That which should have been the young girl's pride and delight, becomes her shame and her torture; she must conceal, the unhappy one! and studiously repress her eager and beautiful emotions, and can we wonder that bewilderment, timidity, and impotence result? Nature cannot bear this constant state of slavery; and ever and anon she shows in the hysterical convulsions, in the wild tumultuous hysterical emotions, or in the delirious excitement of nymphomania (love-madness,) that she will not be repressed. The passions of youth are a volcanic fire, which in the end will burst through all obstacles.

Is it the part of a wise and feeling man to refuse to see these facts? Whatever we may be able to do, to cure or to prevent these enormous evils, their main cause is undeniable. Men refuse to look at the melancholy results of sexual abstinence, and rather blame the patient for indulging in sexual feelings which cannot be gratified. It may not be that their peculiar idolised virtue should be attended by so much misery: the fault cannot surely be in it, but must be in our own original sin and perverse nature. Thus, according to the inveterate error of the christian moralist, they lay the blame on nature, the all-perfect; and hopelessly mourn over the evil nature of man, instead of trying to remedy their own erroneous system.

Hysteria is very frequently associated with diseases of menstruation, such as amenorrhoea, dysmenorrhoea, menorrhagia, or chlorosis. It is. rather with these, than with the marked inflammatory affections, such as ulcers of the womb, inflammation of the ovaries, &c., that convulsive hysteria is found; although the peculiar sexual bashfulness and nervous irritability are common to all sexual diseases; arising, as has been already explained, from the morbid delicacy on these subjects. However it would seem, that where there is a real serious structural disease, the hysterical emotions are, as it were, calmed by it, and the imagination bound down by the real physical suffering. Many young women thus say, that they would rather have some real physical ailment, than the exceedingly unpleasant, vague feelings of nervous weakness, uselessness, and discontent, which make them miserable without an assignable cause; but which in reality arise from the want of definite occupation and of sexual love, the two great wants in woman's life. Relations say of a young girl, who shows signs of discontent and unhappiness, "why is she unhappy? surely she has everything to make her satisfied, all her wishes and wants are supplied;" but they do not see, that by far the most essential of all wants at that age is not supplied, without which every luxury, every tenderness of friends or relatives, are to the ardent young girl quite insufficient for her happiness; namely sexual love, and also the power of working for herself at something, which her mind tells her is worthy of her energies. The treatment of hysteria is, as may be expected, often very difficult. The means usually applied are-as is readily understood, when we reflect on the general cause of the disease, and its nature, which is often more mental than bodily-totally irrational, and unsuited to produce a radical cure. Dr. Ashwell acknowledges this; he says that "few physicians desire the treatment of hysteria; for the symptoms are so variable, one springing up after another, that different remedies are successively tried and abandoned, till both the doctor and patient are worn out, and the

disease is suffered to take its course." In reality, Love is the only physician, who can cure his peculiar diseases; and it is vain for a medical man to expect to supply his place. The passions, which have been repressed and thrown into disorder, must be gratified, and the proper healthy stimulus given to the sexual organs, so as to restore their nervous balance, before we can have any rational expectation of a cure. The mind will thus become contented and happy, the tumultuous emotions be calmed and restored to health, and the sexual organs will regain their normal state. Dr. Ashwell says, that marriage frequently cures hysteria, but hysterical women often make bad nurses, having scanty and innutritious milk. A happy sexual intimacy is the grand remedy in hysteria; but besides this, various accessory means would often be necessary.

In a hysterical fit, the usual treatment is, to lay the patient down, loosen the dress, and dash cold water over the head and neck. The various affections of the head and chest. stomach, bowels, &c., should be met as they occur by appropriate means, chiefly by remedies of a soothing and anti-spasmodic nature. In all cases of hysteria we should discover whether there be any co-existing genital disease. and endeavour to remove it for hysteria, if depending on such an affection, is never cured without its prior removal.

But the main object of treatment in all hysterical cases, should be to go to the root of the disease, and remove the morbid state of the sexual system and feelings, which causes the general nervous irritability. It is in vain that we treat symptom after symptom, headache, colic, fits; or mental irritability, vehemence, or caprice. We may overcome one enemy after another, we may load the patient whether with blame or compassion, but we cannot cheat nature; and until the required remedy is applied, the radical sexual disorder in mind and body will continue, and only become aggravated by continuance.

It is a miserable thing to see the usual treatment of a hysterical girl. Friends and relations either laugh at, or dislike her; for irritability, peevishness, and often violent temper are a part of the disease; and that effeminate amiability which is so highly lauded in the female character, at the expense of the far higher virtues of force and independent energy, is sadly defaced by stern nature, whose destructive tendencies will not be silenced in either sex. Such unkind and mistaken treatment often aggravates the disease, and pushes it to the verge of insanity, or frequently into complete insanity: for hysteria often ends in this, where the mind is naturally weak. The medical man must generally content himself with treating symptoms, and directs his attention chiefly to bracing the general health, and at most palliating the affection.

Few medical men pay much attention to the mind, but consider chiefly the bodily state; and in a disease like hysteria they are quite at fault, and find their agents powerless. For it is necessary, in order to remove disease, that we should make an individual happy or contented (in other words, healthy) in mind as well as healthy in body; and unless we attend to this in hysteria, which is as much a mental as a bodily disease, we cannot expect success. To produce a happy and contented mind, we must give the patient that which her nature demands.

Lecturing and contempt will not bully the disease, kindness and pity will not persuade it; youth turns a deaf ear to all but its own beautiful instincts, which for ever point out to it the path of truth; and none of these means will produce a quiet and a happy mind, which is essential to the patient's recovery. The only one who can cure a hysterical young woman, is a young man whom she loves, and with whom she may gratify her natural feelings, and have a free and happy outlet for the emotions which have been so long disordering her.

Along with this essential for the cure, other means of bracing the general health and restoring the mental balance should be taken. Change of scene is especially advisable, and removal from home influences, which are so often prejudicial in such cases. Travelling is an excellent auxiliary, especially a pedestrian tour, which women so seldom have the power of indulging in; not because they could not undertake it, but because it is thought indecorous in women. There are few things more salutary or delightful than a walking tour, whether in pleasant society or alone. It is much more strengthening than a driving one, and a most powerful means of invigorating the frame. I have frequently heard ladies express a great desire that they had the freedom that men have, in travelling about, and especially in making walking tours, which are becoming so common among our sex. But a girl is never allowed to go about alone, like a young man; she is subjected to a constant espionage, from which not one of her actions or motions can escape; and so she is frequently forced to do things, excellent in themselves, in an underhand manner, to the destruction of her sense of dignity and rectitude. It is to guard the great female virtue of chastity, as has been mentioned above, that all these intolerable restrictions and espionage, are placed upon the movements of woman; and as long as the present ideas regarding this so-called virtue remain, it is impossible for woman to obtain greater freedom. The difference in the privileges of man and woman, depends essentially on the difference of their sexual privileges; and until this question is attended to, the various efforts which are being made at present to give greater freedom and a wider sphere to woman, can have but a very limited success.

Every young mind, whether in man or woman, burns for romance, love, and adventure; these are the great natural stimuli to the health and virtue of youth, the pole-stars which cheer us on, and shed a glory on our every-day working-life. At home among her relations the young hysterical girl has in many cases a constant feeling of degradation; the emotions which she instinctively feels are the most ennobling and exalting for her, are coldly looked upon or laughed at; her romantic longings are sneered down, and the main springs of her virtue trodden in the dust. Familiarity, in the home circle, far too often breeds contempt; and it is very frequently a love affair, that first shows a girl what she can be, and elevates her into another sphere of self-respect. In countries such as Scotland, where spiritual puritanism reigns triumphant, romance and love have no quarter shown to them, and all the ardent sexual aspirations meet with double discouragement. Kindness and reverence should be used towards the hysterical, instead of the contemptous way in which they

are usually treated, so as to increase their self-respect and self-control. A great part of the disease consists in a sense of weakness, and want of self-confidence. How can a girl have confidence in herself, if all around laugh at her, and treat her feelings as unreal? It must never be thought, that hysteria is an unreal disease. It is a weakened state of the nervous system, physical and mental, and the physical weakness and irritability are just as marked as the mental. It is easy to laugh, but it is rather the part of the wise and feeling heart to reverence and to cure.

One great reason of the simulation of various diseases, and also of the vague and unreal nature of many of the sufferings of which the hysterical complain, is that they are forbidden to disclose the real cause of their sufferings, or of their unhappiness. In every sexual disease both in man and woman, and especially in the latter, the miserable necessity for concealment makes the patient invent other subjects of complaint; and thus sexual patients are almost always accused of hypochondria, and falsification or exaggeration of symptoms. When a man or a woman suffers, whether in mind or body, they must give some reason for it, and if they are forbidden by our unnatural ideas of propriety to speak freely of the real cause, they are forced into deceit; and this is one cause which greatly heightens the miseries of all these diseases, and is the source of great degradation to the sufferer. No diseases cause such a feeling of insufferable degradation as the sexual ones; and in a minor degree those of the excretory organs. Not to believe in an individual is one of the greatest injuries we can do him, and is as philosophically false as it is unfeeling. It has been truly and beautifully said "Love thy neighbour as thyself;" but the precept "Believe in thy neighbour as thyself" is not less true, and still more needed among us. Every man believes in himself, and knows that his nature is true at bottom; that his joys and his sorrows are real, although his external character may be at variance with the inner man. But it is the part of the moralist and the physician to endeavour to see into this inner man, which is always real, and seek to make the exterior correspond with it. It is only when the inner man is in harmony with the outer, and when a person thus lives a true life, that there can be satisfactory happiness. Nature always strives to be true, and to have a true expression; although in our complex and imperfect society her purpose is so often defeated.

If a genital disease co-exist with hysteria, it will be necessary to cure it, but in many of the functional genital diseases by far the most effectual cure is sexual intercourse; and medicinal remedies will be needed chiefly in the inflammatory diseases, and in cases where sexual intercourse and child-bearing prove insufficient. It is important to remark, that sexual intercourse may frequently fail thoroughly to cure a sexual disease in woman, while child-bearing, lactation, and the thoroughly new world of physical and moral emotions which is thus opened up to her, and which is necessary in that sex to complete the chain of the sexual functions, may succeed. The immense impulse that is often given to the health of woman by child-bearing; the change which it produces, dispelling morbid states of body and mind, and giving a renewed freshness and vigour to both, in those cases where it proceeds naturally and happily, is well

known. If it be not possible to procure for hysterical women these greit remedies, let us not flatter ourselves that the disease will yield throughout our society to any other means. If we must still adhere to the old routine, to valerian and musk, assafoetida and opium: to lecturing, persuading or upbraiding; the cure of hysterical disease is a physical an moral impossibility.

As to the still more important question of the prevention of this widespread malady, the same remedy which will cure, will also prevent, like all the natural remedies. The only possible mode of preventing hysteria, is by fortifying the general system by the appropiate exercise of all the bodily and mental powers from childhood upwards; and more especially by providing for the healthy exercise of the sexual organs and einotions, as soon as nature requires this. If we could possibly attain this so desirable aim throughout society, hysteria would almost disappear, instead of being as at present, probably the most widely spread af all diseases, and therefore creating an enormous mass of misery. It is the most widely spread of all diseases, simply because, of all the human organs, the female genital organs and sexual feelings are placed at present in the most unhealthy circumstances.

Woman's peculiar torments begin at puberty, and from that time, in innumerable cases, till her marriage, she is the constant prey of anxiety. Ungratified desires distract her, endless temptations and excitements surround her, marriage is for her so critical a step, and yet she has not the power of selection. The fatal question, shall she be married at all? gradually dawns upon her, and the clouds and whirlwinds of anxious and conflicting passions darken her sky. If these be not natural and real sufferings, and if we are not to recognise and do all we can to remedy this fearful state of matters, let us close at once the book of human knowledge, and give up the farce of philosophy and philanthrophy. It is our part to investigate diligently and recognise all truths; nor to bend what we see to a preconceived theory, but rather to form if possible, a theory based upon all the natural truths. If we do thus in the case before us, we will see, that unless we can remove the main cause of hysteria, namely, insufficient sexual gratifications, it is totally impossible to prevent that disease. Let us look this truth steadily in the face, whatever difficulties it occasions us.

I have now spoken of two of the most important female diseases, which are dependent, in the vast majority of cases, mainly on sexual abstinence. Before proceeding to the diseases of menstruation, many of which have the same cause, I shall say a few words on the subject of sexual excess.