grs. ; Vierordt himself does not find much sexual difference. The kidneys in infancy are relatively very large. In early life, according to Boyd's tables, they are in absolute figures slightly smaller in the female, the ^ H. Vierordt, "Das Massenvvachsthum der Korperorgane dcs Menschen," Arch. f. Anat. u. Phys., 1890. 2 Revue Mensuelieaes Maladies a'e CEnfaiice, September 1892. 2/6 MAN AND WOMAN. difference increasing in the adult. Sappey has found the average length, breadth, and thickness equal in the sexes, and therefore relatively greater in women. While the absolute weight is somewhat less in women, proportionately to body-weight there seems to be little sexual difference. The bladder is relatively small in infancy, and its shape is at this time inclined to be fusiform ; in men it is ovoid, and in women ellipsoid, or rounder. It is also relatively larger in women, with a tendency to lateral expansion, and more dilatable; the majority of cases of enormous distension of the bladder have been found in women. It may perhaps be said, therefore, that the bladder is more highly evolved in women than in men. There has been considerable controversy as to the relative size of the male and female bladders. Cruveilhier stated that it is larger in women. Sappey, as well as Hoffmann, on the other hand, claim a vesical predominance for men, and con- clude that when in women the viscus is large it is simply due to unnatural habits of distension, the result of social causes. Charpy, who attributed much importance to sexual differences of size in the bladder, found that it was anatomically smaller in women, but of greater physiological capacity. Heitzmann and Winckel (who has made a special study of the female bladder) find it larger in women. Hart and Barbour find that, relatively to body-weight, it is more capacious in women. This result is doubtless correct. The question of the dilatability of the bladder has been carefully studied by Genouville ("Etude Comparative des Organes de Miction dans les deux Sexes," Archives de Tocologie et de Gynecologic, Mai 1893). This investigator, examining the bodies of 25 men and 25 women after death, found that on an average Male bladder without pressure contained 88 gr. Female ,, „ „ 58 gr. Male bladder with „ ,, 238 gr. Female „ „ ,, 337 gr. So that while without pressure the female bladder only contains about two-thirds of the amount contained in the male, with pressure the proportion is almost reversed; the male,, bladder THE VISCERA. 277 with a pressure of om. 20 height of water contained nearly three times what it contained before, the female bladder nearly six times what it contained before. (It must be remembered that the results without pressure do not correspond to what is normally found during life, the pressure of the muscular tonicity of the sphincter in life, as Hache has pointed out, making a greater difference between the dead and living bladder in women than in men.) Duchastelet in the living subject also found that the tolerance of the female bladder on injecting water is much greater than of the male. And Duchastelet also found, like Mosso and Pellacani, that the desire to urinate always makes itself felt at the same pressure; the threshold of desire is not determined by the amount of urine, but by the energy with which the bladder walls contract on that amount, and this threshold is constant in any one individual. Genouvill.e con- siders that habit may possibly have something to do with the greater dilatability of the bladder in women, but that it is certain that the female bladder is predisposed to this, and possesses a native dilatability. It is less heavy and muscul.ir than that of men. The child's is even less dilatable than that of men. The anatomical capacity of the bladder {i.e., after death), Genouville concludes with Charpy, is greater in men; the physiological capacity is greater in women. On the whole, this glance at the viscera seems to show that the thoracic organs somewhat predominate in men and the abdominal in women. Our know- ledge is imperfect and the fallacies are so considerable that we can scarcely hope to attain very accurate information. Such results as we see, however, are in harmony with what we have already found as to the sexual differences in the thoracic and abdominal cavities. They are in harmony, also, with the opinions of the older writers, who attributed abdominal pre- dominance to women. The muscular energy which is so marked a characteristic of men depends largely on the strength of the heart and lungs. It is not possible to say much at present of the viscera as organs of emotion, although there is reason to believe that the organic basis of emotion is largely to be traced here. A very ancient and widespread psychology has placed the seat of the manly virtues of courage and endurance in the breast, and the 278 MAN AND WOMAN. womanly virtues of love and pity in the belly. Coeur- de-lion is emphatically a' manly title of honour; the liver was formerly regarded as the organ of love, and, the Hebrew and other races, even as far off as the Pacific, have found the seat of compassion in their bowels. 279 CHAPTER XI. THE FUNCTIONAL PERIODICITY OF WO|HEN. THE PHENOMENA OF MENSTRUATION — ORIGIN — THE THEORY THAT WOMEN ARE NATURAL INVALIDS — THE CYCLIC LIFE OF WOMEN — ITS RECENT DISCOVERY ILLUS- TRATED BY THE OBSERVATION OF VARIOUS FUNCTIONS THE HEART, THE EYE, ETC. — THE SPECIAL PHYSICAL AND PSYCHIC PHENOMENA OF THE MONTHLY CLIMAX THESE ARE INTENSIFIED IN ILL HEALTH THE LEGAL, SCIENTIFIC, AND SOCIAL IMP0RT.4.NCE OF women's PERIODICITY OF FUNCTION. The fact that from the evolution of puberty onwards during the years of sexual life, with periods of inter- mission caused by impregnation, women are subjected to a monthly loss of blood has incidentally come before us several times. The amount of blood lost every lunar month may be said to be between loo and 200 grammes; the period of flow lasts from three to five days, and on an average recurs on every twenty-eighth day;^ and the age at which it first appears is usually between fourteen and sixteen, though it may be earlier or later. The tables. of Guy and Tilt indicate that for London the average age of first menstruation is 15; Whitehead at Man- chester found it a few months later. It is possible that climate, ' Osterloh in Dresden (quoted by Niicke, Archiv f. Psych., 1896, heft l) found that among 3000 women in good general and sexual health, the regular period of four weeks occurred in 68 per cent.; in 2000 cases the flow lasted from one to five days. 28o MAN AND WOMAN. race, habits of life, social position, the influence of towns, as well as constitution and health, may all have an influence in modifying the age. For a summary of the facts bearing on these influences see Ploss, Das Weib, 7th ed., 1901, vol. i. pp. 362-381. So far as the North American Continent is concerned, the question has lately been very thoroughly investigated by an eminent gynsecologist, Dr. G. J. Engelmann, who has suc- ceeded in accumulating a vast amount of data. He finds that while the average age of first menstruation in Europe is 15.5, in the American Continent it is 14, with a range from 13.5 in the case of girls of refinement and education, to 14.5 in the case of American-born labouring-class girls of Irish and German parentage. Engelmann considered that in America climate has had practically no influence, race very little, mentality, surround- ings, education, and nerve stimulation being the main factors of American precocity. It is curious that in this respect the American girl resembles the American Indian who matures at an earlier age than the girls of any other land in the temperate zone. (G. J. Engelmann, "The Age of First Menstruation," Trans. Am. Gynecological Soc, 1901.) This periodic flux exists in all races, and some traces of it may be found among the higher mam- mals, such as the mare and cow, as Aristotle remarked; it is found also in the bitch; and among monkeys and apes in their wild condition there is a well-marked menstrual discharge. In the higher apes, when they do not suffer from captivity, the flow is said to be sometimes quite as copious as in women; some monkeys become swollen and brilliantly pigmented, so that tomato-like, vermilion- tiiited masses render their condition conspicuous.^ On the whole, however, it may be said that menstrua- tion in its fully-developed form is a human character. ' Some of these facts were ascertained by the late Dr. Wiltshire; see his valuable lectures on "Coniparalive Physiology of Menstruation," Brit. Med. Journal, 1883. During recent years the whole question has been greatly elucidated by the researches of Walter Heape: "Men- struation of Semnopithecus Entellus," Trans. Royal Soc, 1894; "Menstruation and Ovulation of Macacus Rhesus," iri., 1897; "The Menstruation of Monkeys and the Human Female," 3'rans. Obstet. Soc, 1898; "The 'Sexual Season' of Mammals," Quarterly Jour. Microscop. Soc, 1900 (the last Paper contains a useful bibliography). See also Havelock Ellis, "Sexual Periodicity," Studies in the Psy- chology of Sex. THE FUNCTIONAL PERIODICITY OF WOMEN. 281 fVI ^ ^ ~ * '■■' \ \ ^ ><\ + ^ ,^' ^ * ^, X »o ^ <' N_ y ^ fO "" 1 '^ V \ (VI ^ X \ \ ~ ■^ . \ 1 •-^ -^ ^ \ 1 ~ ^ .\ ' ■^ \. \ 1: V. V- u < - \ ^ (VJ IVJ ^ 00 5£ ^ W T 00 ^ ">* fU \ 282 MAN AND WOMAN. Not only is the flow more copious generally as the animal approaches Man, but among the lower human" races it is less pronounced than among the higher races; American Indian women, for instance, as Dr. Holder has found, usually only menstruate for two days. The curious resemblance to the lunar cycle was long ago noticed. More recently Darwin suggested that the connection between physiological periodicity and the moon was directly formed at a very remote period of zoological evolution, and that the periodicity then impressed on the organism has survived until the present day. Creatures living near low or high water-mark would have their nutrition profoundly modified by their position, and the fortnightly cycles they pass through would lead to a general tendency to periodicity.^ He did not, however, so far as I am aware, directly connect this particular function with the tides, and there is perhaps a difficulty on account of the comparatively recent period during which the function has evolved.^ The fact that women are thus, as it were, period- ically wounded in the most sensitive spot in their organism, and subjected to a monthly loss of blood, is familiar, and has been used, legitimately or illegiti- mately, as we have indeed already seen, to explain numerous phenomena. It has even been suggested that to the weakening influence of this cause we must attribute the early arrest of development of girls in height, muscles, larynx, etc. In support of this position. Dr. Fothergill, for example, has stated that, in his experience, a prolonged menstrual period is ^ Descent of Man, Pari I. , Chap. vi. ^ The non-appearance of any corresponding periodic cj'cle in men is less of a difficulty, for, as we shall see (Chap. XV.), men have a greater tendency than women to vary from primitive conditions. Apart irom this there is some reason to believe that men may possess traces of a rudimentary menstrual cycle, affecting the whole organism. (Havelock Ellis, "Sexual Periodicity,'' Studies in the Psychology of Sex. ) THE FUNCTIONAL PERIODICITY OF WOMEN. 283 more common in small than in well-developed girls, and that sometimes when this heavy expenditure has been checked growth has continued.^ On the whole, however, there does not seem any real ground for this supposition ; among all mammals, as well as among many other kinds of animals fairly high in the morphological scale, the male is more highly developed than the female, frequently to a very much greater extent than in Man. There are also so many advantages gained by the precocious and slighter development of women that we cannot legiti- rnately regard the character of feminine development as merely the fortuitous and pathological result of a periodic function. It is not difficult to see how the menstrual function has given origin to the erroneous notion that women are natural invalids. Thus Galiani, in his Dialogue sur les Feinmes, describes woman as " un animal naturellement faible et malade." "At first she is an invalid," he remarks, " as all animals are until they have attained their full growth ; then come the symptoms so well known in every race of man, and which make her an invalid for six days during every month on an average, which makes at least a fifth part of her life ; then come pregnancies and lactations which, properly considered, are two troublesome disorders. Women, therefore, only have intervals of health in the course of a continual disease. In character they show the influence of this almost habitual condition: they are caressing and engaging as invalids usually are, although, like invalids, brtisque and capricious at times ; quickly irritated, they are promptly appeased. They seek for distraction; a mere nothing amuses them, like invalids. Their imagination is always in play : fear, hope, joy, despair, desire, disgust, succeed each other rapidly in their heads, and disappear with equal rapidity. . . . And then we — yes, we seek to cure them by causing them perhaps a new disease." Michelet, the historian, in his book L'Amour (1859), expounds the same idea that women are invalids ; " woman is for ever suffering," he says, " from the cicatrisation of an interior wound which is the cause of a whole drama. So that in reality for 15 or 20 days out of 28 [in any case, an extremely exaggerated estimate, it may be remarked] — one may almost say always — woman is not only invalided ' J. Folhergill, H est Riding Reports, vol. vi. 284 MAN AND WOMAN. but wounded. She suffers incessantly the eternal wound of love." Quite recently a woman has sought to revive the idea that women are normally in a pathological condition, owing to this function, the cause of which she finds, in some unexplained way, in the brutality of men. It is scarcely necessary to point out that a pathological condition can scarcely be called normal. A function which affects half the human race cannot be dis- missed as a mere symptom of ill-health. Other writers have gone to the opposite extreme, and have asserted that this function, normally and even generally, has no effect whatever on the health or general physical condition of women. Thus Miss Frances Power Cobbe has made this assertion in reply to Michelet. Mrs. Fawcett, again, has more recently made a similar assertion in replying to Mr. Frederick Harrison: — "He says, 'all women,' with very few exceptions, are ' subject to functional interruption absolutely incompatible with the highest forms of continuous pressure.' This asser- tion I venture most emphatically to deny. The actual period of childbirth apart, the ordinarily healthy woman is as fit for work every day of her life as the ordinarily healthy man." Mrs. Fawcett appears to attribute this to a marvellous improvement . in the health of women, brought about in recent years by attention to hygiene {Fortnightly Review, September 1891). Unfortunately there is ample evidence to show that this rose- coloured view is scarcely justified, although no one doubts that it is fairly true concerning a certain proportion of women. The question is, as we shall see: What proportion of women are " ordinarily healthy " ? While this periodic loss of blood has always attracted attention, and has furnished a more or less hazardous basis for various poetic and scientific suppositions, it is only within recent years that it has come to be recognised that menstruation is not an isolated phenomenon. It is but the outward mani- festation of the climax of a monthly physiological cycle which influences throughout the month the whole of a woman's physical and psychic organism. Whatever organic activity we investigate daily with any precision we find traces of this rhythm. While a man may be said, at all events relatively, to live on a plane, a woman always lives on the upward or downward slope of a curve. This is a fact of the very first importance in the study of physiological or THE FUNCTIONAL PERIODICITY OF WOMEN. 285 psychological phenomena in women. Unless we always bear it in mind we cannot attain to any true <&1 «3 ^ t Ji ^ / S / ^ / k; V ■^ \ J; ^\^ ^ l^^^^m ^ »ooo5^xVvx^$^ >* / s ::? / ^ V »». \ \ ' c^ «o \ K. \ ^ \ *0 / •^ / «^ •R* 1^ "^ - tj knowledge of the physical, *mental, or moral life of women. 286 MAN AND WOMAN. Our knowledge of the physiological and psychological periodicity of women is chiefly owing to Goodman, " The Cyclical Theory of Menstruation," American Journal 6/ Obstetrics, 1878, p. 673; Dr. Mary Putnam Jacobi, The Ques- tion of Rest for Women during Menstruation, New York, 1877; Stephenson, American Journal of Obstetrics, 1882, p. 287; Reinl, Volkmann's Sammlung, No. 243; Professor Ott (of St. Petersburg), " Des Lois de la Periodicite de la Fonction Physiologique dans I'Organisme Feminin," Nouvelles Archives d'Obstdtrique, Paris, 25th September 1890. There are several interesting chapters discussing "The Monthly Rhythm" in Dr. H. Campbell's Differences in the Nervous Organisation of Man and Woman, 1891. I have not been able to see all these papers. In order to give a fairly correct general view of the monthly physiological curve in women I here repro- duce a diagram, prepared by Professor Ott, which sums up a very large number of daily observations carried on during 68 monthly cycles on about 60 healthy women. The observations concerned tem- perature, muscular force, vital capacity, and reflex action. While this curve represents the average result, the period of maximum excitability (usually attained, it will be seen, nearly three days before the onset of menstruation) may sometimes be delayed until the appearance of the flow. The line A, B represents the curve of physiological oscillation during the twenty-eight days of the cycle (noted at bottom of the diagram); the degree of intensity of the functions investigated is represented along the line E, C ; the actual period of menstruation (some- what more prolonged than we usually find it in this country) corresponds to the shaded portion of the diagram.^ ' Various investigators have prepared charts of the menstrual wave, but Van Ott's probably remains the most accurate. Engelmann remarks (Trans. Am. Gynecol. Soc, 1900) that it is "thoroughly in accord with my own observations with reference to the physical and psychical changes during the monthly periods, characterising the men- vstrual wave in all its phases. It is almost equally correct for morbid nervous symptoms as characterised by the hystero-neuroses. During pregnancy and labour we have similar conditions but of longer duration and much greater intensity." * THE FUNCTIONAL PERIODICITY OF WOMEN. 287 The heart and the tension of the vascular system have most frequently been observed with reference to this monthly periodicity. CuUen long ago main- tained that the pulse-rate rises at the approach of the periods. Stephenson found a monthly cycle as regards arterial tension and pulse-rate. Dr. Mary Jacobi concluded, as the result of her investigations vi'ith the sphygmograph, that " in women exists a rhythmic wave of plenitude and tension of the arterial system, at all events perceptible in the radial artery, which begins at a minimum point, from one to four days after the cessation of menstruation, and gradually rises to a maximum, either seven or eight days before menstruation, or at any day nearer than this, or even during the first day of the flow."^ Giles's observations show the greatest blood- pressure on the first two days of menstruation and the day preceding. Dr. Clelia Mosher finds that the fall of blood-pressure, as measured by Mosso's sphyg- momanometer, occurs most frequently just before (occasionally during) the menstrual flow, the maxi- mum fall being coincident with the onset of the flow.^ This process involves an active engorgement of the thyroid, parotid, tonsils, and other organs also, during the period of the flow. The temperature is also at its highest point a few days before actual menstruation, as has been shown by Jacobi, Ott, Giles, and others; and, according to Silva, the alkalinity of the blood is reduced, and the vaso- motor system reacts to stimuli in the same way as in states of fever.^ The curve in the excretion of urea and urine I have referred to already (p. 247). The highest points of activity in the sexual organs also correspond to the general maximum, and in 1 The Question of Rest, etc., pp. 148- i6l. ^ Mosher, " Normal Menstruation," John Hopkins Hosp. Bull., Ap. 1901. ^ // Policlinico, isth Feb. 1S96, summarised in Bril. Med. Jour., 24th March 1896. 288 MAN AND WOMAN. most healthy women the sexual emotions are strongest at the maximum before the period, and at the lesser maximum after it. That the intel- lectual vigour is also greatest at the same points is somewhat less easy to prove, but is extremely probable. That the mental energy, as well as the muscular strength and dexterity, even in the strongest, healthiest, and most determined women, are usually somewhat impaired during the menstrual period itself is a fact that is familiar to most women; I am not, however, aware of any data showing a maximum during the intermen- strual period. There can be little doubt that a daily examina- tion of any of the senses would show a monthly rhythm. I am, however, only acquainted with one series of observations on this point, those of Finkelstein of St. Petersburg, carried out on the eye, under the superintendence of Professor Mierzejewski. Finkelstein studied the functional activity of the eye during menstruation in twenty healthy women, aged between nineteen and thirty- three. He found that during the period there is a concentric narrowing of the field of vision, be- ginning one, two, or three days beforehand, reach- ing the greatest intensity on the third or fourth day 'of menstruation, and gradually disappearing on the seventh or eighth day after its appearance. The narrowing is more pronounced in those women in whom menstruation is associated with malaise, headache, cardiac palpitation, and other nervous symptoms, as well as in those who lose large quan- tities of blood. Not only the field of vision for white but also the visual fields for green, red, yellow, and blue undergo a regular diminution. Perversion of perception of green (which is seen as yellow) is observed fairly often (in 20 per cent, cases). Central vision is but slightly impaired, and rapidly returns to the normal standard after the period, and refraction THE FUNCTIONAL PERIODICITY OF WOMEN. 289 remains intact.^ There can be little doubt that observation of the other sense organs would yield similar proof of monthly periodicity. As soon as the climax of vital activity is reached, or a day or two afterwards, the menstrual flow begins. Even in perfectly healthy women this affects the whole organism to a more or less marked degree. There is a general feeling of tension in the pelvic organs; the breasts also are slightly enlarged, and may consequently be somewhat tender and painful. The same congestive tendency shows itself in the enlarged thyroid. The temperature, even under strictly physiological conditions, may rise 0.5° Fahr. The surface blood-vessels tend to be fuller than usual, so that there may be flushing of the face. There is increased nervous tension and greater muscular excitability; reflex action is more marked, and there may be slight twitchings of the legs; also yawning and stiffness in the neck, and sleep is heavier than usual. There is loss of appetite and a certain amount of digestive and intestinal disturb- ance with a tendency to flatulence. Thirst may be present, and urination more frequent than usual. There is a fall of urea and an increase of uric acid. There is a tendency to pigmentation; the pigmented circle around the nipple usually becomes somewhat darker, the complexion is changed, losing its clear- ness, and a dark ring may sometimes be perceptible around the eyes; these pigmentary changes are more especially observed in brunettes, and, like many other disturbances of menstruation, during pregnancy they become still more marked. In many women the breath and also the skin exhale an odour (quite dis- tinct from that due to the discharge) of a peculiar aromatic and not unpleasant character. The voice also may undergo some change; there is a tendency ' Summarised in Ophthalmic Review, 1887, pp. 323-326. The influence of normal menstruation on the eye is also dealt with by Salmo Cohn, Uterus und Auge, 1890, pp. 13-19. 19 2gO MAN AND WOMAN. to hoarseness, and singers sometimes lose the bril- liancy of their high notes, so that at this period (as is generally recognised on the Continent) it is not desirable for public singers to appear.^ With reference to the influence of normal menstruation on the voice, Lennox Browne, a well-known specialist, wrote to me as follows: — "With regard to singers, I believe that the pitch of the voice is often lowered at the menstrual epoch, although I have not found this to be universally admitted by patients to whom I have spoken on the subject. Many have told me that they have a disposition to sing flat, and in two cases in my recollection the patients, who suffered from dysmenorrhoea, told me that they sang sharp, of which they were conscious — probably from information, for of course you know that those who sing sharp are not generally sensible of the defect. It is, however, generally agreed that the timbre and tone-quality is impaired, the voice being decidedly thinner and poorer during the epoch. " On this point you may like to know that in all Continental engagements with female singers provision is made for suspen- sion of duty during the menstrual period, but this does not obtain in English contracts, although the impresario is in practice obliged to recognise it. It would be well were this concession made universal, not only in grand opera, but in smaller lyric ventures in which the artiste sings every night in the week, and continuously for many months." Most of these physical signs may exist in women whom we must consider to be in a state of good health, although we need not expect to find them all in the same person; to a skilled observer it is often easily possible to detect the presence of the monthly period. On the psychic side, even in good health, there is another series of phenomena. There is greater impressionability, greater suggestibility, and more or less diminished self-control ; Burdach stated that at this time women are more under the influence ^ Dr. Robert Barnes has specially drawn attention to some of the points in the above picture. (Bril. Med. /ournal, 2nd March l88g. ) In Tilt's Uterine and Ovarian Inflammation, 1S62, Chaps, i.-xiv., there is a full account of menstruation, giving facts and statistics regarding the various nervous and other normal characters of this function. See also the works on menstruation by Brierre de Boismont, Krieger, etc. THE FUNCTIONAL PERIODICITY OF WOMEN. ZQI of mesmerism, and there can be no doubt that at this time all the phenomena which may be termed hypnotic become more prominent in women. It is at this time, in those women who are at all predis- posed, that sudden caprices, fits of ill-temper, moods of depression, impulses of jealousy, outbursts of self- confession, are chiefly liable to occur. In turning over the pages of a young woman's diary, Icard remarked, very little skill is required to detect those written during the monthly period. The psychic condition during- the menstrual period in ordi- nary health is well summarised by Dr. Clouston: — "It has a psychology of its own, of which the main features generally are a slight irritability or tendency toward lack of mental inhibition just before the process commences each month, a slight diminution of energy or tendency to mental paralysis and depression during the first day or two of its continuance, and a very considerable excess of energising power and excita- tion of feeling during the first week or ten days after it has entirely ceased, the last phase being coincident with woman's period of higliest conceptive power and keenest generative nisus." {Mental Diseases, 1887, p. 480.) It seems to me very probable that the superstitions regarding the evil influences exercised by women at their periods on the food, etc., they ■prepare may be supported by an actual decreased success in such operations at this time, due merely to a physiological decrease in energy and skill. "Mental energy and acumen," remarks Engelmann {Trans. Am. Gynecol. Soc, 1900), "are, as a rule, diminished during the first days of the flow at least, as is affirmed by perhaps 65 per cent, of the many questioned, who state that mental exertion and study at that time is more difficult and wearing, and requires greater effort, precisely as the working girl — only in a larger proportion of cases, 75 per cent. — expresses impaired , ability for work, saves herself, and relies upon her mates to complete some part of her task." Clelia Mosher found {John Hopkins Hasp. Bull., 1901) that a curve constructed on the subjective observations of the sense of well-being corresponded to the menstrual wave of blood- pressure, the sense of maximum efficiency corresponding to the period of high pressure and lessened efficiency to the period of low pressure. The period of low pressure appeared to be one of increased susceptibility to morbid influences. So far I have been careful to speak only of those 292 MAN AND WOMAN. phenomena of the menstrual cycle which can fairly be regarded as strictly normal and physiological. It is instructive to glance at the cases in which menstrua- tion produces abnormal and diseased conditions, be- cause what we see under such conditions is simply an exaggeration of what takes place under ordinary con- ditions. There may be so high a degree of physical pain and disability that the woman is really an invalid for several days every month. All sorts of slight visceral affections, of a congestive character, may be directly due to menstruation, and recur periodically.^ On the mental side the irritability or depression may be so pronounced as to amount to insanity. Migraine is a disorder common at this period; hysterical and epileptic fits often occur.^ Erotomania, dipsomania, and kleptomania are also specially liable to be de- veloped at this time, and of all forms of insanity melancholia is the most liable to occur. Whenever a woman commits a deed of criminal violence it is extremely probable that she is at her monthly period; it is unfortunately difficult to give precise figures, as there is often neglect to ascertain this point. Lom- broso, however, found that out of 80 women arrested for opposition to the police, or for assault, only g were not at the menstrual period.^ Legrand du Saulle found that out of 56 women detected in theft at shops in Paris, 35 were menstruating. There is no doubt whatever that suicide in women is specially liable to take place at this period ; Krugelstein stated that in all cases (107) of suicide in a woman he had met with, the act was committed during this period, and although this cannot be accepted as a general rule (especially when we bear in mind the frequency ' Seeapaperby Plicqueon "Visceral Affections of Menstrual Origin," Gazette des Hdpitaux, 19th Oct. 1893. ^ Thus Dr. Fisher found that out of 60 epileptic women, in 16 the menstrual period was either the only lime at which the attacks took place, or they were much increased in frequency at that time. I^Nexu Yo>k Med. News, November 1891. 3 La Donna Delinquente, p. 373. THE FUNCTIONAL PERIODICITY OF WOMEN. 293 of suicide in old age), Esquirol, Brierre de Boismont, Coste, Moreau de Tours, R. Barnes, and many others have noted the frequency of the suicidal tendency at this period.^ In England Wynn Westcott has stated that in his experience as a coroner, of 200 women who committed suicide, the majority were either at the change of life or menstruating;^ and in Germany Heller ascertained by post-mortem examination of 70 women who had committed suicide that 25 (or in the proportion of 35 per cent.) were menstruating, a con- siderable proportion of the remainder being pregnant or in the puerperal condition.^ Women in prison, again, are apt to exhibit periodic outbursts of un- motived and apparently uncontrollable violence: these " breakings out," as Nicolson and others have observed, are especially liable to occur at the menstrual epoch.* Among the insane, finally, the fact is universally recognised that during the monthly period the insane impulse becomes more marked, if, indeed, it may not appear only at that period. "The melancholies are more depressed," as Clouston puts it, " the maniacal more restless, the delusional more under the influence of their delusions in their con- duct; those subject to hallucinations have them more intensely, the impulsive cases are more uncontrol- lable, the cases of stupor more stupid, and the de- mented tend to be excited." These facts of morbid psychology are very significant; they emphasise the fact that even in the healthiest woman a worm, how- ever harmless and unperceived, gnaws periodically at the roots of life. We see, therefore, that instead of being an isolated and temporary process, menstruation is a continuous ^ A full and careful statement of the present state of knowledge regarding the mental condition of women during the menstrual period will be found in Icard, La Femme Pendant la Piriode Menstruelle, Paris, 1890. ^ Lancet, nth Aug. igoo. ' Munchener Med. Wochenscrift, 1900, No. 48. * See Havelock Ellis, The Criminal, third edition, pp. 172 et seq. 294 MAN AND WOMAN. process, and one which permeates the whole of a woman's physical and psychic organism. A woman during her reproductive life is always menstruating, as Dr. Harry Campbell puts it, just as the moon is always changing. " Souvent femme varie," it may be said, is a physiological fact; it is not the result of wilful caprice. The fact is one of considerable im- portance, not only to the physician and the medico- legal expert, but to the man of science generally, to the sociologist, and indeed to the whole community. In the investigation of any fact in a woman's life or organism, we ought to know its exact position in the woman's cyclic life. If we have to investigate the comparative reaction of a man and a woman to any scientific test, we have to recognise that the woman lives on a curve, and that her exact position on the curve at a given moment may affect her superiority or inferiority to the man. In trials of skill or strength among women (as in a swimming match, for instance) everything may depend on a woman's position in her monthly cycle; her full possession of strength, nerve, and dexterity will depend to some extent, even if she is in perfect health, on the time of month, and a few days sooner or later may even make it impossible for her to engage in the contest; it is needless to add that this fact opens the door to considerable in- trigue. Again, whenever a woman has committed any offence against the law, it is essential that the relation of the act to her monthly cycle should be ascertained as a matter of routine; it is a fact that control is physiologically lessened at the menstrual period even in health, while it is very much more lessened in the neurotic and unbalanced; it must be clearly recognised that guilt also is lessened. The existence of the monthly cycle is, lastly, a factor which cannot be entirely ignored in considering the fitness of women for any business position. It is found at the Post-office and elsewhere, where men and women are employed, that the women are more THE FUNCTIONAL PERIODICITY OF WOMEN. 2g5 often absent from work than the men, owing to "slight indisposition." This fact cannot be altogether disregarded, but it must be remembered that there is no ground for supposing that an ordinarily healthy woman needs any absolute rest from ordinary healthy work at any period of the month. The fact that so large a proportion of women do need such rest is due to the fact that, from one cause or another, so few are " ordinarily healthy." Brierre de Boismont, in France, found that among 360 women, 278 (or 77 per cent.) suffered some slighter or greater degree of pain at their monthly periods; 82 (or only 23 per cent.) had complete immunity. Dr. Mary Jacobi, in America, by a more careful investigation, out of 268 women found 94 {i.e., 35 per cent.) who never suffered any pain or weakness during the flow; of these 25 per cent, were rnarried, though of those who do suffer only II per cent, are married. Dr. Jacobi concludes that, normally, rest is not necessary. "It remains true, however," she adds, " that in our exciting social conditions, 46 per cent, of women suffer more or less at menstruation, and for a large number of these, when engaged in industrial pursuits or others, under the command of an employer, humanity dictates that rest from work during the period of pain be afforded whenever practicable." This question has recently been studied on a large scale in the United States by Dr. G. J. Engelmann. "To obtain satis- factory results," Dr. Engelmann states, " we must record not individual observations or professional experience, which deals with pathological conditions alone, but we must obtain the facts as found among the representatives of American girlhood and young womanhood under the varying conditions of modern day life, and this could be done only in institutions of learning and in large business organisations. " It seemed to me important that the girl in study and in work should be represented, from the advent of puberty through the period of adolescence until maturity, when a more stable, less impressionable condition is attained: from the fifteenth to the twenty-sixth year. This means High and Normal School, College, and business house, as representing respectively 296 MAN AND WOMAN. mental and physical labour, and, between the two, the Normal School for physical training approximating mental labour, and the Training School for Nurses nearing physical labour, the average age being in the High School 16; in Normal School and College, 19 to 20; in Physical Training, 22.6; the Nurse 26, and the working girl from 1 5 to 30." The results are summarised in the following table : — 1 C1.1SS. Percentage of sufferers. Group. During school or college. Before entering. College In business College - Nurses State Normal School Norm. Sch. of Gym. Norm. School, City ■ College - - - Normal School, City High School - 100 8cx> 50 169 105 100 98 306 1000 125 223 45 103 539 TOO Freshman Higher Classes / Less hrs. gym. \ More hrs. gym. Freshman 1 Junior 1 Senior J Junior \ Senior 95 per ct. 83-3 „ 74 80 73 .,' 81 ,) 77 ,. 71-4 ,. 67.1 „ 64.7 ., 66 „ 60— „ 57-84 „ 57 56 „ 54-IO .. 53-02 ,, 42 „ 32 90 per ct. 71-5 ;, 69 „ 60 „ 69.1 „ 7°-5 „ 76 „ 66 57-4 >, 58.2 „ 60-f „ 67 „ "The numbers are high," Dr. Engelmann remarks, "owing to the fact that 1 have included moderate pain in this group, suffering of every degree and kind save the more trifling dis- comforts, suffering being classified as severe, some, none, severe and some being here combined, and the result verified by a second question as to kind of suffering, languor, head- ache, or pain; languor or headache alone, usually about 15 per cent., is not here considered as suffering. It may be well to note the fact that severe suffering exists in from 1 1 per cent, to 18 per cent. — i.e., one-fifth to one-fourth of those experiencing discomfort during the period suffer severely. The very high percentage of suffering (95 per cent.) in one of the higher insti- tutions of learning is rather surprising, and can only be explained by the fact that all discomfort has here been considered, but the figures are correct, as this investigation was made with the utmost care by one of the medical officers of the institution. " As is to be expected, great suffering is likewise found in the THE FUNCTIONAL PERIODICITY OF WOMEN. 297 business woman, averaging in the class here considered 83 per cent., but this varies, even in the same class of business, with the character of the work. The girl behind the counter, who is on her feet most of the day, with but little space for change of position, shows 91 per cent.; those who sit, bookkeepers and stenographers, show 82 per cent. ; and those who have a certain freedom of motion — floor-walkers, cash girls, packers — are noted with only 78 per cent. " For the pupils of the Nurses' Training Schools (72 per cent.) the numbers are as yet small and the records less perfect than those of any other class; but the results, such as they are, demand investigation, since we know that only women in perfect health are admitted. " That pupils in the Normal School for physical training should appear with 71 per cent, would seem inexplicable, as these are young women under the best possible conditions, with an apparently most favourable combination of mental and physical work. A better state of functional health is to be expected, and we should certainly find very different conditions were it not for the fact that girls already broken down frequently undertake this course for the purpose of restoring health wrecked in pre- vious occupations. As a consequence they enter under most unfavourable conditions. "In school and college we find too large a proportion of sufferers — from 40 to 70 per cent. — and I must call attention to a Normal School in which one-half of the pupils devote but two forty-five minute periods weekly to gymnastic exercises, while others allow four and more. Among those devoting more time to physical exercise we find 64 per cent, of suffering, as com- pared with 67 per cent, in the other group. The lowest per- centage is found in one of the Normal Schools and in a High School. Almost invariably the percentage of suffering is greater in the more exacting work or the study of more advanced classes than it was before in years of greater freedom; yet we find that from 65 to 70 per cent, enter the higher institutions of learning — Normal School, College — and business with menstrual suffering of some kind, and, as a rule, this suffering increases in the mental and physical occupations here considered, with some few exceptions in those educational institutions where marked attention is given to physical training. Thus we find in one of the Normal Schools 54 per cent, in the junior and 53 per cent, in the senior class, the first having entered with 66 per cent, and the second with 71 per cent.; but the most marked exception is in the very youngest class in one well-conducted High School with an admirable system of physical training, where we find the most pliable and impressionable condition — the menstrual function barely established and the slight irregu- larities which may have arisen yielding readily to excellent 298 MAN AND WOMAN. surroundings and judicious management. Here we find 42 per cent, in the junior class and only 32 per cent, in the same girls at the close of their senior year, some eighteen months after the first record. We have seen an aggravation of suffering with advancing grade, as much as 10 per cent., and yet in school and college a certain number record their general health as better, and this is as it should be, owing to the often improved habits of hfe and greater regularity. It must be noted that while the percentage of suffering is greater, severe suffering, as a rule, grows less. In one institution 18 per cent, suffered severely before and only 10 per cent, during or after entering upon the course. This is especially marked in the pupils of physical training schools. In the working girl, however, severe suffering increases, most so in the girl behind the counter, who stands most of the day. The percentage of suffering may appear high, but it is nevertheless correct, as the figures are based upon large numbers." (G. J. Engelmann, "The American Girl of To-day," Trans. Am. Gynecological Soc, igoo.) It may be added that Dr. Clelia Duel Mosher, of the John Hopkins Hospital, who has made a special study of the physi- ology of menstruation, points out that so-called "menstrual suffering" is very largely "simply coincident functional dis- turbance in other organs, induced, possibly, by the favouring conditions of a lower general blood pressure occurring near or at the time of menstruation." (C. D. Mosher, " Normal Men- struation and some of the Factors Modifying It," John Hopkins Hosp. Bull., Ap. 1901.) This is no doubt the case, but suffering occurring at the menstrual period, whether directly or only indirectly due to the menstrual process, is quite properly described as "menstrual suffering." One point at all events is clear: it is no longer possible to regard the physiological periodicity of women, and the recurring menstrual function, as the purely private concern of the woman whom it affects. 299 CHAPTER XII. HYPNOTIC PHENOMENA. THE VARIOUS PHENOMENA HERE INCLUDED UNDER THIS TERM ■ SOMNAMBULISM HYPNOTISM ECSTASY TRANCE — CATALEPSY — MAGICAL PHENOMENA WOMEN HAVE PLAYED A LARGER PART IN NEARLY ALL. DREAMS — WOMEN AS DREAMERS AMONG PRIMITIVE RACES IN THE MIDDLE AGES IN MODERN TIMES — RESULTS OBTAINED BY HEERWAGEN, JASTROW, AND CHILD. HALLUCINATIONS IN THE SANE — SIDGWICK's INVESTIGA- TIONS GREATER PREVALENCE AMONG WOMEN. THE ACTION OF AN/ESTHETICS NITROUS OXIDE SILK's OBSERVATIONS ABNORMAL ACTION UNDER ANAESTHESIA OCCURS ON THE WHOLE CHIEFLY IN WOMEN. METEOROLOGIC SENSIBILITY SUICIDE INSANITY CON- CLUSION AS TO SEXUAL DIFFERENCE DOUBTFUL — PERIODICITY IN GROWTH. NEURASTHENIA AND HYSTERIA — DESCRIPTION OF NEUR- ASTHENIA — DEFINITION OF HYSTERIA ITS CHARACTER- ISTICS SUGGESTIBILITY RELATIVE FREQUENCY IN THE SEXES. RELIGIOUS HYPNOTIC PHENOMENA NATURE OF THE PART PLAYED BY WOMEN IN RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS SHAKERS THEOSOPHISTS DANCING MANIA CAMI- SARDS MODERN HYSTERICAL RELIGIOUS EPIDEMICS CHRISTS — SKOPTSY HYPNOTIC RELIGIOUS PHENOMENA AMONG UNCIVILISED RACES — NATURE AND CAUSATION. We may use the term "hypnotic phenomena " as a convenient expression to include not merely the condition of artificially-produced sleep, or hypnotism 300 MAN AND WOMAN. in the narrow sense of the term, but all those groups of psychic phenomena which are characterised by a decreased control of the higher nervous centres, and increased activity of the lower centres.^ These groups of phenomena are closely related, and are all marked by diminished consciousness of the subject, or diminished power of control, or both. Taken altogether they constitute the phenomena which have often been called "super-human," but which, as Chambers long ago remarked, may quite as truly be called "sub-human." The best known of such phenomena is that which we have all experi- enced during ordinary sleep, which is perhaps the most primitive and fundamental form of consciousness. That modified kind of sleep, the condition of ordinary somnambulism, or sleep-walking, in which the motor centres are awake and respond to ordinary stimuli while the higher centres are asleep and fail to control the responses of the more automatic centres, is fairly common to a slight degree, or at rare intervals, especially among children.^ There are no exact statistics, so far as I am aware, as to its frequency among adults; the majority of those who have occupied themselves with the subject seem to regard it as more common in women, or have at all events found the worst and most persistent cases in women. Although this .is probable, it is not yet clearly established. The phenomena of mesmerism, animal magnetism, etc., now usually grouped under the head of hyp- notism, have always been specially identified with ^ It may not be superfluous to remark that what in nervous physi- ology are termed tlie " lower" centres are by no means "low" in the sense of being unimportant ; on the contrary, they are the most funda- mental. ^ Dr. E. von der Stein (Ueber den natiirlkhen Somnambtilismus, Heidelberg, i8Si) found by investigating orphan asylums in Baden that out of 1000 children 17 (or 1.7 per cent.) showed somnambulistic phenomena; there were not necessarily any signs of neuropathic con- stitution. HYPNOTIC PHENOMENA. 30I women. Women have most easily fallen under their influence, and the chief advances in our knowledge of hypnotism have come through investigations on women. One or two enthusiasts have declared that most persons, taken at random and irrespective of sex (80 per cent, according to Li6bault), are hypno- tisable. It is probably true that, with the exercise of sufficient skill aiid patience, the phenomena might be elicited in every^dne- possessing a fair degree of mental health (for it is notoriously difficult to hypnotise the insane even with the exercise of very considerable skill and patience), but it remains true that, in the experience of the most skilful investigators, women more easily fall ■ into the hypnotic condition, and exhibit the phenomena in a more marked form. In every hypnotic clinique we find women in a great majority. Thus Pitres, a chief authority, finds that with the greatest possible persuasion two-thirds of hysterical women, and only one-fifth of hysterical men, can be hypnotised.^ Again, B6rillon, an enthu- siastic and at the same time judicious believer in hypnotic therapeutics, during i8go and the early part of 1891 (as he stated at the Berlin International Medical Congress), treated 360 patients by hypnotism ; of these 265 were women, 45 were children, only 50 were men — a statement agreeing with my own recol- lections of Dr. Berillon's clinique at about the same period. These figures do not necessarily indicate the sexual proportion of hypnotisable persons among the general population, but they at least show that a comparatively small proportion of men can be treated by hypnotism with any chance of success. It may be added that children may easily be put into the hypnotic state : Beaunis found that out of 100 children between seven and fourteen years of age, 55 are hypnotisable, and Berillon considers that this is below the truth, as he finds that most children ^ Lecons cliniques, etc. , torn. ii. p. 404 ; cf. Grasset, L' Hypnotisms, et la Stiggestion, 1902, p. 93. 302 MAN AND WOMAN. above the age of seven, provided they are not idiots, may easily be hypnotised.^ The alhed phenomena of ecstasy, trance, and catalepsy, it is generally agreed, are more frequent in women, and it may be added that the most remark- able cases on record, with few exceptions, occurred in women. In catalepsy the subject's mental functions are largely or altogether suspended as regards the external vi^orld; the muscles are passive and retain any position in which they may be placed. In ecstasy, which cannot be very clearly distinguished from trance, there is not the same absence of muscular control, and the subject's mental functions, instead of being suspended, are actively employed in seeing visions; during the trance the subject's countenance expresses inspired illumination of a more than earthly character, and on awaking he is able to recall his visions, which have played a considerable part in the world's spiritual history. Both catalepsy and ecstasy are allied to hysteria, but are not necessarily identical with it.'^ All the phenomena which of old were termed "magical" come under the group here termed "hypnotic," and they have always been regarded as especially connected with women. Pliny tells us that women are the best subjects for magical experi- ences. Quintilian was of the same opinion. Bodin estimated the proportion of witches to wizards as not less than 50 to i.^ The oracles, which in various ' Dr. E. Berillon, Hypnolisme et Suggestion, Paris, 1891, p. 37. 2 The short articles, "Catalepsy," "Ecstasy," and "Trance," by Dr. Hack Tuke in the Diet. Psych. Med., may be consulted; also the excellent articles (though written some years ago) by Dr^ Chambers on " Ecstasy," " Somnambulism," and " Catalepsy" in Reynolds' System of Medicine, vol. ii. ; for' an elaborate study from the modern point of view of the differences between catalepsy, ecstasy, lethargy, somnam- bulism, etc., regarded as typical and mixed forms of hypnosis among the hysterical, see Pitres, Le(ons cliniques sur I'Hysterie et I'Hypno- tisme, 1891, tom. ii. pp. 1 17-142. ^ Millingen, Curiosities of Medical Experience, 1857, vol. i. p. 225 ; and see Lombroso and Ferrero, Donna Delinquente, pp. 203-208 ; also J. Grimm, Teutonic Mythology (translation), pp. 1038-41. HYPNOTIC PHENOMENA. 303 religions are given out in a more or less hypnotic state, usually emanate from women. This was not only the case among the Greeks but also. among the ancient Babylonians and Assyrians.^ It is interesting to find that magical phenomena corresponding to those to be found in remote districts to-day in England (where witches — white and black — still flourish, and " ill-wishing," though not always avowed, is firmly believed in) existed in a substantially similar form six thousand years ago in the oldest historical civilisation. It was a widespread and apparently already very ancient belief among the Babylonians and Assyrians that certain human beings possessed demoniac powers, and could exercise them for evil on whomsoever they pleased. Such sorcerers could be either male or female, but they were mostly female. These witches, Jastrow remarks, are so closely associated with demons in the Babylonian incantation texts that we may regard the witch as merely the person through whom the demon has manifested himself. From the basis of this identity the witches reached a stage through which they could control the demons, though the demons could not control them. The Babylonian witch's "evil-eye" had great power, as had also her "evil word" (or magic formula) and her potions made from poisonous herbs. We also find that all the more indirect devices of what may fairly be called modern witch- craft were well known to the Babylonian woman. By sympathetic magic she could strangle her victim by tying knots in a rope, or by making an image of him in clay, pitch, honey, or fat. She could symbolically burn, torture, bury, or drown him.^ The hypnotic and "magical" aptitude of women is chiefly a fact of their organisation. But its development in the past has certainly been favoured by the wonder excited by the physical ' In a series of eight oracles addressed to Esavhaddon, Professor Morris Jastrow records that six were given out by women. ^ Morris Jastrow, Religion of Babylonia and Assyria, 1898, p. 266. 304 MAN AND WOMAN. mystery of womanhood, to which reference was made in Chapter I. Women in savage and barbarous stages of existence are believed to have a strange influence over the whole of nature. Thus Pliny {Natural History, Book vii. c. 13) tells us that "on the approach of a woman in this state [the menstrual], meat will become sour, seeds which are touched by her become sterile, grafts wither away, garden-plants are withered up, and the fruit will fall from the tree beneath which she sits," etc. At Bordeaux and on the Rhine women must still avoid entering wine-cellars during their periods. (A. Bastian in the " Vorwort " and notes to his Inselgruppen in Oceanien, Berlin, 1883, has collected a large number of similar beliefs.) It was not only when in this state that a woman possessed this magical in- fluence; in another part of his work (Book xxviii. c. 23) Pliny writes: — "Hailstorms, they say, whirlwinds, and lightning even, will be scared away by a woman uncovering her body while her monthly courses are upon her. The same, too, with all other kinds of tempestuous weather; and out at sea a storm may be lulled by a woman uncovering her body merely, even though not menstruating at the time. At any other time, also, if a woman strips herself naked while she is menstruating, and walks round a field of wheat, the caterpillars, worms, beetles, and other vermin will fall from off the ears of corn." Many of these beliefs survive in Italy (and in other parts of the world) up to the present day; thus at Belluno, according to Bastanzi, it is customary for a priest and for a naked young girl to go (separately as a rule) early in the morning into the fields to drive away the caterpillars. (The introduction of the priest is merely an example of the way in which Christianity has sought to sanctify the Pagan rites it could not eradicate.) Similar customs may be found all over the world. Thus the wonder excited by women has in the past, if not in the present, powerfully reinforced the influence they have gained through what I have here broadly termed "hypnotic phenomena." (Many facts bearing on the prevalence of the belief in the magical aptitude of women, both in ancient and modern times, are brought together by Ploss and Bartels, Das Weib, 7th ed., Bd. ii. pp. 663-680; these authors believe that these phenomena are of universal extension and probably constitute a fundamental human belief.) A large part of the fascination which women possess for men lies in their liability to such hypnotic explosions as we have here to consider. It has been a mystery which men have never grown tired of contemplating, and which has left an inefface- able mark on the literature produced by men. HYPNOTIC PHENOMENA. 305 The mystery has been sympathetically described by Diderot, who himself combined the man's temperament and the woman's, in his rhapsodical fragment Sitr les Femmes: — " It is especially in the passion of love, the attack of jealousy, the transports of natural tenderness, the instincts of super- stition, the way in which they share popular epidemic emotions, that women astonish us, beautiful as Klopstock's seraphim, terrible as Milton's angels of darkness. I have seen love, jealousy, superstition, anger in women carried to heights which man has never reached. ... A man never sat at Delphi on the sacred tripod. The part of Pythia only suited a woman. It needs a woman's head to feel seriously the approach of a god, to become exalted and agitated, dishevelled, foaming, to cry out; 'I feel him, I feel him, the god is come!' and then to repeat truly his words. A woman carries within her an organ capable of terrible spasms, which' do as they will with her and excite in her phantoms of all kinds. In her hysterical delirium she sees the past over again, she is pro- jected into the future, all times are present to her. Nothing closer together than ecstasy, vision, prophecy, poetry, and hysteria. . . . Madame Guyon, in her book of Torrents, has lines of an eloquence which knew no models. It was Saint Theresa who said of the devils, ' How unhappy they are ! they do not love!' It was a woman who walked barefooted through the streets of Alexandria, with a torch in one hand and a pitcher in the other, saying: ' I will burn heaven with this torch and extinguish hell with this water, so that man may love his God only for Himself.' Such a part belongs only to a woman. But this fiery imagination, this temper which seems incoercible, may be abashed at a word. . . . More civilised than men outside, within they have remained true savages, and they are all of the sect of Machiavelli, more or less. The symbol of woman in general is that of the Apocalypse, on the forehead of which was written Mystery." DREAMS. Among primitive peoples the dreams of women often play an important part. In the Lake Shirwa district of Central Africa, for example, very sacred, functions are performed by the prophetess. It is to her that the gods or ancestral spirits make known their will, and this they do in dreams. The ■ prophetess, who is frequently one of the chiefs wives, dreams her dreams and then gives forth oracles at' 20 305 MAN AND WOMAN. intervals, according to the exigencies of the case; they are usually delivered in a frenzied state.^ It seems clear, however, from the description given of the emotional and other phenomena accompanying the delivery of these oracles that they are largely manifestations of hysteria. Nor, if we take savage races generally, can it be said that these phenomena are more common among women ; we find them fully developed among men. It is not until we turn to races which have reached a high degree of barbarism that we find clear evidence concerning the relative frequency of dreaming in the sexes. The old French epic cycles furnish us with interesting material for the study of this question in mediaeval Europe; and the dreams of the Arthurian and Karolian epics have been carefully studied by Mentz.^ Dreams are represented throughout these cycles as of great importance and significance; they are visions from God. Heroes and princes were great dreamers; heathens rarely or never. The greatest dreamer of all was Karl the Great, though only when he was young and vigorous. But women dreamed much, and Mentz argues from this that they must have .been highly thought of. "These poets have with special preference attributed dreams to women, and this is shown not only by the number of examples of women dreaming, but by some very remarkable cases. For example, when any common misfortune overtakes a married couple or two lovers, it is always the woman who receives information of the misfortune." After giving numerous examples, Mentz adds: "I have not found a single case in which, on such an occasion, the dream has come to the father or the husband; the dreamers are alwaj's ^ James Macdonald, "East Central African Customs," yo»/'»a/ of the Anthropological Institute, Aug. 1892, p. 105. ^ Richard Mentz, Die Tr'dume in den altframosischen KaHs- und Artus-epen, 1888. (Stengel's Ausgaben und Abhandlungen aus dent Gebiet der roinanischen Philologie, Ixxiii.) HYPNOTIC PHENOMENA. 307 women. Women's parts are filled with dreams, which otherwise are only imparted to heroes and princes." In modern times dreams have lost all divine significance, although they have acquired a new scientific value as helping to furnish the key to many psychological problems of the past and the present. There can be no doubt whatever that women are greater dreamers than men. While men, as they reach adult age, usually find that their dreams become rarer and less vivid, receding into a dim background where they can with difficulty be perceived, though doubtless always present, in women dreams usually remain frequent and vivid. This fact is familiar to all who have inquired into psychological phenomena, and it has often been confirmed by statistical in- vestigation. Thus Heerwagen ^ found that women dream more than men, whilst male students stand as a class between other men and women. Sante de Sanctis, in his valuable study of dreaming, / Sogni, found that only 13 per cent, men dream always as against 33 per cent, women. Dreaming reaches its maximum intensity at from 20 to 25 years of age. Married women, according to Heerwagen, dream less than the unmarried. A dreamful sleep, Heerwagen found, is in women more likely to be prolonged than a dreamless sleep; but it is not so in men. Men, it may be added, sleep more soundly than women, while sleep is soundest in childhood. Professor Jastrow, in an interesting study of the dreams of the blind,^ gives statistical information as to the dreams of 183 blind persons. There is reason to believe that the blind are not, on the whole, such good dreamers as the sighted, but the sexual difference probably remains un- 1 Friedrich Heerwagen, Statistische UntersucJmngen iiber Trattme und Schlaf, Wundt's Philosophische Studien, v. 2. I have only seen abstracts of this investigation. - " The Dreams of the Blind," New Princeton Review, Jan. 1888. 3p8 MAN AND WOMAN. impaired. While of the males 54.5 per cent, dream seldom, 19.2 per cent, frequently, and 7.1 per cent, every night, similar numbers for the females are 29.8-, 26.2, and 8.3 per cent. — i.e., the females include more "frequent" and fewer "occasional" dreamers. Professor Jastrow remarks: "This favours the view that it is the vividness of the emotional back- ground elaborated by the imagination that furnishes the predominant characteristic and tendency to dreams; for it is in the development of just these qualities that women excel men; the same view is favoured by the prevalence of dreams to age. In my tables there is a loss of the total amount of dreaming in passing from the period of five to nine years to that of from ten to fourteen years. A slighter decrease is noted in passing from the latter period to that of the next five years, and this very gradual decrease seems to continue from then on. Childhood, the period of the lively imagination and highly tinged emotional life, brings the richest harvest of dreams." As to sexual differences in the character of dreams and the modes of dreaming, we possess at present little definite evidence. I will only allude to a study of " The Statistics of 'Unconscious Cerebration'" {^American Journal of Psychology, Nov. 1892, vol. V. No. 2), by Mr. Charles M. Child of Wesleyan University, U.S.A. This investigation, carried out under the superintendence of Professor A. C. Armstrong, was made on 200 college students (151 men and 49 women). It does not refer exclusively to dreaming, but various points bearing on dreams came within its scope. Thus it was found that only 12 per cent, of the women remember having any logical or connected train of thought in a half-sleep, but the general percentage is twice as large. The low percentage of the women here may be connected with the fact, which was also brought out in this investigation, that a very large percentage of women wake directly. On the other hand, 24 per cent, of the women reach results which are at least fairly accurate, this being rather above the general percentage (17). The per- centages for different ages do not vary much, nor with any regularity. It was found that the dreams of women are more affected by position than those of men, and that a larger per- HYPNOTIC PHENOMENA. 309 centage of woiTien than of men are conscious of a moral sense when dreaming. Possibly the .greater vividness of women's dreams may account for this. After 30 years of age conscious- ness of moral sense in dreams diminishes. Persons under 25 are least affected by position, probably because at this age dreaming is a more constant and normal phenomenon. There was found to be a continuous decrease with age in the number of those who dream, although sexual differences in the number of students who dream (apart from the vividness, etc., of the dreams) was found to be trifling, a result which is fairly in accordance with Heerwagen's conclusions. The figures show a slightly larger proportion of men than of women who talk in their sleep, but the percentage of women who answer questions when asleep is much larger than that of men (56 per cent, as against 32 in men). While the men can usually only answer questions on the subject they are talking about, the women can more often answer questions on any subject. The percentage of those who talk in their sleep is much higher under 25 years of age than above, and the ability to answer questions also diminishes with age. HALLUCINATIONS IN THE SANE. Hallucinations of the senses occurring under ordi- nary conditions, when the subject is in fair health and otherwise sane, are very closely allied to the dreams that occur during sleep.^ Their occasional occurrence has often been recorded, more especially in men of genius or in persons under mental stress.^ They may also be produced as a kind of embryonic hypnotic suggestion in ordinary life, and Professor Jung has found that such hallucinations are more easily pro- duced in women, children, and the uneducated, although by no means exclusively in them.^ Our chief source of statistical information at present concerning their frequency in the general population is the inquiry into the nature and frequency of hallu- ^ Parish in his acute and elaborate study, Hallucinations and Illu- sions, 1897, has shown that these phenomena tend to appear on the borderland of sleep. 2 See, for instance, Lombroso, Man oj Genius, pp. 56, 57. ^ " Des Hallucinations suggerees a I'etat de veille," Rev. de THypno- iistne, 1889. 310 MAN AND WOMAN. cinations of the senses occurring to sane persons, conducted by Professor Henry Sidgwick.^ As the affirmative or negative experiences of 17,000 persons (comprising men and women in nearly equal propor- tions) are recorded in Professor Sidgwick's tables, they carry considerable weight. It was found that 656 (or 7.8 per cent.) of the men and 1033 (or 12.0 per cent.) of the women affirmed that they had at some time experienced a hallucination. It is prob- able that this proportion approximates to the facts; at the same time it is quite possible that women are more easily persuaded than men that they have ex- perienced a hallucination, and also that women are more ready to confess to such an experience. Some deduction may perhaps have to be made on this account from the feminine percentage, but a greater liability to hallucination in women is in harmony with the greater prevalence of other allied phenomena in the same sex. A classification of the answers according to the competence of the collectors strengthens rather than weakens the preponderance of women, for if we separate 1649 answers which were obtained by scientific inquirers only, psycho- logists or medical men, we find that the percentage of women is nearly double that of the men — i.e., 9.0 per cent, men against 17. i per cent, women. It may be added that the persons investigated were chiefly English, or at least English-speaking, but there were a certain proportion of foreigners, more especially nearly 600 Russians and 200 Brazil- ians, and the differences according to nationality were considerable. Thus, if we take the English- speaking alone, we find that 7.3 per cent, men and 1 1.4 per cent, women give affirmative answers. If we take the Russians, we find that 10.2 per cent, men and 21.4 per cent, women give affirmative answers. And if we take the Brazilians, we find that 23.0 per ^ " Report on the Census of Hallucinations," Pro. Soc. Psych. Re- search, Aug. 1894. HYPNOTIC PHENOMENA. 3II cent, men and 27.7 per cent, women give affirmative answers. H allucinations, therefore, taking these three nationahties, appear to be least prevalent among the English, most prevalent among the Brazilians; while the Russians show the maximum, and the Brazilians the minimum sexual difference. THE ACTION OF ANESTHETICS. The physiology of anassthesia, as produced by chloroform, nitrous oxide, and other anaesthetics, is not yet fully understood. Nitrous oxide is the anaesthetic that is probably best understood, and what is here said will chiefly apply to that anaesthetic. In both the brain and spinal cord there appears to be first a period of excitement with increased pulsation of blood-vessels; then a period of disordered action; and finally a period of sedative action. The highest centres are most rapidly lulled; in the lower centres there is a greater tendency to excited action. The spinal centres are liberated, perhaps stimulated. There is usually dilatation of the pupils, which always indicates either paralysis of the higher or stimulation of the lower centres; and this dilatation, especially in the anaemic or hysterical, may be considerable even at a very early stage of anaesthesia.^ Such being the influence of anaesthesia on the nervous system, it is easy to observe its intimate connection with the phenomena here called hypnotic. Such phenomena involve the comparative quiescence of the highest centres, or else their inco-ordination, leading to disordered action. It is precisely to such a result that an anaesthetic like nitrous oxide leads. We may therefore regard it as an easily controllable agent for the production and study of hypnotic phenomena. If the administration of nitrous oxide ^ See, for instance, J. F. W. Silk, Manual of Nitrous Oxide Anas- thesia, London, 1888 ; also Dudley Buxton, " A Note on Ankle- Clonus," Brit. Aled. Journal, 24th Sept. 1887. 312 MAN AND WOMAN. for dental purposes were carefully observed and re- corded on a large scale, we should possess a valuable and exact key for the study of many of the most important sexual nervous differences, for during the evolution of the anaesthetic process we have the secret mechanism that underlies psychic action laid bare in an objective manner which we can never under any circumstances hope for during the subject's conscious life. It can scarcely be said that the importance of this field for such research has yet been adequately realised. There are, however, certain observations and results recorded by scientific investigators which throw considerable light on our present inquiry. It is usually considered that women yield rapidly to the influence of anaesthetics generally; pregnant women take them well ; and although they yield so rapidly, there is no reason to suppose that women are more exposed to danger from anaesthesia; it seems more probable that they are less exposed. Children also fall'f apidly and deeply under chloroform and other anaesthetics; but they bear them w^ell and recover with equal facility.^ A committee appointed by the Odontological Association found the following aver- age times for nitrous oxide anaesthesia : — Time going off. Duration. Time from com- mencement to recovery. Males I min. 21 sees. 24 sees. I min. 55 sees. Females I ,. 16 „ 28 „ 2 „ Children (under 15) I „ 3 „ 22 „ I „ 40 „ The exact duration of anaesthesia is not, however, easy of very exact determination. ^ D. W. Buxton, AncEsthelics, London, 1892 ; Maurice Perrin, Art. " Anesth^sie," VicL ency. des Sci. Mid. HYPNOTIC PHENOMENA. 3x3 We have seen that the effect of ah anaesthetic such as nitrous oxide is practically to hill the higher nervous centres and to give the lower nervous centres the opportunity of indulging in an orgy. Is it the nervous system of men or of women that most readily takes advantage of this opportunity ? It has frequently been noted, as a general observa- tion, that various phenomena which may occur during ansesthesia are more common in women. Thus chloroform, ether, nitrous oxide, cocaine, and possibly other anaesthetics, possess the property of exciting the sexual emotions. Women are especially liable to these erotic hallucinations during anaesthesia, and it has sometimes been almost impossible to con- vince them that their subjective sensations have had no objective cause. ^ Those who have to administer anaesthetics are well aware of the risks they may thus incur. It has also been noted (as by Perrin) that women are more liable to dream under anseafhesia. General muscular excitement, both in the earner and in the later stages of nitrous oxide anaesthesia, have been observed to be more common in women. Among girls and women, especially if of hysterical temperament. Dr. Silk remarks that during the usually quiet early stage of anaesthesia " every variety of antic may at times be indulged in, of which singing and kicking are the most common;" while just as they are passing fully under the influence of the gas, girls who have hitherto been quiet may begin to scream and kick in a manner that is usually entirely reflex and automatic; "during the stage of recovery, too, the period of excitement is often very marked, especially in females. Hallucinations with a desire to go somewhere or do something are very common; there may be also more or less violent screaming, ^ See, for instance, D. Buxton, Anesthetics, p. 204. Dr. Silk remarks that sexual emotions during anaesthesia are "rarely observable 314 MAN AND WOMAN. beating of the feet, jactitations, etc., followed by hysterical crying.^ Definite figures are of much greater value than general observations, and these on the whole fully confirm the general impressions already recorded. Thus Mr. Gunn has found that females are much more liable to vomit after anaesthetics than males; of about 2000 males and nearly 2000 females who were anaesthetised at Moorfields Ophthalmic Hospital 51 per cent, of the females and 40 per cent, of the males were sick;^ it must be added that Dr. Silk finds vomiting, both in childhood and adult age, more common in males, though he also finds that excessive evolution of intestinal flatulence under anaesthesia occurs almost exclusively among women. It is to Dr. Silk that we owe the most valuable contribution yet made to the precise knowledge of sexual differ- ences as revealed by anaesthetics.^ Of his 1000 cases 240 were in men, 760 were in women; the average age in^each sex Was 24 years. It is the tendency to muscular movement which may be most easily observed. Rhythmic movements, such as swinging the legs, beating time to music with the hands, etc., were observed 27 times; it is impossible to say in what class of patients such movements are to be expected; 6 (or 2.5 per cent.) of Dr. Silk's male cases showed such movements; 21 (or 2.8 per cent.) of the female cases. The excess of females is here scarcely perceptible; it is much more marked in regard to rigid muscular contractions of an opisthotonic character; they were noted in only 17 (or 7.1 per cent.) males, but in 89 (or 11.7 per cent.) females. A tendency to opisthotonos was observed in 7 males (or 2. 9 per cent.) and in 44 females (or 5.8 per cent.). ^ J. F. W. Silk, Manual of Nit. Ox. AniBsthesia. ^ R. Marcus Gunn, Brit. Med. Journal, ]vL\y 21, 18S3. ' J. F. W. Silk, "An Analysis of a Series of 1600 Nitrous OxiJe Administrations Recorded Systematically," Tram. Odontological Soc, June 1890. I am indebted to Dr. Silk for further elucidations regard- ing several points, and also for additional figures. HYPNOTIC PHENOMENA. 315 Erotic symptoms were found by Dr. Silk to have undoubtedly occurred in six cases out of the whole series, and always in women, with one exception in young unmarried women under the age of 24. In- voluntary micturition occurred ten times, invariably in females; twice in children under 14 (which was, relatively, a large proportion, i.e., 20 per cent.), the remainder in women between that age and 40. I take these results chiefly from the published paper already mentioned, but recently Dr. Silk has been good enough to place in my hands the general results of a very much larger number of cases — not less than 5119, of whom 1719 were males, 3400 females; 88g were children under the age of 15. The anaesthetic used was chiefly, although not exclusively, nitrous oxide. The results of this larger investigation confirm, while at the same time to some extent modifying, the results founded on the smaller number of observations. It was found that there was a decided excess of vomiting among males; defecation and rhythmic movements were about equal in the two sexes; in all other respects females were in a majority, and usually in a very large majority. Thus the tendency to opisthotonos occurred 74 times in- stead of 46 times, as it should have done in order to agree with the male ratio. Erotic phenomena occurred 18 times, but only once in a man; to pre- serve the male ratio they should only have occurred twice among the women. Micturition occurred 23 times in women, instead of 8 times, which would have been in the same proportion as among the males, in whom it occurred only 4 times. If we separate the children (under 15) from the adults, we find that rhythmic movements occur almost exclu- sively in adults; intestinal rumbling occurs almost exclusively in adult women. Of the 4 male cases of micturition only one was in an adult, but of the 23 female cases 16 were in adults; the erotic phenomena were of course exclusively in adults. 3l6 MAN AND WOMAN. The evidence furnished by the human organism under the influence of anassthetics, which abolish conscious and voluntary action, is peculiarly reliable, and the figures here given, which include a sufficient number of cases to ensure trustworthy results, all point more or less plainly to one conclusion : hypnotic phenomena are more frequent and more marked in women than in men; the lower nervous centres in women are more rebellious to control than those of men, and more readily brought into action. METEOROLOGIC SENSIBILITY. This is not, strictly speaking, a form of sensibility at all, and it has no connection with any of the sense- organs. It is really a form of what we shall later on be concerned with as "affectability," and is therefore allied to emotional states. It may perhaps be fairly considered among hypnotic phenomena. Atmospheric changes are announced, some time in advance, by modifications of the electric, barometric, thermic, hygrometric, and possibly magnetic condi- tions, and by a number of other physical changes, to which, for the most part, civilised people have become insensitive. Animals, however, of all kinds — sheep, pigs, fish, ducks, grouse, etc. — can perceive these changes, and understand what they foretell. It has indeed been said by an acute observer of animal life that " there are few animals which do not afford timely and sure prognostications of changes in the weather."^ In man, although the meteorologic sense, as Beaunis calls it, is not universal, it is by no means uncommon to find individuals who are very sensitive to the approach of atmospheric disturbances, more especially to storms. This sensibility may be exhibited by varying phenomena — heaviness of the head, general discomfort, a sense of oppression, vague pains, etc. ' St. John, Wild Sports of the Highlands, Aix^. xxxiii. HYPNOTIC PHENOMENA. 317 Thus a snowstorm may be invariably preceded by gastric disturbances, nervous irritability, mental and general depression a day or two in advance; and rheumatic subjects often experience pains in their bones with barometric certainty. Beaunis states (as also Gavarret had previously stated) that such sensi- bility is more common in women and in children, and any one whose attention has been called to this point will probably have observed the greater frequency of meteorologic sensibility in women. The best sub- jects are of nervous or neurotic temperament. Meteorologic sensibility has been carefully studied in America by Professor E. G. Dexter on the basis of a large amount of data obtained from schools, police and prison records, etc.^ He finds that such sensi- bility is in many respects more marked in children than in adults, and that among children at school boys seem to be more susceptible than girls; this was indicated both by the actual curves of data, so far at least as heat, cold, and wind are concerned, and by the opinions of the teachers. It is suggested that this may be due to the fact that the boys are often under less disciplinary control than the girls, and one teacher remarks that the girls are greater adepts both at restraining and at concealing their impulses to mischief. Among adults, however, the same tendency is not seen. Dexter found that wherever there was any clear sexual distinction it was in the direction of a greater meteorological sensibility on the part of the women. This accorded with the experience of several principals of schools accustomed to deal with teachers of both sexes. The sexual distinction was very marked in regard to the New York police records for assault. The hot weather increases the pugnacity of women to a very much greater extent than that of men. Starting at the lower temperature with a deficiency much greater than that for males, the ^ E. G. Dexter, Conduct and the Weather, Monograph Supplemenl, Psych. Rev., No. 10, 1899 ; ib.. Popular Science Monthly, Ap. 1902. 3l8 MAN AND WOMAN., curve indicates a somewhat gradual increase to an excess of loo per cent., or double the expected number, for the temperature groups 80° to 85°, at which point it makes a drop to 33 per cent, (due to the exhausting and devitalising influence of great heat). The curve for males shows neither extreme so far from the expected result, nor is the drop at the end so marked. Sensibility to the influence of seasonal changes is shown in a marked manner by the prevalence of insanity and suicide during the spring and summer months.^ Suicide by no means necessarily implies insanity; it involves, however, a similar condition of mental instability, and it is largely subject to the same cosmic laws. Morselli, in his monograph on Suicide, notes in women the quicker development of suicidal tendency during the summer season or the first warmth of spring. "The greater proportion of suicides among women," he remarks, " is manifest, whether during the whole season (Italy, Prussia, and Saxony) or in the warmest months of June (France) or July (Bavaria). In Italy and Saxony is to be noted the same prevalence of suicides among women in the months of April and May, while the proportion offered by women in certain warm months (as July in Bavaria) largely exceeds the highest monthly average of men." Turning to the question, " What is the monthly average of suicides through mental disease in the two sexes ? " Morselli found from the data he collected that " among women violent deaths through madness are proportionately more numerous in those months which, by reason of their average temperature, operate fatally — that is, in April, when the first heat, though not intense, is felt exceedingly by the cerebral organism not yet accustomed to it, ^ Durkheim in his sociological study, Le Suicide, 1897, ch. iii. , regards these seasonal phenomena as really social, and due to the greater length of the day in summer. HYPNOTIC PHENOMENA. 319 and in July, when the average monthly temperature reaches the maximum of the year." It must be added that some slight examination of the suicide rates that I have been able to make, considering them not by month but by season, do not altogether confirm Morselli's conclusions. In Saxony, for example, during the years 1876-79, I find that while 28.5 of the total male suicides took place in the spring, only 26.1 of the female suicides were committed during that season. And if we group together the Teutonic and Scandinavian countries — Prussia (1869-72), Saxony (1876-79), Denmark (1874-78), Norway (1866-70), Sweden (1833-51) — it will be found that out of a total of 18,836 male suicides 28.3 per cent, occurred in spring, and out of a total of 4,815 female suicides 28.2 occurred in spring; while 30.3 per cent, of the male suicides and 29.3 per cent, of the female suicides were com- mitted in summer; 22.5 per cent, male suicides and 23.6 per cent, female suicides were committed in autumn, and precisely the same percentage of 18. g male and female suicides took place during the winter. This shows no marked sexual difference, and the preponderance of women in the autumn is almost exactly balanced by the preponderance of men in the summer. Morselli's conclusions cannot be accepted unreservedly without further investiga- tion. As to the varying incidence of insanity, month by month, in the two sexes, I do not possess much evidence. So far as I am aware, the question of any sexual difference in this respect has not been raised. Figures of 2669 admissions to asylums in France, supplied by Parchappe to Bucknill and Tuke,^ seemed to show that men were more affected by season than women. The result is different, however, if we turn to the very much larger figures (nearly 40,000) sup- ^ Manual of Psychological Medicine, 1S58, p. 249. 320 MAN AND WOMAN. plied by Scotch asylums during eighteen years.^ Per 1000 men during the years 1865-74 the excess of admissions during the spring and summer over the autumn and winter was 54, and during the years 1880-87 it was 58. For women during the first period the excess in spring and summer over autumn and winter was 66, and during the second period 76. During the three spring months the proportion of male insane admitted was 27.1 per cent., that of females 27.5 per cent. Or, expressed in another way, while in the months of January during these years the admissions of men and women were nearly equal, being 1493 men to 1481 women, in May there were i66g men admitted to 1952 women, being a large excess of women. The greater sensitiveness of women to this seasonal influence is therefore in Scotland fairly constant and well marked. In New York Dexter has lately found that the yearly curve of the incidence of insanity is more marked in females (though his numbers are hardly sufficiently large) ; a chief clim.ax in May and minor climaxes in March and September were all more marked in the females. Daily observations of the pulse-rate, temperature, etc., all furnish a fruitful field for the investigation of the various monthly, yearly, and other physiological rhythms, which has at present been very little exploited. (I may refer, however, to the in- teresting observations of Mr. F. H. Perry-Coste, "The Rhythm of the Pulse," University Mag., Feb. 1898; cf. Havelock Ellis,. " Sexual Periodicity," Studies in the Psychology of Sex, vol. i.) There is also an interesting connection between meteorologic sensibility and seasonal influences on the rate of bodily growth. The investigations of Wretlind in Sweden, and of Wahl and especially Malling-Hansen in Denmark, have shown that season exercises a very marked influence on the rate of growth of children. It is not yet quite clear to what extent this seasonal influence is connected with the influence of holidays, but there ^ Reports of Board of Commissioners in Lunacy, Scotland, I7lh Report, p. 26, and 31st Report, p. 28. Quoted, with many observa- tions on the physiological influence of season, in Leffingwell's Influ- ence of Reasons upon Conduct (Social Science Series), 1892, pp. loi, 2 57- HYPNOTIC PHENOMENA. 321 is no doubt that it is very largely a genuine and regular physio- logical phenomenon. Malling-Hansen has shown that fromi the point of view of body-growth there are three seasons in a child's year: — (i) from the end of November or beginning of Decem- ber until the end of March or beginning of April; during the whole of this period, development, both as regards height and weight, is at a low ebb; (2) from March-April until July-August; during this period there is great development in height but no increase in weight, even some loss; (3) from July- August to November-December; this is the period of growth in weight; the daily increase is at this time three times as great as during the winter, but increase in height is at a minimum. There are slight independent oscillations in growth, chiefly depending on changes in temperature; thus Malling-Hansen shows that even an elevated temperature lasting only a few days will produce an increase in growth. It is of great interest to observe that the period of physical quiescence corresponds almost precisely with the period of emotional quiescence, as shown by the comparative infrequency of insanity, suicide, murder, and offences against chastity. I have not seen Malling- Hansen's original memoir, and cannot say whether his figures show any marked sexual differences. NEURASTHENIA AND HYSTERIA. Neurasthenia and hysteria are probably the typical nervous disorders of women. Our attention is called to them here because in their main outlines they exhibit the characteristics common to hypnotic phenomena generally. Neurasthenia, as it is now generally called, — or spinal irritation, nervosism, etc., as it was formerly called, — is not a modern complaint. It is at least as old as Hippocrates, the Father of Medicine, although it was not until the last century that — owing chiefly to Beard in America and Bouchut in France — it was fully described. Even now, however, neurasthenia is only a large collection of vague nervous symptoms which not all authorities can reckon as a definite disorder; thus Schiile and Mendel are inclined to class a large number of such cases as hypochondriasis, while others would consider them as mild examples of melancholia, hysteria, etc. It is of 21 322 MAN AND WOMAN. no interest from our present point of view how the phenomena are classified or what they are called. There is general agreement that under any name they are much more common in women. In the experience of some authorities as many as fourteen out of every fifteen cases are women, though this is no doubt an excessive proportion. The symptoms are, generally speaking, a weakness of the nervous system — including both brain and spinal cord — due partly to insufficient or inappropriate nutrition and partly to faulty development, showing itself by a tendency to over-action and irritability of the nervous system, morbid sensibility, and mental anxiety. It may present all degrees of intensity, and although it is not a definite organic disease, the neurasthenic condition is the soil on which organic nervous diseases may grow. The study of neurasthenia throws so much hght on the nature and on the beginnings of the nervous and hypnotic conditions which are especially common in women, that it seems worth while to indicate its chief outlines. I will especially follow the admirable and precise account given by Professor Rudolf Arndt of Greifswald in his article on " Neurasthenia " in the Dictionary of Psychological Medicine. The distinct peculiarities of neurasthenia are negative rather than positive. We are sure to find either hypochondriacal or paralytiform or epileptoid or hysteroid symptoms, but they are not sufficiently developed to enable us to say that hypochondriasis or melan- cholia or general paralysis, epilepsy or hysteria or locomotor ataxy, is really present, although any of these diseases may possibly emerge ultimately; it must be remembered that there is no function without an organ, and therefore no functional disorder without an organic basis which may develop into a definite disease. Although in neurasthenia there is really deficient nervous power, there appears, in accordance with a well-recognised law of nerve-stimulation, to be an increase of nervous energy. This is because there is a decrease of nerve-resistance, and the nervous system responds too readily and too emphatically to a slight degree of stimulation. This exaggerated excitability, which is characteristic of neurasthenia, is therefore closely associated with that loss of complete control which we have found to be an essential element in all hypnotic phenomena. HYPNOTIC PHENOMENA. 323 At a later stage this increased excitability rapidly decreases; the nerve becomes blunted or paralysed, and fails to respond adequately even to strong stimulation. Sensory nerves being normally more excitable than motor, hyperaesthesia, or morbid sensibility, appears somewhat earlier than muscular weakness: these two symptoms — hyperesthesia and muscular weakness — are the chief characteristics of neur- asthenia. No objective foundation can be found for the hyper- aesthesia, which is the most common phenomenon, so that it is often regarded as imaginary, although it is far from imaginary to the patient, and may cause misery during the greater part of life. All kinds of unpleasant sensations and pains are felt in all parts of the body, and, as in all sensations and pains the brain must take part, we have in neurasthenia an element of what has been called cerebral irritation. This cerebral irritation is often shown by all sorts of morbid dreads which may find a kind of basis in the abnormal sensations. Thus we may have agoraphobia or the fear of open spaces claustrophobia or the fear of enclosed spaces, anthropophobia or the fear of being with others, rupophobia or the fear of being dirty, nyctophobia or the fear of night, and a vast number of other fears to which it is not worth while to give names. (A vivid literary picture of such morbid obsession is to be found in a chapter of Sorrow's Lavengro; it is undoubtedly taken from life.) Obsessions are much more common in women; Pitres and Rdgis found 154 cases in women to 96 in men (" Obsessions et idees fixes," Coniptes-yendus.du XII. Congres Int. de Med., Moscow, 1897, vol. iv., part i., p. 45 ; these ideas have been studied in women with very great care by Janet). In the simplest and most elementary form these fe|rs may be called natural ; in their most pronounced form, and carried beyond all control of reason, they belong to the domain of insanity; in neurasthenia we have them in an intermediate stage. The abnormal motor phenomena correspond to the sensory. At first they are excessive, as they are in all varieties of hypnotic phenomena; spasmodic cramps and twitchings are present with great frequency, but languor and immobility may also be present. The pupils are dilated or unequal; the tendon reflexes are ex- aggerated; yawning is often frequent, and there is a tendency to blush, which Beard and other authorities consider as a very characteristic symptom of neurasthenia. Neurasthenia is a general condition of agitation of the nervous system, and it is not surprising that we find it with especial frequency in both men and women who overstrain their brains, in artists and 324 MAN AND WOMAN. writers and those who are over-strenuous in social movements. Hysteria, which is one of the chief of the more definite diseases to which neurasthenia may lead, has no necessary connection of this kind with mental tension. It occurs with much greater fre- quency among those whose nervous activities are unemployed. Although one of the greatest of the old English physicians, Sydenham, laid our knowledge of hys- teria on a sound and scientific basis, the word has too often been used in a loose and inaccurate sense, or even as a mere term of abuse, and it is only within recent years that it has been somewhat more rigidly defined and its nature more precisely investi- gated in detail. This advance is very largely owing to the initiative of Charcot and to the brilliant and painstaking students of nervous disease who grew up around him at the Salp^triere.^ Hysteria is a disease which affects the whole nervous system, and more especially the brain ; it is, as Charcot taught and is now usually agreed, essentially a psychic disease.^ If we try to make clear to ourselves the broad general character of the mental phenomena in hysteria, we shall find that they may be summed up in one word — suggestibility.^ Response to suggestion is a funda- mental normal character of all nervous tissue. Even among bees it is said that when a band of brigand bees enter a strange hive to despoil it of honey, the owners of the hive are themselves sometimes so carried away by the contagion of rapine that they will even go over to the robbers' side and assist in destroying the result of their own labours. The ^ For a clear and judicious summary of the present position of know- ledge regarding hysteria, see Gilles de la Tourette, Traiti clinique et therapeutiqtte de I'Hystirie, d'aprh V enseignement de la SalpStriire, Paris, 1891. For a discussion of the definitions of hysteria, see the articles by Pierre Janet in the Archives de Netirologie, vol. xxv., 1893. ^ Charcot, Lefons du Mardi, t. i. p. 205, 1887. ° See the admirable chapter on the mental condition in hysteria -in Gilles de la Tourette's Trails clinique, etc., 1891, pp. 486-555. HYPNOTIC PHENOMENA. 325 same irrational suggestibility is found among healthy human beings, at all events in an incipient state. An English prison matron confessed that sometimes when she heard the women under her care " break out " (as it is called) and commence smashing and destroying everything they could get hold of, it was as much as she could do to restrain herself from joining in ; and many persons have experienced a similar impulse. In hysteria this tendency is so heightened that it becomes irresistible, and may be aroused by the faintest suggestion from without, and also from with- in. Thus there is what Huchard, who belongs to a somewhat older school, calls moral ataxy.^ And Fere, in allusion to this almost uncontrollable re- sponse to stimuli, has called the hysterical subject " the frog of psychology." Dr. Conolly Norman (who considers that "weakness, with irritability, is the fundamental note of the hysterical character") has the following observations on "hysterical mania," a form of insanity which is combined with hysteria: — "The sufferer from hysterical mania is exceedingly emotional. The pain of melancholia is unknown, the appearance of depression is very shallow. A trifling and passing depressive emotion is re- sponded to by instant tears, perhaps with loud outcry and by a great display of grief, but the feeling is quite temporary. There is a certain hyperassthesia showing itself by a too quick response to every emotional irritation without any permanent substratum of painful feeling. In a similar way there is a sharp irritability of temper without the constant state of anger which will some- times occur in other forms of mania. The entire emotional state is unstable in the extreme, and the expression of emotion bears a peculiar whimsical and uncertain character, such as is also seen in the entire conduct of the patient. Impulse is very apt to be translated into action with alarming rapidity. Impulse and whim sometimes rise almost to the dignity of ruling motives in a mind incapable of forming any fixed resolution." (Art. " Mania, Hysterical," in Diet, of Psych. Med.) This mental mobility, emotional facility, and uncontrollable response to stimuli have frequently led to charges of wanton deception and simulation against the hysterical. Such charges ' Huchard, "Caractere, mceurs, etat mental des Hysteriques," Arch, de Nezirologie, 1882, p. 187. 326 MAN AND WOMAN. are quite unfounded. "The real deceiver," as Gilles de la Tourette well remarks (Traits clinique, etc., p. 527), "is an active and reasoning being; the hysterical, when they deceive, are not conscious of the deception; they are passive beings, photographic plates which register and show forth their impres- sions as they have received them, sometimes amplified, indeed, but always with the good faith of unconsciousness. ' Decep- tion' is a word which has been abused beyond measure in hysteria, so as to have been made the characteristic of a morbid species. It must be added that this has been largely due to ignorance." Clouston has defined hysteria as "the loss of the inhibitory influence exercised on the reproductive and sexual instincts of women by the higher mental and moral functions." {Edinburgh Med. Journal, ]mie 1883, p. 1123.) The loss of the complete control exercised by the higher centres is undoubtedly an essential character of hysteria as of hypnotic phenomena gene- rally, but it is not usually accepted that there is necessarily any sexual element in hysteria. Formerly the sexual element in hysteria was somewhat exaggerated; there is now a tendency to unduly minimise it. (Havelock Ellis, "Auto-Erotism," Studies in the Psychology of Sex, vol. i.) Sexual irritation in any crude form, or any gross disease of the sexual organs, is certainly not essential in hysteria, but many of the symptoms of hysteria can be traced back to a sexual origin. It is noteworthy also that, as Lombroso points out {La Donna Delinquente, p. 613), the criminal offences of the hysterical very largely revolve round the sexual functions. There is often some perversion of the sexual emotion, so that, though the hysterical may crave for love and tenderness from the opposite sex, normal sexual relations may be indifferent or repulsive. Both among the "possessed" of former days and in modern times it has been noted that erotic dreams are very frequent in the hysterical, but that they are often painful rather than pleasurable. The mistake of sup- posing that there is some special connection between hysteria and the sexual organs has probably arisen from the undoubted fact that in women the organic sexual sphere is of greater extent than in men. When, therefore, the higher controlling centres are to some extent paralysed we must expect to find all sorts of phenomena traceable to a sexual origin more prominent in women. It is not so in hysteria only, but in nearly all varieties of nervous and mental disorder. It is necessary to say a word as to the relative frequency of hysteria in the two sexes. Up till within about twenty years it was always supposed that hysteria was enormously more frequent in women HYPNOTIC PHENOMENA. 327 than in men. Sydenham recognised hysteria in men, especially among those of studious and sedentary habits (no doubt including what we should now call neurasthenia), but hysteria in the male had always been regarded as a rarity. Briquet, the chief authority on hysteria during the middle of the last century, found one man to twenty women. In Germany Bodenstein has found in the polyclinique of Eulen- burg and Mendel one man to ten women. But Pitres at Bordeaux finds one man to two women, and at Paris Gilles de la Tourette found that among Charcot's cases there was also one man to two women. It is no longer possible, therefore, to assert that hysteria in men is rare. At the same time there is excellent reason for believing that it is scarcely so frequent as these recent statistics would lead us to think. It is generally agreed that hysteria in men usually occurs among the poor and ill-nourished classes who frequent hospitals, while in women it occurs chiefly among the idle and well-to-do, whose numbers do not swell hospital statistics. Again, it has been found by Charcot and others that hysteria in the male is a more serious and obstinate affection, while in the female mild cases are much more usually seen; this also tends to vitiate the statistics of the frequency of hysteria according to sex, as it is only the serious cases which prominently attract medical attention. We may safely conclude that while hysteria in men is more frequent than was once supposed, it is much more common in women. Such a conclusion is in harmony with the opinions of the greatest masters in the science of morbid psychology, from Sydenham, who asserted that there are very few women (except those leading a hard and laborious life) who are entirely exempt from some trace of hysteria, down to Tonnini, in whose vigorous phrase the hysterical person is the colossal image of all that is most peculiarly feminine — la gigantessa delta femimlita. 328 MAN AND WOMAN. There is an interesting parallelism, and probably a real deep- lying nervous connection, between the suggestibility of women and the special liability of female butterflies, birds, and mammals to be mimetic in coloration, etc. Mimicry, or suggestibility, is an adaptation to the environment, ensuring the protection of the sex that is less able to flee or to fight. RELIGIOUS HYPNOTIC PHENOMENA. There is a very intimate connection between hypnotic phenomena — understood in the broad sense in which I have here used the term — and the phenomena of rehgion. The part played by women as religious leaders is by no means so large as the large proportion of women in religious movements would lead us to expect, but it is considerable, and it has been most conspicuously exercised in that part of religion which covers the field of hypnotic phenomena. As " prophetesses," women, who seem to have fallen into the trance state and seen visions or heard dogmas, which they subsequently declared, have often been of the greatest service to religious leaders, and conspicuously helped to draw disciples by the charm of the supernatural. Apelles, the founder of the Apellseans of the second century, was powerfully assisted by the prophetess Philumene. Montanus, who was himself similarly affected, was closely associated with the prophetesses Priscilla and Maxi- milla, who were subject to ecstasy, during which they had visions that seem to have influenced Tertullian, one of the greatest of the Latin Fathers. The Quintilians, led by the prophetess Quintilia, were a branch of the Montanists, and their virgins in public assembly wore white robes and exercised prophetic functions; they asserted that women are entitled to exercise all the sacerdotal and episcopal functions. Petersen, a visionary Millennarian of the eighteenth century, was aided by his wife, who was also a visionary, and with them was associated an inspired countess, who was also honoured with visions. It HYPNOTIC PHENOMENA. 329 would not be difficult to multiply examples of women playing an important part in religious movements who have exhibited hypnotic phenomena in a high degree. A very large proportion of the most eminent female saints who led a conventual life were in the highest degree hysterical. It will, however, be suffi- cient to refer to two religious sects which have both been founded or led by women, and which have both been intimately identified with (non-hysterical) forms of hypnotic phenomena. The Shakers were not founded by a woman, but by a man and a woman in conjunction, James Wardley, a Quaker tailor, and his wife ; their most distinguished and successful leader was, however, Anne Lees, of Manchester, who transferred the sect to America, where, under her guidance and by means of her missionary zeal, it grew and flourished. The community was founded on a communistic basis, and the property was admir- ably managed; the religious characteristics of the sect, in which women always took a very prominent part, lay in their worship, in which music and singing were especially conspicuous, the ministry as ordinarily understood being entirely abolished; they held that the history of the return of the prodigal justified their adoption of music and dancing as leading parts of public worship, for it was the elder son, representing the natural man, who condemned these soul-reviving practices. Their religious exercises, we are told, con- sisted chiefly of " Shaking and trembling, singing and dancing, leaping and shouting, and prophesying and speaking with new tongues." Hypnotic phenomena, less crudely muscular in character, but not less well marked, form the chief distinguishing character- istics of the Theosophists. It is instructive to note that this is at once both the only modern religious sect of any importance founded and led by women, and the only modern sect established on " magical " and esoteric doctrines and practices. It is thus of profound interest to the student of history, as 330 MAN AND WOMAN. it enables him to understand how "magical" and esoteric sects — in which, again, women played a con- spicuous part — sprang up and flourished under eastern influence on the decay of the Roman Empire. There is another great class of religious movements in which the various hypnotic phenomena, especially those of a contagious character, play so large a part that nearly every intellectual element disappears. Such religious movements, which are unquestionably morbid in character, are very largely and sometimes exclusively manifested in women, and they rarely possess any prominent leader. They are often saltatory in character, and are in some cases varieties of that epidemic nervous disorder called hysterical chorea. The Dancers, a religious sect of the fourteenth century, which arose at Aix-la-Chapelle and spread throughout Belgium, present an admirable example of religious hypnotic phenomena in which women played a prominent part. The Dancing Mania began immediately after the pagan midsummer orgies of St. John the Baptist's Day in 1374. ^^^i and women seemed to have lost all self-control. Suddenly, whether in public or private, they would begin dancing, while holding each other's hands, and would continue dancing with extreme violence until they fell down exhausted; during these periods of muscular agitation they were insensible to outward impressions, and were favoured with wonderful visions.^ The Camisards, or prophets of the Cevennes, who arose in Dauphine and Vivarais in the seventeenth century, and met with much success in France and England, exhibited a variety of hypnotic phenomena, in which, as usual, women were prominent adepts. These people were subject to ecstasy, and, as they con- sidered it, the inspiration of the Holy Ghost. " They had strange fits," we are told, "which came upon them with tremblings and faintings, as in a swoon, ■• Hecker, Epidemics of ihe Middle Ages, "The Dancing Mania," Chap. i. HYPNOTIC PHENOMENA. 33I which made them stretch out their arms and legs, and stagger several times before they dropped down. They struck themselves with their hands, they fell on their backs, shut their eyes, and heaved their breasts. The symptoms answer exactly to those pro- duced by inspiring nitrous oxide, and were the fact then discovered we should have been tempted to suspect imposture. They remained a while in trances, and coming out of them declared that they saw the heavens open, the angels, paradise, and hell. Those who were just on the point of receiving the spirit of prophecy dropped down, not only in the assemblies, but in the fields, and in their own houses, crying out Mercy. The least of their assemblies made up to four or five hundred, and some of them amounted to even three or four thousand. The hills rebounded with their lopd cries for mercy, and with impreca- tions against the priests, the Pope, and his anti- Christian dominion ; with predictions of the approach- ing fall of popery. All they said at these times was heard and received with reverence and awe.''^ This is an admirable picture of a religious orgy of the uncontrolled hypnotic activities of the human organism. In the convulsive religious epidemic of Redruth, at the beginning of the past century, which spread with extreme rapidity over a considerable region from Helston to Camborne, and which was marked by uncontrollable movements of all parts of the body, no age or sex was exempt, but girls and women were the most frequent victims. The religious nervous affection of the Shetland Islands, which belongs to about the same period, was almost identical in character, and almost exclusively affected young women." ' A Dictionary of All Religions, Art. "Camisars," in which references are given to original authorities. ^ Hecker, Epidemics, "The Dancing Mania," Chap. iv. and Appen- dix V. The hysterical phenomena witnessed during the great religious 332. MAN AND WOMAN. At Morzine, a little village in the Haute-Savoie, during 1861-65 there was a hysterical religious epidemic in which gentle young girls during the paroxysm replied judiciously to questions in various languages, uttered abominable blasphemies, were subject to hallucinations, climbed trees with marvel- lous agility, and gave forth prophecies which were sometimes realised. They knew nothing afterwards" of what had gone on. The epidemic seems to have been confined to young girls, and the population generally regarded the pherlomenon as supernatural. The ecclesiastical authorities attempted exorcism in vain, but the civil authorities, with a brigade of gendarmerie and isolation of the affected individuals, were more successful. A somewhat similar outbreak also took place some years ago at Verzegnis, a mountain village in Friuli, after a mission preached by a Jesuit father among a superstitious population predisposed to hysteria. The phenomena were those of profound hysteria of demoniac form, chiefly or exclusively in women, and they were dissipated with great difficulty by somewhat the same means as those adopted at Morzine.^ A few years ago the little town of Alia, near Palermo, became famous on account of the religious enthusiasm of its female inhabitants;; insanity, epilepsy, and hysteria abounded, and the town fell into great moral and physical misery.^ Russia is the only country to-day in which it is possible to study all the various forms of hypnotic religious phenomena, and here indeed they may be studied in their most intense manifestations and on a very wide scale. The strong religious instincts of the people, the primitive conditions of their life, their semi-pagan beliefs, and the .suffering and oppression revival of 1859 in Ireland have been very well studied in a pamphlet of great interest by Archdeacon Stopford, " The Work and the Counter- work," Dublin, 1859. ^ Pitres, Lefons cliniijues sur VhysUrie, vol. i. pp. 40-44. ^ " La Psychopathie religieuse d'Alia," V Endphale, 1881. HYPNOTIC PHENOMENA. 333 to which they are subjected, all tend to heighten the play of hypnotic religious emotion. During the past century a number of religious sects have been founded, or have developed, which have prac- tised dancing, leaping, flagellation, even castration, although some of them have been at the same time of a practical and rationalistic character. In all these sects women play a very prominent part; in some the majority of the members are women; a few have been founded by women. It is not sur- prising that in these Russian sects women enjoy a position of freedom equal to that of the men. The sect of Christs (or Khlysts) believe that every person contains, or may contain, a portion of the divinity, and is worthy of adoration. Amid dancing and sobbing, which play a very important part in Russian mystical sects, the Holy Spirit descends. It is a wild and giddy dance which begins at midnight, after long hours of prayers and psalm- singing and religious discussion. Then the Christs rise, both men and women remove all their gar- ments and put on long white shirts and white cotton stockings. Candles are lighted, and after singing a monotonous chant a few begin to leap and to dance. Gradually the others join, and they beat time with their feet, the men in the direc- tion of the sun, and the women in the opposite direction. Their movements increase in rapidity, and their sobs become more violent. Each Christ begins to revolve, the men to the right, the women to the left, with such rapidity that the face cannot be distinguished. They leap, they contort themselves, they run after each other, they flagellate each other. In the midst of mad laughter, of cries and sobs, loud shouts are heard : " It is coming ! It is coming ! The Holy Spirit is coming ! " Then the excitement of this strange danse macabre of shouting, half-naked, white- garmented figures — which produces a tremendous effect on the novice — begins to culminate. Men and 334 MAN AND WOMAN. women tear off their garments, go about on all fours, ride on one another's backs, and give way to the sexual erethism which had been exalted to the highest point. The Christs reject marriage, and generally practise ascetism, but at such moments they are carried beyond themselves, and they feel that the physical emotions they experience are sanctified. There are a great many women among the Christs; at one of their resorts the police, in 1845, found nearly one hundred young girls. Women among them enjoy great honour, as well as equal rights with men. At their religious ceremonies some strong, beautiful, and intelligent young woman is often chosen for special adoration as the personification of divinity and the emblem of generative force; they call her the Virgin Mary, and they identify her with the Earth Goddess. She is their priestess; they prostrate themselves before her; she bears on her head a sacramental plate of grapes, and solemnly distributes them to the worshippers. Among the Skoptsy, a sect related to the Christs, the same observances and the same worship of women are carried to a still higher point; the castration or mutilation of both men and women is practised in their rites; they sometimes worship a naked young girl, cover her with kisses, and when she has reached the necessary pitch of reckless exaltation she allows them to communicate in her blood. It has some- times been found among groups of Skoptsy that more than half the members are women.^ Religious movements of this epidemic character find their chief adepts among persons in whom the inhibiting influences of the higher intellectual centres are in but a lowly stage of development. The com- 1 These and other semi-Christian mystical and rationalistic sects are described in the interesting work of N. Tsakni, La Russie Sectaire, 1888. The Christs or Khlysts have lately been studied by Dr. Paul Jacoby of Orel (Arch. d'Anlh. Crim., 15th Dec. 1903); he finds that their leaders are often hysterical or insane, and that their practices resemble those of Finnish shamanism. HYPNOTIC PHENOMENA. 335 paratively rare cases in which individuals of more than average mental culture are attracted in any number to a religious movement of this kind seem to belong to periods of over-strenuous intellectuality, during which a number of individuals are forced to adopt a rationalistic ascetism for which they are unfitted; at last the rationalistic fetters fall off, and the suppressed hypnotic centres explode with im- mense satisfaction. This is the most important key to the psychology of " conversion." It is natural that we should find hypnotic pheno- mena most highly developed among primitive races, and the shaman, who is nearly everywhere the priest or priestess of savage races, presents the perfected type of hypnotic phenomena devoted to religious service and carried to the highest point of develop- ment.'- ' Among the numerous religious movements of hypnotic nature in somewhat primitive races may be mentioned that exhibited by the Russian klikuschi ("screaming women possessed"). The klikuschi were women attacked by severe paroxysms of hysterical religious emotion, which usually lasted for a short time only, but might continue for a day or more. These women were persecuted and tortured in the Middle Ages. An allied form of hypnotic religious emotion is the ikota, which is found among the Samojed women of Siberia. It occurs almost ex- clusively in married women, and in its milder forms is characterised by listlessness, with occasional out- . bursts of anger, and in its more developed forms by brief outbursts of maniacal excitement. 1 At the present day in Siberia, among the tribes whose religion is shamanistic, besides the male shamans there are also very frequently female shamankas. Solovieu states that the shamankas are regarded as inferior to the shamans, except in the cure of mental diseases. Gmelin saw, however, among the Yakuts a shamanka, twenty years of age, who was much respected even by old shamans, and among the Tunguses he found that shamankas are sometimes superior to shamans (Jour. Anth. Inst., Nov. 1894, p. 129). 336 MAN AND WOMAN. In Abyssinia, again, at the beginning of the last century, the tigretier, as described by Nathaniel Pearce, an uneducated but reliable witness, closely resembled the mediaeval Dancing Mania, and was especially common among women, though "men are sometimes afflicted, but not frequently." In Abyssinia to-day the women are very subject to hysteria. One more form of hysterical hypnotic emotion, propagated by imitation, is the lata found among the Javanese, and in an allied form called lattah in Malacca. It chiefly occurs among native women, both of higher and lower social rank, and is marked by paroxysmal outbursts of involuntary movement with rapid ejaculation of inarticulate sounds, corre- sponding to the "speaking with tongues" found among Christian sects. 'There is temporary loss of consciousness, but the mental powers are intact except during the paroxysm. Lata assumes many forms, but in most of them, as in the Tarantism of the Middle Ages, and indeed in nearly all hypnotic manifestations, there is an irresistible tendency to imitation, a boundless suggestibility. The case is mentioned of a woman who appeared to be quite normal, but on any one throwing off a coat in her presence she would suddenly pass into a state of frenzy, strip herself of her clothes, and conduct her- self in other indecent ways, whilst all the time she kept abusing the instigator of what she regarded as an outrage. Again, the ship's cook of one of the local steamers, a pronounced sufferer from the disease, was dandling his baby on the deck. One of the men noticing this, picked up a billet of wood, and, standing in front, commenced nursing it in the same way. Presently he began tossing the billet up to the awning, the cook imitating his motions with the baby. Suddenly the sailor opened his arms, and the billet fell to the deck; the unfortunate cook did the same, and the child, falling on the planking, was HYPNOTIC PHENOMENA. 337 instantly killed. In other respects the subjects of lata are mentally quite sound.^ It is impossible here to deal at all adequately with the fascinating subject of religious psychology;^ but it will probably be sufficiently obvious that all the various forms and stages of hypnotic phenomena (as here understood) go to make up rehgious exaltation in its most characteristic forms. This fact is patent even to the devout historian of the Camisards, who, as we have seen, is struck by the close resemblance between the religious phenomena presented by that sect and the phenomena of anaesthesia by nitrous oxide, the lowest and least intellectual of the hypnotic states. The general characteristic of all the various hypnotic forms may be expressed by saying that there is lessened control by the higher intellectual centres and increased activity of the more spon- taneous and automatic motor and visceral centres. Or, if we prefer, we may say that the more highly co-ordinated action of the nerve centres gives way to their more inco-ordinated action, and therefore the presence of hypnotic phenomena indicates a some- what lower degree of mental integration.^ In catalepsy and anaesthesia there may be complete quiescence of the higher modes of action; in dream- ing, ecstasy, and hypnotism proper, they are taken into comparatively uncontrolled spheres; in hallu- cinations they remain in the normal sphere, but are perverted; in neurasthenia and hysteria there is merely a slightly lessened control of the higher 1 Art. "Klikuschi," "Ikota," " Lata," " Tigretier," Zi2V/. Fsyci^ Med. For several of these and allied hypnotic affections, occurring chiefly or exclusively in v^omen, see Max Bartels, Medicin der Naiur- volker, pp. 215-218. ^ Professor Starbuck's detailed study, The Fsychology of Religion, in which due attention is given to sexual differences, may be consulted with advantage. ^ "As we ascend the animal scale," Ferrier remarks {Functions of the Brain, 1886), "the centres of which the cerebro-spinal system is composed become more and more intimately bound up and associated with each other in action." 22 338 MAN AND WOMAN. centres; while the increased activity of the lower centres may be intertwined with a considerable degree of intellectual activity in the modes of re- ligious exaltation. It is not necessary here to discuss the causation of hypnotic religious phenomena. To do so would be to open up many interesting questions which are still scarcely ripe for solution. Tylor {Primitive Culture, 3rd edit., 1891, vol. ii. pp. 128-142, and pp. 410-421) has briefly discussed in his usual masterly manner the evolution of what I have here called hypnotic religious phenomena, from the earliest savage times to the revivals of the present day. He insists on the importance of fasting in their development : " Bread and meat would have robbed the ascetic of many an angel's visit; the opening of the refectory door must many a time have closed the gates of heaven to his gaze." The importance of fasting in the evolution of visions is certainly great. It must be added that sexual abstinence has played a very prominent part in producing the more typical motor phenomena. Continence is enjoined on the adepts of nearly all religions. It is only among a few sects, and at the climax of religious excitement, that the sexual emotion has been regarded as sanctified. Its repression has usually been necessary to assist in elaborating the process of religious auto-intoxication. But the final explosion of the suppressed sexual instincts is often violent. Having been, as it were, diverted into a foreign channel, and their impetuosity at the same time increased, they finally break violently back into their normal channels. Anstie, an acute observer of some of the intimate details of the emotional life, has remarked (" Lectures on Diseases of the Nervous System," Lancet, Jan. nth, 1873) : "I know no fact in pathology more striking and even terrifying than the way in which the phenomena of the ecstatic state — which have often been seized upon by senti- mental theorisers as proofs of spiritual exaltation — may be plainly seen to bridge the gulf between the innocent fooleries of ordinary hypnotic patients and the degraded and repulsive phenomena of nymphomania and satyriasis." At the time when Anstie wrote the connection between spiritual exaltation and organic conditions was not so plain as it is at present, but he had clearly perceived the especial facility with which the ecstatic condition passes over into disordered sexual emotion. Since then the almost constant connection between ecstasy and sexual excitement has become fairly well recognised. (See, for instance, ConoUy Norman, Art. " Mania," Diet. Psych. Med.) The phenomena of the religious life generally are to a large extent based on the sexual life, and the majority of conversions HYPNOTIC PHENOMENA. 339 or < i^tm ^^^ ■"' "^ \ / / fO \ / t ^ J / / > I- ^ o 3 ^ *>" -^ y^ /I , ^r il >■' / r ^v "'^ f4 ^ ^ ,- ->*• < \ ■* "* -. •*i^ "*■ « , '^ ^ > ,^^ -' * -'' ,*f ^ -^ ? H f '*** '%. s \ V b. *~ ^. -~ ■*»^ f> — > >> V, / # \ / — — _ 1 1 \ xrt'''^ff*""" >^ "' « oa m a 3 M s i. !t d) r> d: < 340 MAN AND WOMAN. (about 80 per cent.) take place during adolescence. (See a suggestive paper by A. H. Daniels, B.D., "The New Life: A Study of Regeneration," Am. Journal Psych., 1893, vol. vi., No. I; Krafft-Ebing, Psychopathia Sexualis, 8th edit., 1893, pp. 8-1 1 ; and especially Starbuck, The Psychology of Religiott.) Starbuck found that in each sex conversion tends to occur within a year after the establishment of puberty; the average age of puberty being reckoned as 13.8 years for girls and l5.6for boys; the average age for conversion was 14.8 for girls and 16.4 for boys. It must be remembered that hypnotic phenomena are strictly physiological, although they are liable to be increased or modified to a degree that is distinctly morbid; an individual in whom the action of the higher centres had largely abolished the stirrings of the lower hypnotic centres would be morbid to a still greater degree. Hypnotic phenomena form, with the allied vaso-motor movements, the chief physiological basis of what we more generally call " emotion." When, therefore, we conclude that women are more liable than men to present hypnotic phenomena, we have but discovered in a more definite and funda- mental manner that women are more "emotional" than men. We have now to define more precisely what is meant by the " emotionality " of women. 341 CHAPTER XIII. THE AFFECTABILITY OF WOMEN. WHAT IS AN EMOTION? READIER RESPONSE OF THE VASO-MOTOR VASCULAR SYSTEM IN WOMEN — PHYSIO- LOGICAL AND PATHOLOGICAL EVIDENCE — THE HEART THE CONVULSIVE TENDENCY OF WOMEN EPILEPSY BLUSHING THE REFLEXES — TICKLISHNESS — LAUGHTER AND TEARS FACIAL EXPRESSION — THE IRIS THE BLADDER SUSCEPTIBILITY TO FRIGHT — MENTAL SUG- GESTIBILITY — OBSESSIONS — EMOTIONAL CAUSATION OF DISEASE PREDOMINATES IN WOMEN DESTRUCTIVE TENDENCIES "BREAKINGS OUT " — THE SOURCE OF THESE THE CONGENITAL EXHAUSTIBIHTY OF WOMEN — THE ADVANTAGES OF WOMEN'S AFFECTABILITY ANEMIA AND AFFECTABILITY — THE GREATER AFFECT- ABILITY OF WOMEN TO SOME EXTENT THE RESULT OF CIRCUMSTANCES, TO SOME EXTENT ORGANIC. Women respond to stimuli, psychic or physical, more readily than men. This general statement, though it may be modified or limited in certain respects, is un- contested. By what word we may best 'describe this characteristic of women's nervous constitution is less clear. We may call it with perfect correctness a greater "irritability," or "plasticity," or "suggesti- bility." All these terms are legitimate, but on the whole I prefer to use an old word, approved by Laycock,^ — sufficiently colourless to be unobjection- able, while it indicates both the quick psychic and ^ Laycock, Nervous Diseases of Woinen, p. 76. 342 MAN AND WOMAN. the quick physical response to stimuH, — and to speak of the greater "affectability" of women. In considering the preponderance of "hypnotic" phenomena in women — the tendency, that is, of the more primitive nervous centres to be stronger than the more recent centres, and to rise up in revolt against them — we were approaching on its most obscure side the greater emotionality of women. We are now approaching the emotionality of women from a somewhat less obscure side. What is an emotion ? We shall more easily gather the drift of the facts if we understand this at the out- set. It was formerly supposed, and is no doubt still supposed by many people, that an emotion is a purely mental phenomenon, and that anger or love may go on in the brain somewhat in the same way as an arithmetical calculation. • This is not the case. It is conceivable that, if the head could be removed from the body at will, the brain when isolated could per- form a mathematical calculation; it is no longer possible to believe that it could feel anger or love, or any other emotion, save in the most remote and intellectualised form. If it were found by the appli- cation of delicate physiological tests that a man's vascular and muscular systems were working at their usual normal tension, it could probably be affirmed that that man was not feeling emotion. No amount of self-control over the coarser expressions of emotion alters the case, for even to unscientific inspection the passion of ^e self-controlled man reveals itself by some quiver of muscle, some sudden pallor, some quickening of heart-beat. Just as it may be said: no muscle, no motion; so it may equally be said: no muscle, no emotion. Bocalosi, an Italian writer of the eighteenth century, in his book Delia Fisionomia, seems to have had a glimmering- of the truth that emotion depends on physical organisation. Its full- and precise statement has had to wait for the delicate investigations initiated during recent years by the great Italian physiologist, THE AFFECTABILITY OF WOMEN. 343 Angelo Mosso, of Turin. Mosso has shown, largely by means of various ingenious instruments, such as the plethysmograph and the balance, which he had himself devised, that the whole organism — especially the whole vaso-motor vascular system — responds at every psychic or physical stimulus, at a word or at a touch, and has brought evidence to show how every muscular movement and every intellectual effort produce an entire redis- tribution of blood in the body; so that the heart, the whole circulatory system, and all the viscera and glands form, as it has been said, a kind of sounding-board, against which every change in consciousness, however slight, at once reverberates. (For a charming and popular exposition of many of his results, see Professor Mosso's little book on fear.) The slight changes never reach consciousness again, but at a certain threshold of intensity they return to consciousness, and emotion is attained. The fact that the vaso-motor system — the neuro- muscular ruler of spontaneous organic life — responds more readily to stimulus in women than in men is embodied in the familiar saying that woman's heart is tender. This, as Mosso remarks, is only another way of saying that the nervous mechanism of women's hearts is excited, so causing them to beat more quickly, under the influence of stimuli by which men's hearts in a state of health are unaffected.^ A proof of the greater excitability of women's hearts is found in the fact, which has been noted by several observers, that there is a distinctly greater increase in the number of pulsations on awaking from sleep in women ; the excitement of waking life affects the hearts of women (and also of children) to a greater extent than those of men. 2 Even the complex phenomena of hysteria have been defined by Rosenthal as ultimately resolv- able into a weakness of resistance, congenital or acquired, of the vaso-motor system. And Fer6 quotes with approval the remark of Marshall Hall that hysteria is "very much a disease of emotion; the same organs, the same functions are affected." It is also worthy of note that the special tendency of women to be affected by the disease of the eyes ^ Mosso, La Peur, p. 84. ' Berlin, Art. " Sommeil (Physiologiqvie)," Did. ency. des Sci. MM. 344 MAN AND WOMAN. called glaucoma, which is accepted by nearly all authorities, is also referred by Priestley Smith to the greater instability of the vaso-motor system in women, and particularly to the disturbances of circu- lation which emanate from the generative organs.^ Women are more liable than men to convulsive manifestations. , This special convulsive tendency is expressed in the greater frequency in women of epilepsy, which may be roughly defined as a vaso- motor and neuro-muscular spasm of extreme violence, affecting primarily the brain, and secondarily the whole body. As Gowers points out, it is based on an abnormal readiness for action, or in other words an undue affectability. It was formerly supposed in England that epilepsy is some- what more common in men than in women. This was due, as Gowers and others have shown, to the confusion with true epilepsy of convulsive conditions caused by syphilitic brain disease and other physical disturbances. It is only in adult age (when these syphilitic conditions are most likely to intervene) that "epilepsy" is found more common in males. In France epilepsy has always been recognised as more common in females, and Esquirol placed the proportion as 3 to 2. Gowers in London finds it to be 108 females to 100 males, but, as he himself points out, at the hospital where he gathered most of his observations, the male patients are in excess. The greater prevalence of true epilepsy in women is indicated by the much greater frequency with which in males extraneous exciting causes can be assigned for the disease, and Gowers further points out that even in the first year of life there are nearly twice as many epileptic female infants as males. The chief period of life for the manifestation of epilepsy is in both ^exes puberty and adolescence, and Gowers finds that the maximum of cases in males is reached at the age of twelve, in females at the age of sixteen. It is not until after the age of twenty-nine that epilepsy begins to occur more frequently in males. The prognosis is slightly better in males than in females, who are also rather ^ P. Smiih, Pathology of Glaucoma, 1891, p. 132. Wagner has found in his practice at Odessa that among over 1200 cases of glaucoma, 38 per cent, were in men and 62 per cent, in women ; the predominance of women was marked at all age.'i, except under twenty, when the disease is extremely rare. Comptes-reiidus XII. Congi-es Int. Med. (iVIoscow), 1897, vol. vi. p. 180. THE AFFECTABILITY OF WOMEN. 345 more likely to suffer from mental defect (Sir W. R. Gowers, Epilepsy, 2nd ed., 1901; this book embodies the mature work of a clinical observer of extreme acuteness and penetration). In its greater severity and frec|uency in women, and less precocious development at puberty, epilepsy may be said to reverse the usual sexual difference in grave disease, and may thus be regarded as a more peculiarly feminine disease. It must also be regarded as especially associated in both sexes with the efflorescence of sexual life; in some cases it is only during the menstrual period that the attacks take place, and in others they are aggravated at that time. So marked is the tendency for epilepsy to appear in early life that Sir William Broadbent goes so far as to say that when it appears in adult life we must always seek for some contributory cause, or even suspect that we are not dealing with true epilepsy at all {Brit. Med. Jour., 4th Jan. 1902). Of the immediate causes of epilepsy the most generally assigned are psychical, — excitement, anxiety, and above all (more especially in early life) fright. These are causes which are specially operative in woman, being part of her greater affectability. It may be noted that the chief feature in the ordinary conduct of epileptics is their irritability and tendency to impulsive acts, frequently associated with religious or erotic ideas. The temperament of the epileptic declares itself before the fits actually appear. " When one has known these epileptics in childhood," Voisin remarks (Art. " Epilepsie," Jaccoud's Noiiveaii Diet, de Med.), "before the disease had developed, one found them quarrelsome, indocile, restless, very sensitive, falling into suffocating attacks of anger, growing pale in moments of ill-humour, making sudden move- ments. They are feeble in appearance and rather sad. I have several times noticed that epileptics were so timid in childhood and youth that they could iiot be left alone in the dark." All these signs — which cannot, however, be found in every case — are those of affectability. The general convuFsive tendency of women in its broadest aspects has been admirably discussed by an eminent gynaeco- logist, Dr. Robert Barnes, in his Lumleian Lectures on the convulsive diseases of women. Women's special proclivity to convulsive nervous diseases, he remarks, depends upon the reproductive functions, the great convulsive disorders of women being almost entirely limited to the period of reproductive activity. It is in the breeding season that the nei'vous ex- citability of the frog attains such a height that slight irritation of the skin will produce almost tetanic convulsions; "it is easy to perceive analogous phenomena, sometimes quite as pro- nounced, in the human female, at the advent of puberty, at the periods of ovulation, during gestation, and eminently during the act of labour." Labour, he observes, is a series of convulsions, 34^ MAN AND WOMAN. and during a labour pain, " the resemblance to epilepsy is, for the moment, so close that the two conditions can hardly be distin- guished." It is scarcely necessary to refer, further, to the ancient observation, " Coitus larevis epilepsia," and many physicians have noted that coitus may cause epileptic fits. In short, " an energy which may be compared with, if not identical in nature with, convulsion is an essential element in the leading acts of the generative function." The very periodicity of the sexual life in women, Barnes points out, indicates an accumulation of nerve force ready to use when the periodic occasion arises, or to burst out tumultuously. Barnes clearly realised the intimate asso- ciation between the convulsive proclivity of women and their proclivity to emotion, which takes a large part in every act or process of the generative function. " In short, emotional affect- ability is the measure of convulsive liability." (R. Barnes, " The Convulsive Diseases of Women," Brit. Med. Jour.., April 1873.) Blushing, which Darwin called the most human of all expressions, is a vaso-motor nerve storm of spontaneous and uncontrollable character. Its much greater frequency in women affords evidence that needs no insistence, of the greater affectability of the vaso-motor system.^ Partridge found that in those cases in which he had data as to age, there was a chief maximum between the ages of fifteen and eighteen (more especially at the earlier age), and a secondary maximum at twelve ; this corresponds curiously with the maxima for the appearance of epilepsy, and clearly indicates the intimate con- nection of blushing with the sexual life. One of the bases of the affectability of women, and the convulsive tendency, is to be found in the reflexes. To say that women are more affectable than men, and more emotional, means in part to say that reflex action is more developed than in ^ The physiology and pathology of blushing have been investigated by Darwin, Expression of the Emotions, and Dr. H. Campbell, Flush- ing and Morbid Blushing {iZ'y:!). Tilt found that flushes occurred in 244 women out of 500. Partridge {Pedagogical Seminary, April 1897) has carefully studied the phenomena of blushing in 120 cases (of which 84 were females) and of flushing in 134 cases, of which nearly all were women, or girls who had reached the age of adolescence. Blushing refers to the objective phenomena of this vaso-motor storm, and flushing to its subjective phenomena. THE AFFECTABILITY OF WOMEN. 347 men and less under control of the higher centres. In other words they are, in the widest sense of the term, more ticklish. Dr. Gina Lombroso has ex- amined a large number of persons, children and adults, normal and abnormal, of both sexes as regards the reflex responses of those parts of the body most sensitive in this respect, especially the abdomen and the soles of the feet. She found these very marked in children and in young people from fifteen to eighteen, but much diminished in adults; while the results as regards adults are not very clearly presented, it would appear that marked responses, as regards both abdominal and plantar reflexes, were distinctly more frequent in the women than in the men.^ Francotte of Liege has studied the radio-bicipital reflex in over 500 individuals of both sexes divided into various normal and abnormal groups. In all groups its absence was much less frequently found in women than in men. Its exag- geration, showing undue reflex hyperexcitability, was especially found among anaemic and neurotic subjects.^ The reflex wink, or the response of the eyelids to a sudden stimulus presented to the eyes, has been studied by Partridge among iioo school children at Worcester, Mass. He tested ability to inhibit the wink when a visual a.nd auditory stimulus was presented to the eyes on the other side of a piece of plate glass. The control of the wink was gained, much more speedily with increase of age. In boys this increase with age was rapid and regular; with girls it was less rapid and more irregular, with a marked regression at the age of eight, a slight one at ten, and a very marked regression, almost falling back to the level of the age of six, at twelve years. Partridge refers to " the fuller neuro-muscular training which the average boy receives from his freer life," but he cannot explain the regression of girls at 1 Coinpte- Rendu Cong. Int. d'Anth. Crim., Amsterdam, 1901, p. 295. ^ Jour. Ment. Science, April 1S97, p. 389. 348 MAN AND WOMAN. twelve; it would be interesting to know if the plantar and other reflexes show a similar deviation at this age. Irrespective of age the average number of winks was ig for a boy and 34 for a girl.^ Allied evidence of the convulsive tendency in women is furnished by the facility with which they yield to tears and laughter. Tears are defined by Sir B. W. Richardson ^ as " the result of a nervous storm in the central nervous system, under which there is such a change in the vascular terminals of the tear-secreting glands that excretion of water from the glands is profuse;" he points out that tears are not produced by pain even when amounting to agony, but occur when the sympathetic nervous system is most de- veloped and most impressionable, and the great emotions of fear, grief, and joy most active, and that hence it is that women are more given to tears than men. As regards laughter. Dr. Louis Robinson ^ has suggested that it has its basis in the reflex phenomena of tickling. Pouting, again, is a characteristically childlike method of automatic response to external stimuli which is rarely seen in its most emphatic form in adults, except sometimes during insanity; in a very slight" but still quite perceptible form it is, however, fairly common in women, especially as the unconscious indication of an offended dignity which cannot find expression in words. Women's faces are more expressive than men's, or, rather, it would be better to say, they are more mobile ; that is to say, that there is greater neuro- muscular affectability. If we watch the faces of the ' Partridge, "The Control of the Reflex Wink," Am. Jour. Psych., Jan. 1900. 2 Richardson, Art. "Tears, Psychology of," Tuke's Did. of Psych. Med. ^ Robinson, Art. " Ticklishness," Tuke's Diet, of Psych. Med. "The Psychology of Tickling" has been studied in a very interesting and suggestive manner by Stanley Hall and Arthur Allin, Am. Jour. Psych., Oct. 1897. Numerous studies of laughter have recently appeared, especially in France. THE AFFECTABILITY OF WOMEN. 349 men and women in the streets of London, or of any other crowded city, where people think themselves sheltered by numbers from inquisitive observation, it will be seen that while the men more usually have a fixed immobile expression, the women's faces are more usually in actual movement, the mouths twisting and the foreheads wrinkling, seeming to indicate an early stage of physiological distress. It cannot strictly be said that the women's faces are more expressive ; for if the men's stereotyped features may express a mood that is past, the fluctuating and evanescent muscular movements on the women's faces have not yet become co-ordinated into the expression of a definite mood. They are for the most part the play of a neuro-muscular mobility still submerged beneath the level of consciousness. Children's faces ■ are extremely mobile. Dr. Francis Warner, who has examined 100,000 school children, finds that the signs of undue nervous mobility are more common in girls, and that " defective expression " is much more rarely met with in girls. ^ In insanity women's faces usually express in a much higher degree than men's the apparently constant presence of intense emotional conditions. The mobility of women's faces is due to their affectability to stimuli both from within and from without; in the latter form it is closely related to suggestibihty, which is indeed but one of the forms of women's affectability. A woman instinctively responds more easily than a man to influences from without, even in spite of herself. A young woman, especially if her nervous control is at all defective, involuntarily changes when an individual of the opposite sex approaches; however indifferent he may be to her personally, she cannot ^ F. Warner, Report of a Conimittee as to Average Development and Condition of Brain Function among Children, 1888 ; Milroy Lectures on Physical and Mental Condition of School Children, Brit. Med. Journal, 1892; also a suggestive article by the same author on " Expression, Facial," in Diet, of Psych. Med. 350 MAN AND WOMAN. prevent the instinctive response of her vaso-motor and muscular system, and becomes at once shyer and more alive. Again, a man's rigid facial expres- sion does not respond as a woman's does to the faces it encounters. I have noticed the haggard face of a young woman whose child had just died break out momentarily into a pleasant automatic smile in response to the smile of an acquaintance; this could scarcely have happened to a man. A large portion of the " tact " of women has the same basis. This affectability has often been brought as a reproach against women, even by their own sex, but we must remember that to a large extent it is , physiological. The affectability of the involuntary muscular system is shown in ways that are not easily open to inspection, or which are not obvious. The pupil of the eye dilates involuntarily to all sorts of slight stimuli. Not only is it affected by light as well as in association with accommodation and convergence of the visual axes, but the irritation of almost any cutaneous nerve, as by pinching or pricking the neck, arm, or leg, and the stimulation of some of the nerves of special sense, such as by a loud noise, and various emotional conditions, all produce dilatation of the eyes. This result, according to Moeli and others, is much more constant in women and children than in men. The bladder, although its affectability to faint stimuli is not easily demonstrated, is, as Mosso and Pellacani have shown, an even more delicate aesthesiometer than the iris, and is probably the most delicate in the body. Mosso and Pellacani found that contraction of the bladder follows directly on the slightest stimulation of any sensory nerve, and also that all the varying conditions of the organism which raise the blood-pressure and excite the respiratory centres produce an immediate and measurable effect upon the bladder. These investigators found by experiments upon several young women, that when THE AFFECTABILITY OF WOMEN. 35I a plethysmograph was brought into connection with the bladder, even a slight touch with the finger on the back of the subject's hand produced a notable con- traction of the bladder, and whenever the subject spoke, was spoken to, or made the slightest mental exertion, there was a similar contraction.^ These reactions are much more delicate than those of the blood-vessels, and cannot be paralleled by any other part of the organism. The bladder, as Born puts it, is the mirror of the soul ; it would be equally correct to say that to some extent the soul is the mirror of the bladder. The fainter vesical contractions cannot be said to play a recognisable part in emotion, but when they attain a somewhat higher degree of intensity they play a well-recognised part ; " a nervous bladder," as Goodell puts it, "is one of the earliest symptoms of a nervous brain." Contraction of the bladder plays a part in the constitution of various emotional states of fear, anxiety, and sus- pense. In its extreme spasmodic form, as incon- tinence of urine, it is very common in children, and by no means uncommon in young women, quite apart from pregnancy or the results of pregnancy, though rare in men.^ No doubt other organs, if we could examine them with equal precision, would furnish similar evidence to that furnished by the heart, the iris, and the bladder. The comparatively larger size of the abdominal and some other organs in women, and the comparatively greater range of their physiological action, furnish a visceral basis for the greater affect- ability of women. 1 These experiments are briefly summarised in Art. " Urinary Bladder," by H. Ellis, Diet, of Psych. Med. '^ Stevenson, "Enuresis," Lancet, loth January 1891. It may be objected that this phenomenon is simply due to the shorter and broader urethra of women. Maurice Hache, however, one of the chief authorities on the bladder, states that the force required to produce expulsion is almost equal during life in men and women, though after death there is much less resistance in women's bladders. (Hache, Art. " Vessie," Diet. ency. ties Set. Med.) 352 MAN AND WOMAN. Fright is an emotion in which the phenomena I have been speaking of play a conspicuous part, and fright is an emotion which is seen in women far more than men. Among the lower social ranks more especially it is noteworthy how the women will start and call out in the presence of any unexpected phenomenon, although men of the same class are quite unmoved. Some Prussian statistics of suicide among school children show that while " fear of punishment " caused 19 per cent, of the suicides among the boys, it was responsible for 49 per cent, among the girls. This characteristic has probably been fostered by both men and women, since it leads to displays of strength and protection on the part of the man towards the woman which are equally grati- fying to both parties. Fright is a frequent origin of nervous disease in children and in women, but rarely in men. In the causation of epilepsy, according to Gowers, it is equally effective in each sex during childhood ; at puberty it is most effective in girls ; after twenty it is seldom traceable in men, but is still a relatively frequent cause in women. Chorea, again, or St. Vitus's dance, is a disease which is frequently caused by fright (in 27 per cent, cases, according to the Collective Investigation Committee of the British Medical Association), and simulates the defective muscular control and inco-ordination of fright; it is sometimes caused by imitation, and is altogether a disorder to which females are predisposed. On the whole, about three females are affected for one male; the preponderance of girls, as we should expect, is least marked in childhood ; after sixteen, when the disease falls markedly in frequency, it is rarely seen in boys, and between the ages of twenty and thirty it is practically confined to women. It may be added that all nervous diseases are in women largely due to emotional causes. Hammond is inclined to think that moral and emotional insanity without marked intellectual aberration is more common in girls than THE AFFECTABILITY OF WOMEN. 353 in boys.i Pitres found that emotion is influential in causing nervous disease in 54 women out of 69, but in only 8 men out of 31.^ It is due to their suggest- ibility that women are more liable than men to be affected by communicated insanity or folic a deux.^ It is owing to the great suggestibility of women that nearly everywhere hysterical manifestations in women have from time to time tended to take on an imitative character, so that the women thus affected have simulated the actions and especially the cries of various animals — dogs, cats, sheep, doves, etc. The prevalence of such manifestations of vocal hysteria in women has been noted for two thousand years.* Obsessions which, as we have seen, are much more frequent in women, are a special form of morbid emotivity, and are most usually caused, on a predis- posed mental soil,- by strong moral emotions, religious or sexual preoccupations, terror, or even horrible dreams; Pitres and Rdgis found that it is at puberty, between 11 and 15 years of age, that obsessions most usually begin to take root in the mind, and that it is between 26 and 30 (also a somewhat critical age in women) that they most usually develop. It is the same suggestibility that causes women to be less subject to nostalgia, or home-sickness, than men, and more adaptable to changes of habit and new impressions.^ In a similar manner, as is frequently seen, the wife of the " self-made man " is often much better able 'than her husband to adapt herself to the manners and customs of the new circles in which she moves. Some recent experimental results in psychology ^ Hammond, Insanity^ p. 96. ^ Lemons cliniques sur I'hystMe., etc., t. i. p. 36. •'' Hack Tuke, Art. " Communicated Insanity," Diet. Psych. Med. * F. Houssay, "Imitation Hysterique des cris d'Animaux," Rev. Mens, de I'Ec. d'Anth., 1898, p. 209. We are here brought near to manifestations more or less identical with those hypnotic phenomena we encountered in Chap. XII. 5 Widal, Art. " Nostalgie," Diet. ency. des Sci. Med. 23 334 MAN AND WOMAN. indicate that tiie affectability of women shows itself even in comparatively unemotional departments, and exercises a disturbing influence on their sense-judg- ments. Thus Gilbert found that in, experiments devised to show the influence of size in affecting judgments as to weight, among 2000 school children between the ages of six and seventeen, except at the age of nine when both sexes are equal, girls are throughout more suggestible than boys to the decep- tive influence of size, girls being most inferior to boys during the last three years.^ Triplett found also that 60 per cent, girls, and only 40 per cent, boys, were de- ceived by the pretence of throwing a ball into the air.^ Irascibility — "irritability" in the more homely sense of the word — is a form of affectability which has in all ages, and perhaps quite legitimately, been attributed to wo men. ^ As Terence said— " Mulieres sunt ferm^, ut pueri, levi sententia; Foftasse unum aliquod verbum banc inter eas iram conciverit." In its most extreme form this tendency shows itself in reckless and uncontrollable outbursts of purpose- less destruction. This may best be studied, although not exclusively, in the prison and the lunatic asylum. In prisons spasmodic "breakings out" of wild destructive violence are in England usually regarded as peculiar to the woman's side.* The greater obstreperousness of the female patients in lunatic asylums is well recognised ; as Dr. Clouston remarks, " there is ten times as much noise in the female wards as there is in the male wards; "^ and, as 1 Studies Yale Psychological Laboratory, vol. 2, 1894, p. 61. ^ Am. Jour. Psych., July igoo, p. iii. It should be added that Dresslar (Am. Jour. Psych., June 1894) testing illusions of weight due to size, among a small group of children, found the boys more suggest- ible; he also found that the most intelligent children were the most suggestible. ' See, for example, Lombroso and Ferrero, La Donna Delinquents, pp. 147-148. * See, for example, H. Ellis, The Criminal, pp. 142-152. ^ Journal of Mental Science, April 1893, P- 3'4- THE AFFECTABILITY OF WOMEN. 355 the same authority also points out, in the insanity of puberty a destructive tendency in the female seems to take the place of pugnacity in the male.^ The greater noisiness and talkativeness of insane women is by no means confined to one race. It has been noted by Raggi in Italy, and among so calm a people as the Russians I noted during a visit to the Alexiev Municipal Asylum in Moscow some years ago that it was found necessary to confine a few noisy women in solitary rooms, while on the men's side, the assistant physician informed me, all was quiet. Dr. Nacke of Hubertusburg, dealing with women who were at once both criminal and insane, found that among 53 individuals as many as 41 showed extreme irrita- bility; 23 were violent and liable to attack the attendant or the doctor, more especially at the menstrual epoch; most of these, although not all, were destructive, and in their wrath would destroy furniture, bed-clothes, their own garments, and especially window panes; of the latter several destroyed about forty per annum each; the ground of these outbursts is said to lie in the extreme irrita- bility and unbounded egotism of the women. The " breaking out," or Zuchthausknall, in its most sudden, violent, apparently unmotived, and almost epileptic form, was found by Nacke to occur in 12 cases.^ One reason why women love dancing is because it enables them to give harmonious and legitimate emotional expression to this neuro-muscular irritability which might otherwise escape in more explosive forms. Music, in a slighter degree, satisfies the same craving, for in a muffled but harmonious manner it exercises the whole of the emotional keyboard. In a thoughtful and interesting paper on " The Sexes in Lunacy'' {Si. Bartholomew's Hospital Reports, vol. xxiv. 1888), Dr. T. Claye Shaw discusses many of the points we are concerned with here. His paper is so full of instruc- 1 Clouston, Art. " Developmental Insanities," Diet. Psych. Med. ^ Nacke, " Verbrechen und Wahnsinn beim Weibe," p. 78. 355 MAN AND WOMAN. tion regarding the affectability of women generally — which in insanity is seen in its most unrestrained form — that I ven- ture to quote from it at some length, more especially as it is published in a somewhat inaccessible manner. After remai'k- ing that women are less willing to work in asylums than men, and that they " give infinitely more trouble than men and cause much more anxiety" (although, at the same time, it must be remembered, insanity is much less serious in women, as they far more frequently recover than men), he continues: "The number of women in an asylum who require extra supervision and consequent deprivation of liberty far exceeds that of the men. It is only epilepsy and drink that reduce men to the same condition as women. . . . Destructiveness is a very dangerous and troublesome symptom, and it must be said that it prevails to a far greater extent among women than among men. A look at the airing-grounds of an asylum is as good a test of this statement as can be got. On the male side the damage done is comparatively trifling, but on the female side the gardener is driven to despair, for broken trees, torn-up flowers, and trodden-down plants proclaim the presence in its exaggerated and insane form of the spirit that animated the occupiers. ... In the matter of clothes, too, the female patients are more destructive than the men. ... I have been up to now speaking more of aimless destruction, but when we come to purposed destruction the women have much the more unfavour- able account. Impulsiveness shows itself in glass-smashing or crockery-breaking, probably because these are the readiest ways in which they can vent their superabundant energy; and though men will at times do this, they never approach the other sex in their attempts in this direction. It would seem as if brain-action in women is quicker than in men, and that their proverbial rapidity in forming a conclusion is partly due to their natural excitability or proneness for discharge, and partly also to the natural education of life." Taking governesses, for example. Dr. Shaw finds that those who had themselves received only an ordinary " ladies' school " education, with the merely superficial emotional training which is usual, are troublesome, destructive, uncontrollable patients; those who had been trained ab initio io be high-class governesses, in a thorough-going methodical way (like many German governesses), though originally they may have been of ardent temperament, are able to some extent to control their emotional effervescence even when insane. "From my experience the Germans and the Scotch form the quietest and most reasonable patients; the Irish are, as a rule, very noisy and excitable: but for downright vindictiveness and unreasoning awkwardness I have never met the equals of the women who come from the parishes of the East of London. ... To many people the most striking difference between the sexes in asylums THE AFFECTABILITY OF WOMEN. 357 is in the language, and here the women hold the palm for volubility, abuse, and foul-mouthedness. There is no difference in this respect between the barefaced virago from the lowest parts of the town and the fashionable woman from the best quarter. . . . Certain it is that noise, filthy conduct, and sexual depravity, both by speech and act, are much more common on the female than on the male side of an asylum. I no more expect to find quiet and unobtrusive mania among women than I should hope to see Niagara without hearing the roar of it. . . In all forms of acute insanity the sexual element is more prominently shown in women than in men — a fact not to be wondered at, considering the important part the physiology of the reproductive organs plays in the life of the woman, causing her whole life to be instinctively blended with ideas more or less traceable to the rearing of offspring." The comparative fre- quency with which, as we have seen (pp. 313-315), sexual excitement occurs in women under the influence of anaesthetics is another proof of the predominant sexuality of women. Dr. Shaw points out finally how the natural impulsiveness and affectability of women are increased by her training in life: — " Women in acute states of insanity are abusive, indiscriminately violent, impulsive, obscene, and wayward out of all proportion to what men are, because they are fulfilling the condition that has been allowed to them in ordinary circumstances. Men have received their abuse with levity, and they think that they will still do so. When in their sane rage they have broken the furniture or used foul language and have been only laughed at, is it not natural that they should think that the same immunity from punishment will attend them in other circumstances ? When they have pouted and sulked until their wish has been gratified, is it not natural that they should do the same when through disease placed among strangers? Women have been treated in the same way as animals — they have been petted or cuffed according to the fancy of the moment; and because men have found it easier to let them talk than to argue with or con- tradict them, they (women) fancy that their surest way of success is by keeping themselves constantly en evidence^ by never taking ' yes ' or ' no ' for an answer, and, in short, by never ceasing to worry until they have gained their ends." But all the same, even when insane, women have charm for those whose duty it is to care for them, and Dr. Shaw concludes by saying that in insanity, as well as in ordinary life, "das ewig-weibliche zieht uns hinan." In this connection mention may be made of the extravagant exaltation of obscenity and cruelty, far surpassing that of men, to which women have been carried in times of popular epidemics of passion and excitement; this has been pointed out by Diderot, Despine, and others (see, for instance, Lombroso and Ferrero, 358 MAN AND WOMAN. La Donna Delinguente, p. 76), and Zola has given an artist's picture of it in Germinal. There is physiological ground for the saying that every woman carries a slumbering peiroleuse in her bosom. Lombroso has pointed out that while women generally take a very small part in revolutions, they take a large part in revolts. I may mention a typical instance, which occurred when I was in Barcelona during the revolt of the workers in 1901, and excited general comment. A young Catalan woman of the people placed herself at the head of a large body of strikers, mostly men, and displayed immense energy in organising and leading them. Nobody knew who she was, and when martial law was proclaimed in the city and the revolt subsided, she silently retired into the obscurity from which for a moment she had emerged. The evidence I have brought together in this chapter will help to make clear the statement made in the chapter on " The Senses," that a quick response of the vaso-motor and muscular organism to stimuli, from within or from without, has no connection what- ever with delicacy and precision of response in the sense-organs. It remains to point out that the results here reached are in harmony with those we have reached when considering other groups of phenomena. In considering " Motion " I referred to the interest- ing experiments of Riccardi, showing how women, in making muscular exertion with the dynamometer, tend to reach their maximum power at the first effort, while men more often only attain their maximum power at the second or third effort.^ The fact thus clearly brought out has a distinct bearing on the affectability of women. As Fer6 expresses it, women exhibit a congenital exhaustibility, and, as among children, savages, and nervous subjects, their motions and their emotions are characterised by a brevity and violence which approach' to reflex action.^ To some extent affectability is simply a, tendency to fatigue. ' It may be added that Riccardi has been confirmed by Wissler in New York (Psych. Kev. Monographs, vol. iii. No. i ) ; Wissler found that 80 per cent, women reach their maximum strength with the dyna- mometer at the first effort, but only 61 per cent. men. ^ Fere, Palhologie des Emotions, 1892, pp. 398, 480. Dr. Mary Jacobi makes a similar statement, Question of Rest, etc., p. 204. THE AFFECTABILITY OF WOMEN. 35g Mr. Gallon once carried on an interesting investiga- tion among teachers as to the signs of fatigue. Sum- marising the results of answers received from ii6 teachers, he found that nervous fatigue is chiefly revealed by involuntary muscular twitchings of the face, fingers, etc., grimace, frowning, compression of lips, tendency to nervous laughter, and general muscular unsteadiness. There are also vaso-motor symptoms, pallors, flushings, and various alterations in the colour of the face and ears; also depression and hypersesthesia of the senses. These are all mani- festations of "irritability," which in its common mental form the teachers acknowledge to be "perhaps the commonest sign of incipient mental fatigue."^ Lack of "staying power" is the popular way of expressing the neuro-muscular exhausti- bility of women, and, as we have previously seen (p. 208), this is everywhere found to characterise the work of female clerks in the Post-office, etc. ; under ordinary circumstances the women are equal to the men, but they cannot work under pressure. It is sometimes said that women are more easily distracted from their work; thus Mr. Valentine, of Valentine & Son, photographers, of Dundee, re- marked, in addressing his workpeople, that " a man could talk and work at the same time, but when a girl talked she stopped work ; " ^ if there is an element of truth in this, we must connect it with this con- genital exhaustibility of women. It may be added that this quick exhaustibility of women is not due to the special conditions of civilised life, but is also found among savages. Thus Landor, among the Ainos, noted that most of the hard work is done by the women, who surpass the men in muscular strength, and at all events as regards manual labour in endur- ance. But at the same time he found that they 1 F. Galton, "Mental YaXigae," Journal Anthrop. Instituts, 1889, p. 157. ''■ Photographic News, Feb. 17th, 1S93. Cf. anle, p. 177. 360 MAN AND WOMAN. could not compete with men in work leading to severe and prolonged fatigue; in walking and running a woman was as good as a man for one day's journey, but not for longer distances. The same characteristic marks savages as compared with Europeans; thus the Rev. W. Grey, who is himself accustomed to manual labour, writes of the natives of Tanna: — " In steady pick and shovel work the natives could do more than I could the first day. We were about equal the second day. On the third day they fell far behind me." ^ It may seem that this characteristic of women's neuro-muscular energy is an unmitigated disadvantage, but this is by no means the case. Not only is it associated with the greater readiness of women, but it is an extremely valuable safeguard. Men are able to undergo far more prolonged and intense exertion than women, but they purchase this capacity at a price; the resulting collapse, when it comes, is more extreme and more difficult to recover from. Women yield to the first strain, but for that very reason they quickly recover. Energetic women, who are able to disregard physiological warnings, naturally suffer from more serious collapse, as men would. As a rule, their affectability protects women from the serious excesses of work or of play to which men are liable. The frequency and comparative triviality of nervous disorders in women, their much greater seriousness and fatality in men, largely finds its explanation here. That women are more often attacked by most zymotic diseases than men, but more rarely die from them, seems to be a fact belonging to the same group. The neuro-muscular exhaustibility of women is no doubt in some measure due to the fact — which we encountered when considering " Metabolism " — that the blood of women is more watery than that of men ; ill "women, at all events as women exist to-day, a ^ Jour. Anth. Inst., Aug. and Nov. 1S98, p. 128. THE AFFECTABILITY OF WOMEN. 361 certain slight degree of anaemia may be regarded as physiological.! But anaemia increases affectability ; in an anffimic woman a very slight stimulus or exertion produces too strong a reaction ; to live healthily she must live at a very low and slow rate of tension. As Dr. Foxwell, pointing out how dangerous sudden transi- tory toil is for the antemic, remarks : — " Continuous toil, mental or physical, is an impossibility to the anaemic patient. But anaemic people who are up and about and trying to do their work in the world, have a certain standard of speed and persistence set them by the healthy people they see around them. This standard they try to attain; they therefore start off with the vigour of a healthy person, but their feeble muscle or nerve cells soon pull them up and they have to rest, starting off again in a few minutes with more than normal vigour, to make up for lost time, but only the sooner to be rearrested by helpless debility. Their work is therefore done in jerks, the toil during the jerk being far beyond their strength. They might perhaps do just as much in the aggregate without injury to themselves if they worked from beginning to end at a steady, slow rate commensurate with their strength; but the forces of imitation and emulation are too strong for them, and they persist in exhibitions of normal energy with subnormal bodies. But even had they perfect control of themselves, how can theu avoid sudden efforts of high pressure? The ansemic school-girl standing up in class has to concentrate her biain power to answer with costly speed the question rapidly passed down from one to another,, or has to work sums for marks against time. The house-maid is bound to run upstairs quickly to answer her mistress's bell, to carry trays full of food, and scuttles full of coal. This quickness of answer, these trays and scuttles have been formed for healthy persons; to them they would act but as a sturdy developmental stimulus, but to the anjemic they become a breathless and exhausting labour. If ansmics held sway over toil there would be no quickness of performance, no strenuous effort allowed. Luckily for the world's progress, but unluckily for them, they have to play a very subordinate part on life's stage, and to be content with things as they find them." (A. Foxwell, " Ingleby Lectures on Condition of the Vascular System in Anaemic Debility," Brit. Med. Journal, i6th April 1892.) ' See Dr. Stephen Mackenzie's Lettsomian Lectures on Anfemia, Brit. Med. Journal, 1 89 1, vol. i., for evidence showing that the physical characteristics of the anaemic are an exaggeration of those of women generally. Cf. ante, p. 225. 362 MAN AND WOMAN. The question still remains how far the affectability of women is natural and organic, how far it is the mere accidental result of external circumstances. Is the greater emotionality of women a permanent and ineradicable fact ? There can be no doubt that to a very large extent emotionality may be modified. Hypnotic phenomena, perhaps as common in men as in women among savages, are rare among civilised men. The men of to-day are not as emotional as the men of the thirteenth century; the modern English gentle- man does not talk and behave like the English gentle- men who killed Thomas a Beckett. The woman of to-day, again, is less emotional than her great-grand- mother a century ago; she is not subject to vapours and swoons on trivial occasions to any- thing like the same extent. The mere fact of the immense difference on the whole which exists as regards emotionality between women of different social classes (and which, as we have seen, is removed when the restraint of sanity is removed), suggests that emotion, in its coarser manifestations at all events, is to an immense degree .educable. The attention that is now, fortunately, beginning to be given to the physical culture of women will un- doubtedly tend to strengthen and develop the neuro-muscular system. Just as we' have sure reason to believe that sensibility may by training be increased, so there is still greater reason to believe that affectability may by training be decreased. That there is, however, a limit to this sexual equalisation of affectability remains extremely prob- able. The comparatively larger extent of the sexual sphere in women and of the visceral regions generally, — for in women at puberty, as Dr. Campbell puts it, a new keyboard and a fresh series of pipes are added to the instrument, — the physiological tendency to anaemia, and the existence of inevitable periodicity of function in women, conspire to furnish a broader _ THE AFFECTABILITY OF WOMEN. 363 basis for the play of emotion which no change in environment or habit could remove. Affectability in women may be reduced to finer and more delicate shades; it can scarcely be brqjight to the male standard. This result is by no means to be regretted. We have seen that the affectability of women ensures to them certain solid advantages, and assists to safeguard them against evils from which men are specially prone to suffer. Beyond this, if men and women were more on the same level as regards emotionality, they would lose very much of their power to help one another. They would certainly, also, lose very greatly their power to charm one another. The man of facile emotions makes little impression on a woman; the woman who is lacking in emotionality leaves a man cold. As long as this is so we may be perfectly sure that — even if the greater affectability of women had a less firm organic basis — men and women will never be equal in emotionality. The affectability of women exposes them, as I have had occasion to point out, to very diabolical mani- festations. It is also the source of very much of what is most angelic in women — their impulses of tender- ness, their compassion, their moods of divine child- hood. Poets have racked their brains to express and to account for this mixture of heaven and hell. We see that the key is really a very simple one; both the heaven and hell of women are but aspects of the same physiological affectability. Seeing this, we may see, too, that those worthy persons who are anxious to cut off the devil's tail might find, if they succeeded, that they had also shorn the angel of her wings. The emotionality of women, within certain limits, must decrease; there are those who will find con- solations in the gradual character of that decrease. 364 CHAPTER XIV. THE ARTISTIC IMPULSE. THE INDUSTRIES AROSE IN WOMEN'S HANDS, THE ARTS IN men's — POTTERY — TATTOOING — PAINTING SCULPTURE MUSIC — WHY WOMEN HAVE FAILED IN MUSIC METAPHYSICS — MYSTICISM POETRY FICTION WHY WOMEN HAVE SUCCEEDED IN FICTION THE SUPREM- ACY OF WOMEN IN ACTING — THE ARTISTIC IMPULSE GENERALLY IS MORE MARKED IN MEN THE CAUSES OF THIS. Primitive women have in their hands all the industries, and, in consequence, the rudiments of most of the arts. But when we get beyond the rudiments the position begins to change, and when we reach fully differentiated arts, even among savages, we find that they are almost exclusively in the hands of men. The making of pottery is an industry which develops almost insensibly into an art. In nearly every part of the world pottery has at the outset been entirely, or almost entirely, in the hands of women, and so long as it remained in their hands the potter's industry has usually retained a severely practical character. It is sufficient to quote the evi- dence of one observer who possessed a peculiarly intimate acquaintance with the lowest stages of primitive culture. Miklucho-Macleay, speaking of Papuan art in North-east Guinea, remarks: — " I have been struck by the absolute absence of ornament on THE ARTISTIC IMPULSE. 365 the pottery, the clay easily lending itself to all sorts of ornamentation; this lack of ornament is due to the fact that the manufacture of pottery is exclusively confided to women, who are not usually very artistic by nature. I have found confirmation of this ancient and just observation even among Papuan women. I am able to state that I have never seen the slightest ornament invented or executed by a woman. During a visit to the island of Bibi-Bibi, where pottery is manufactured for all the neighbouring villages, when observing a dozen women and young girls fashioning pottery, I saw several women doing nothing; as they had in front of them a mass of pots without the slightest ornament, I asked why they did not orna- ment them. ' What is the good ? It is not necessary ! ' were the replies they gave. But this did not prevent two young boys from finding pleasure in imprinting with their nails and a pointed stick a sort of orna- mental border on some of the pots." ^ Tattooing is in many parts of the world chiefly in the hands of women. Thus among the Nagas of Assam it is " often performed by old women of the chiefs household, and as a matter of right." ^ Among the Aino, also, tattooing is done by women, and at present indeed it is the women alone who are tattooed.' Again, among the Sdngish or Lkungen Indians of Canada the tattooing is done by women, who introduce charcoal beneath the skin by means of a needle held horizontally.* It must be remembered, however, that tattooing is by no means the pure out- come of the art impulse, but a social and religious rite of a traditional character. Such semi-ritual art ' Bull. Soc. d'AnlhroJiologie, 19th Dec. 1878. Andree has brought out the same point. 2 Peal, " On the Morong,'' Journ. Anlh. Institute, Feb. 1893, p. 247. ^ MacRitchie, Supplement to Internationales Archiv fur Ethno- graphic, Bd. iv., 1892. ^ Brit. Assoc. Report on tfie North- Western Tribes of Canada, by Dr. Boas, 1890. 366 MAN AND WOMAN. may be in the hands of either men or women ; thus among the Papuans (according to S. J. Hickson) the designs on houses and praus are wrought by old men or priests of the village to keep off the spirits of storms. If we turn to the pure artistic impulse, as mani- fested in the higher stages of culture, we find that the supremacy of men in painting is unquestionable. There have been thousands of women painters, but only the men have been remembered; it would be unkind to make a comprehensive list of famous women painters. Even the great central situation of Christianity, as of life — the relation of the mother to her child — which appeals so strongly to a woman's heart, has never received memorable rendering at a woman's hand. In sculpture, also, it is scarcely necessary to add, the great names are all men, from Phidias to Donatello, from Michael Angelo to Rodin. That there have been two or three women whose names deserve honourable mention is the most that can be said. In the evolution of music women have played a very small part. It does not appear that a woman has ever invented any well-known musical instru- ment, and there is not in any part of the world an instrument that is peculiar to women' or chiefly played by them ; it is rarely even that they perform on men's instruments. In aboriginal America Professor Otis Mason remarks that musical instru- ments are never played bj' women, though they beat time on various objects and may now and then use the rattle, as well as join in certain choruses.^ Mr. Henry Balfour, of the University Museum, Oxford, has brought forward a few exceptions to the general rule from the South Pacific. "In the South Pacific the 'nose-flute' is very generally, though by no means exclusively, played upon by 1 Mature, 13th Oct. 1892 ; ib., Woman^s Place in Priviitive CwlHire, ch. viii. THE ARTISTIC IMPULSE. 367 women. In the account of the voyage of Captains Cook and King there is in one of the plates a figure of a woman of the Tonga Islands seated under a hut playing upon a 'nose-flute.' A similar figure of a woman playing upon a ' nose-flute ' may be seen in plate 28 of Labilladifere's Voyage de La Perouse, in the representation of a Tongan double-canoe. Melville {Four Months' Residence in the Marquisas Islands, p. 251) mentions playing upon the ' nose-flute ' as being ' a favourite recreation with the females.' In Wilkes' U.S. Exploring Expedition, iii. p. 190, there is a description of this instrument as used in the Fiji Islands, and it is stated that ' no other instrument but the flute ["nose-flute"] is played by the women as an accompaniment to the voice.' " Turning now to another genus of primitive instruments, viz., the ' musical bow,' we find a peculiar local form, the ' Pangolo,' occurring at Blanche Bay, New Britain. There are specimens of this at Berhn and Vienna. This instrument is stated by Dr. O. Finsch {Ann. des K. K. Naturhist. Ho/museums, suppl. vol. iii., Pt. I, p. Ill) to be only played upon by women of Blanche Bay. Guppy too {Solomon Islands, p. 142) says that the women of Treasury Island produce a soft kind of music by playing, somewhat after the fashion of a Jew's-harp, on a lightly-made fine-stringed bow about 1 5 inches long. " It cannot, I believe, be said that any of these instruments have been invented by women, and it is undoubted that women in savagery but seldom figure as performers upon musical instruments. It would certainly be interesting to collect all the instances recorded." — Nature, 17th Nov. 1892. Among barbarous and civilised races in all parts of the world women have been trained profusely to play on musical instruments ; but the position of the sexes has remained relatively the same as among savages. The players of music have often been women ; the makers of music have nearly always been men. Unless we include two or three women of our own day whose reputation has perhaps been enhanced by the fact that they are women, it is difficult to find the names of women even in the list of third-rate composers. There is, I believe, no difference of opinion whatever on this point. Mr. G. P. Upton, in his intelligent and sympathetic little book. Woman in Music (Chicago, 1886), endeavours to magnify the part that women have played in music, but he 368 MAN AND WOMAN. recognises that none of the masters in music have been women. He gives a list of forty-eight women musicians who lived during the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries andleft com- positions, but none of them rose above mediocrity. How small this number of noted women musicians is we may realise by re- calling that Italy alone (as Lombroso remarks in his Man of Genius) has produced not less than 1210 musicians of more or less note. Mr. Upton has, I think, very felicitously expressed one chief reason why women have failed in music, though they have had nearly equal advantages with men : — " Conceding that music is the highest expression of the emotions, and that woman is emotional by nature, is it not one solution of the problem that woman does not musically leproduce them because she herself is emotional by temperament and nature, and cannot project herself outwardly, any more than she can give outward expres- sion to other mysterious and deeply-hidden traits of her nature ? The emotion is a part of herself, and is as natural to her as breathing. She lives in emotion, and acts from emotion. . . . Man controls his emotions, and can give an outward expression of them. In woman they are the dominating element, and so long as they are dominant she absorbs music. Great actresses may express emotion because they express their own natures ; but to treat emotions as if they were mathematics, to bind and measure and limit them within the rigid laws of harmony and counterpoint, and to express them with arbitrary signs, is a cold-blooded operation possible only to the sterner and more obdurate nature of man." He adds that it is significant that while a man who has once learned to play on an instrument rarely ceases to delight in it, a woman's love for music ceases with age.; it is not an aesthetic but an emotional influence. Rubenstein, in his book on Music and its Masters, has some remarks which well supplement Mr. Upton's, though they are somewhat less precise : — " This increase of the feminine contingent in music, both in instrumental execution and in composition (I except the department of singing, in which they have always excelled), begins with the second half of our century. I regard it as one of the signs of musical decadence. Women lack two prime qualities necessary for creating — subjectivity and initiative. In practice they cannot get beyond objectivity (imitation), they lack courage and conviction to rise to subjectivity. For musical creation they lack absorption, concentration, power of thought, largeness of emotional horizon, freedom in outlining, etc. It is a mystery why it should just be music, the noblest, most beautiful, refined, spiritual, and emotional product of the human mind, that is so inaccessible to woman, who is a compound of all those qualities ; all the more as she has done great things in the other arts, even in the sciences. The two things most peculiar to women-^love of a THE ARTISTIC IMPULSE. 369 man and tender feeling for a child — have found no echo from them in music. I know no love duo or cradle song composed by a woman. I do not say there are none, but only that not one composed by a woman has the artistic value that could make it typical." Music is at once the most emotional and the most severely abstract of the arts. There is no art to which women have been more widely attracted, and there is certainly no art in which they have shown themselves more helpless. It cannot be said that literature is an art. It is merely a method of recording very diverse manifes- tations of psychic aptitude and artistic impulse. It is enough to mention four of these — metaphysics, mysticism, poetry, fiction. It is remarkable that although women are so strongly drawn to religion, they have done almost nothing to give classic expression to that mysticism which is the kernel of religion everywhere. The great manuals of devotion which have fed so many thousand souls, and which all say the same thing with a few verbal differences — the manual of Lao Tze, Marcus Antoninus's Meditations, Epictetus's Encheiridion, the gospel of St. John and the Epistles of St. Paul, the De Imitatione Christi, the Deutsch Theologie, much of the writings of Schopenhauer — are the work of men, although they have probably found, on the whole, at least as many readers among women as among men. St. Theresa is, so far as I know, the only woman who can be put in the first rank, but it must be added that there is an element of unquestionable morbidity in her work which can- not be said to characterise any of the great mystics I have named, not even St. Paul or Schopenhauer. Madame Guyon's name occurs, but she belongs to the second rank of mystics, which numbers a vast army of men. The art of metaphysics belongs almost exclusively to men. Even in the third rank of metaphysicians 24 370 MAN AND WOMAN. the names of no women can yet be very clearly discerned. The philosopher's art consists in building up an ideal and conjectural world on the basis of his own psychic organism ; it is of all arts that in which emotion is most highly intellectualised, and the material most abstracted from the practical and concrete. Whether women's failure here means the condemnation of metaphysics or the condemnation of women is a problem which every one will decide according to the basis of his own temperament. In poetry women have done much more than in either mysticism or metaphysics. The strong emotional poetic energy, chiefly lyrical in form, which in English is perhaps best represented by Mrs. Browning, has been expressed by the women of many lands. At the same time it has had a tendency to be either rather thin or rather diffuse and formless. Strong poetic art, which involves at once both a high degree of .audacity and brooding deliberation, is very rare in women. We have a Sappho and a Christina Rossetti — one representative of each of the great poetic nations of Europe — but it is difficult (I will not say impossible) to find women poets who show in any noteworthy degree the qualities of imagina- tion, style, and architectonic power which go to the making of great poetry. Mr. Edmund Gosse has made some remarks worth quoting as to the place occupied by women in the poetic literature of the world: — "That Shakespeare should have had no female rival, that the age in which music burdened every bough, and in which poets made their appearance in hundreds, should have produced not a solitary authentic poetess, even of the fifth rank, this is curious indeed. But it is as rare as curious, for though women have not often taken a very high position on Parnassus, they have seldom thus wholly absented themselves. Even in the iron age of Rome, where the muse seemed to bring forth none btit male children, we find, bound up with the savage verses of Juvenal and Persius, those seventy lines of pure and noble indignation against the brutality of Domitian which alone survive to testify to the genius of Sulpicia. " It is no new theory that women, in order to succeed in THE ARTISTIC IMPULSE. 371 poetry, must be brief, personal, and concentrated. It was recognised by the Greek critics themselves. Into that dehcious garland of the poets which was woven by Meleager to be hung outside the gate of the Gardens of the Hesperides he admits but two women from all the centuries of Hellenic song. Sappho is there indeed, because, ' though her flowers were few, they were all roses,' and, almost unseen, a sinjj^le virginal shoot of the crocus bears the name of Erinna. That was all that womanhood gave of durable poetry to the literature of antiquity. A critic, writing five hundred years after her death, speaks of still hearing the swan-note of Erinna clear above the jangling chatter of the jays, and of still thinking those three hundred hexameter verses sung by a girl of nineteen as lovely as the loveliest of Homer's. Even at the time of the birth of Christ, Erinna's writings consisted of what could be printed on a page of this magazine. The whole of her extant work, and of Sappho's too, could now be pressed into a newspaper column. But their fame lives on, and of Sappho, at least, enough survives to prove beyond a shadow of doubt the lofty inspira- tion of her genius. She is the type of the woman-poet who exists not by reason of the variety or volume of her work, but by virtue of its intensity, its individuality, its artistic perfection." (Edmund Gosse, "Christina Rossetti," Century Magazine, June 1893.) In fiction women are acknowledged to rank in- comparably higher than in any other form of literary art. Thus in England, at all events, in Jane Austen, Charlotte and Emily Bronte, George Eliot, we possess four story-tellers who, in their various ways, are scarcely, for the artistic quality and power oi their work (although not for quantity and versatility), behind our best novelists of the male sex. In France, it is true, where the novel has perhaps reached the highest degree of artistic perfection, women, owing to a variety of circumstances, have produced little fiction of artistic value; but in many countries of Europe at the present day, both in the north and in the south, there are one or two women who stand in the first rank. It is only when (as in the work of Flaubert) the novel almost becomes a poem, demand- ing great architectonic power, severe devotion to style, and complete self-restraint, that women have not come into competition with men. But fiction 372 MAN AND WOMAN. in the proper sense makes far less serious artistic demands than poetry, inasmuch as it is simply an idealised version of life, and may claim to follow any of the sinuous curves of life. What it demands is a quick perception of human character and social life, coloured by a more or less intense emotional background. A vivid perception of social pheno- mena — of the interaction of men and women which is the basis of fiction — is natural to all women, who are, in a sense, more close to the social facts of life than men. They are, too, more receptive of detailed Social impressions and more tenacious of such im- pressions.^ In the poorest and least cultured ranks the conversation of women consists largely of rudi- mentary novelettes in which "says he" and "says she " play the chief parts. Every art, one may say, has an intellectual and an emotional element : women have done so well in fiction because they are here organically fitted to supply both elements. In fiction women possess a method of self-expression which is artistically well within their grasp. On the whole, however, even when we take fiction into account, it cannot be said that women have reached the summits of literature, although literature is of all ipethods of expression that which has been most easily within their reach. There are doubtless many reasons why this should be so, although at present these reasons do not easily come within the ^ This social impressionability of women must still be admitted, even though we accept the statements of Groos and Durkheim, that in the deeper sense women are less socialised than men. Groos remarks {Spiele der Menschen, p. 438) that women possess in a much less de- gree than men the sense of rigorous subordination to abstract law, and illustrates this by their greater willingness to cheat in various depart- ments of life. He associates this characteristic with the absence of the discipline involved in the exercise of the male combative instincts. Durkheim {Le Suicide, p. 442) finds that women are nearer to nature, less the product of society than men, whose activities, tastes, and aspirations have to a greater extent a collective origin; in woman's less degree of socialisation he sees the explanation of various sociological phenomena, though he does not regard it as a final and ultimate fact. THE ARTISTIC IMPULSE. 373 region of exact research. It is possible, for instance, that one factor may be found in that quick affect- ability and exhaustibility which we have seen to characterise the nervous energy of women. In whatever direction a woman exerts her energies they are all swiftly engaged and no reserve is left. The qualities of Aphra Behn and of Emily Bronte have never been combined in one woman. Yet to be at once gay and profound — a combination supremely exemplified in Shakespeare — is part of the fascination and the power of nearly all the finest literature. Women have achieved complete success in letter- writing, and in love-letters they are supreme,^ for here their special characteristics become of the first importance ; but they have not on this basis wrought any literature of the highest order. In Montaigne we have a great writer who. may be said to have set out with the literary methods of a woman — spontaneity, carelessness of form, a very personal and intimate frankness — yet we cannot even conceive a feminine Montaigne. There is, however, one art in which women may be said not merely to nearly rival but actually to excel men: this is the art of acting. In a land and in an age prolific in dramatic ability, Bachaumont wrote in his Memoires in 1762 that perhaps none of the great actors of his day were so transcendent as its four great actresses — Clairon, Dumesnil, Gaussin, and Dangeville. Half a century later Roussel wrote that there were more good actresses than good actors.^ The same may probably be said at the present day; during recent years, at all events, Sarah Bernhardt and Eleanora Duse have had no male rivals. And if we look back at the history of the stage during the 1 " Thousands of women's letters," truly remarks Mantegazza, " that lie in the cabinets of lovers, and are eventually burnt, would, if they could be published, convince us that Madame de Sevigne has many rivals." ^ P. Roussel, Systime de la Femme, Partie I., chap. iv. 374 ' MAN AND WOMAN. last two hundred years, against every famous actor whose name survives it seems usually possible to place a still more famous actress. With women's success as actresses may be associated their perhaps equally undoubted success as singers, singing being in part vocalised dramatic art. It is not difficult to find the organic basis of woman's success in acting. In women mental processes are usually more rapid than in men; they have also an emotional explosive- ness much more marked than men possess, and more easily within call. At the same time the circum- stances of women's social life have usually favoured a high degree of flexibility and adaptibility as regards behaviour; and they are, again, more trained in the vocal expression both of those emotions which they feel and those emotions which it is considered their duty to feel. Women are, therefore, both by nature and social compulsion, more often than men in the position of actors. It is probable also that women are more susceptible than men to the immediate stimulus of admiration and applause supplied by contact with an audience. In the allied art of dancing women are also supreme. It is worth remarking, in connection with the superiority of women in acting, that it has frequently been found that women are also better readers. Thus Mr. Bryce, in a report on the state of education in Lancashire, remarks in regard to reading: — " This is one of the few things in which girls' schools are markedly better than boys'. There does not seem to be much more direct training in the one case than in the other, so it is left us to suppose that the superiority of the girls is due to their more correct ear, their quicker perception of the meaning of what they read, and that more perfect harmony which seems to exist between their intelligence and its expression in voice, feature, and gesture. Even where they have no special training, they are free from that plodding awkwardness ilvhich generally belongs to a Lancashire boy's reading. And in several schools, where the mistresses had accustomed their pupils to read aloud, and had carefully checked any tendency to affectation, the reading was everything that could be desired in point of grace, variety, and expressiveness." And Mr. Fearon, reporting THE ARTISTIC IMPULSE. 375 on schools on the East Coast, also refers to the superiority of girls in reading; he found that even in mixed schools girls read better than boys. (D. Beale, Reports issued by the Schools' Inquiry Commission, pp. 55 and 136.) Legouve, who had a long and intimate connection with the stage, has some remarks on the success of women in acting in his charming and acute though scarcely scientific Histoire Morale de la Femme, 6th ed., 1874 (p. 345); — "Whether actor or singer, the interpretative artist needs above all a talent for observing details, flexibility of the organism to follow the move- ments of thought, and above all, that mobile, ardent, and varied impressionability which multiplies in an almost incredible de- gree the sensations and signs which represent it. For this reason the dramatic faculty is more native to women than to men. All great cantatrices, as experience shows, reach the supreme height of their talent before the age of twenty, that is to say, after four years of study; a man to be a great singer requires eight years." (See also a chapter in Upton's Woman in Mtisic on " Woman as the Interpreter of Music") On the whole, there can be no doubt whatever that if we leave out of consideration the interpretative arts, the artistic impulse is vastly more spontaneous, more pronounced, and more widely spread among men than among women. There is thus a certain justification for Schopenhauer's description of women as the unaesthetic sex. Even in the matter of cooking we may see how emphatic is the tendency for an art to fall into the hands of men. All over the world cooking, as an industry, is women's business, yet wherever cooking rises from an industry to become something of an art it is nearly always in the hands of a man. When we consider the proportion of women, as compared to men, who obtain even moderate fame, we find that it is even at the present day extremely small. As regards literature, Mantegazza examined the Dizionario biografico degli Scrittori Contemporanei and found that among over 4500 writers only 4.1 per cent, were women. In my own study of British genius from the earliest period to the end of the nineteenth century (based on the Dictionary of 37^ MAN AND WOMAN. National Biography), I found that among the most eminent British persons in all departments, 1030 in number, only 5.3 per cent, were women, and it has at the same time to be admitted that a minor degree of ability sufficed to ensure the inclusion of the women."^ Galton found, in investigating nearly 900 indi- viduals, that 28 per cent, males and 33 per cent, females showed artistic tastes — i.e., were fond of music, drawing, etc. That is to say, that notwith- standing all that our education does to bring out artistic tastes in women, the sexes remain nearly equal.^ If we go back to early times, we may be perfectly sure that the rough drawings of men, animals, and other natural objects which are found on primitive implements and on rocks are the work of men. At the present day the impulse to scribble, draw, and carve — the artistic impulse in its most primitive form — is very much more marked in boys and men than in girls and women. Both in colleges and prisons this difference is decided. It may thus probably be said that women are less imaginative than men. In h,ev study of young children's fears, Katharine Fackenthal found that the boys showed much more originality than the girls, and a larger proportion of the objects of their fear were imaginary, though at this early age the sexual differences were slight.^ If this difference is real it is not without significance, for it is on their fears and their desires that men's art is founded. Insanity, again, which is so instructive in the terrible clearness with which it brings to the surface the most fundamental impulses, reveals in women a singular imaginative poverty. The delirious ideas of women, remarks Toulouse,* one of the subtlest psychological students of insanity, ^ Havelock Ellis, A Study of British Genius, chap. i. "^ F. Galton, Natural Inheritance, chap. ix. ' Pedagogical Seminary , Oct. 1895, p. 322. * Quoted in Arch. d'Aittk. Crim., Feb. 1903, p. 122. THE ARTISTIC IMPULSE. 377 are few in number and simple in nature; "the insane woman is altogether lacking in invention in the con- ception of delirious ideas; she shows nothing of the wealth of extravagance manifested by men." The characteristic ideas of grandeur which so often affect men are rare in women, and then usually of a feeble and pedestrian sort, Toulouse remarks, for the most part confined to the region of the toilet, or playing around a supposed secret legacy. The assertion of Mobius^ that the art impulse is of the nature of a male secondary sexual character, in the same sense as the beard, cannot be accepted without some qualification, but it may well represent an approximation to the truth. Ferrero has sought the explanation of the small part played by women in art, and their defective sense for purely aesthetic beauty, in their less keen sexual emotions.^ This is doubtless an important factor. The sexual sphere in women is more massive and extended than in men, but it is less energetic in its manifestations.^ In men the sexual instinct is a restless source of energy which overflows into all sorts of channels. At the same time, the rarity of women artists of the first rank is largely due to another cause which we shall be concerned with later on — the greater variational tendency of men. 1 P. J. Mbbius, Stachyologie, 1901. ^ G. Ferrero, "Woman's Sphere in Art," New Review, Nov. 1893. ^ 11. Ellis, "The Sexual Impulse in Women," Studies in the Psy- chology of Sex, vol. iii. 378 CHAPTER XV. MORBID PSYCHIC PHENOMENA. SUICIDE FACTORS THAT INFLUENCE ITS FREQUENCY SEXUAL PROPORTIONS IN EUROPE — THE INFLUENCE OF AGE — THE CAUSES OF SUICIDE — METHODS OF SUICIDE — MEN PREFER ACTIVE, WOMEN PASSIVE METHODS — RACIAL SEXUAL DIFFERENCES. ' INSANITY — IN VARIOUS PARTS OF THE WORLD — CAUSES OF INSANITY — FORMS OF INSANITY— ALCOHOLIC INSANITY AND GENERAL PARALYSIS INCREASING AMONG WOMEN — GENERAL PARALYSIS AS A TYPICALLY MASCULINE INSANITY INSANITY AND CIVILISATION. CRIMINALITY— DIFFICULTIES IN THE WAY OF THE STUDY OF SEXUAL DIFFERENCES — WHY WOMEN ARE LESS CRIMINAL THAN MEN THE SPECIAL FORMS OF women's CRIMINALITY — CRIMINALITY AND CIVILISA- TION. SUICIDE. The suicidal impulse is not necessarily morbid. But there can be no doubt that in the majority of cases suicide implies a considerable degree of psychic abnor- mality, whether the lack of mental balance is the result of a sudden shock or is simply the last stage in a slow disintegration. Suicide is rarely the result of a deliberate weighing of evidence resulting in the decision that, as Marcus Antoninus expresses it, the house is smoky and must be quitted. The philo- sophers who have given this advice have rarely them- selves found that the house was