[367] Pliny, who, in Book VII, Chapter XIII, and Book XXVIII, Chapter XXIII, of his Natural History, gives long lists of the various good and evil influences attributed to menstruation, writes in the latter place:  “Hailstorms, they say, whirlwinds, and lightnings, 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 stilled 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.”

[368] See Bourke, Scatologic Rites of all Nations, 1891, pp. 217-219, 250 and 254; Ploss and Max Bartels, Das Weib, vol. i; H.L.  Strack, Der Blutaberglaube in der Menschheit, fourth edition, 1892, pp. 14-18.  The last mentioned refers to the efficacy frequently attributed to menstrual blood in the Middle Ages in curing leprosy, and gives instances, occurring even in Germany to-day, of girls who have administered drops of menstrual blood in coffee to their sweethearts, to make sure of retaining their affections.

[369] See, e.g., Dufour, Histoire de la Prostitution, vol. iii, p. 115.

[370] Dr. L. Laurent gives these instances, “De Quelques Phenomenes Mecaniques produits au moment de la Menstruation,” Annales des Sciences Psychiques, September and October, 1897.

[371] Journal Anthropological Society of Bombay, 1890, p. 403.  Even the glance of a menstruating woman is widely believed to have serious results.  See Tuchmann, “La Fascination,” Melasine, 1888, pp. 347 et seq.

[372] As quoted in the Provincial Medical Journal, April, 1891.

APPENDIX B.

SEXUAL PERIODICITY IN MEN.

BY F.H.  PERRY-COSTE, B. Sc. (LOND.).

In a recent brochure on the “Rhythm of the Pulse"[373] I showed inter alia that the readings of the pulse, in both man and woman, if arranged in lunar monthly periods, and averaged over several years, displayed a clear, and sometimes very strongly marked and symmetrical, rhythm.[374] After pointing out that, in at any rate some cases, the male and female pulse-curves, both monthly and annual, seemed to be converse to one another, I added:  “It is difficult to ignore the suggestion that in this tracing of the monthly rhythm of the pulse we have a history of the monthly function in women; and that, if so, the tracing of the male pulse may eventually afford us some help in discovering a corresponding monthly period in men:  the existence of which has been suggested by Mr. Havelock Ellis and Professor Stanley Hall, among other writers.  Certainly the mere fact that we can trace a clear monthly rhythm in man’s pulse seems to point strongly to the existence of a monthly physiological period in him also.”