while the hysterical phenomena sometimes associated with revivals are well known.  The supposed prevalence among prostitutes would not be evidence against the sexual relationships of hysteria; it has, however, been denied, even by so great an authority as Parent-Duchatelet who found it very rare, even in prostitutes in hospitals, when it was often associated with masturbation; in prostitutes, however, who returned to a respectable life, giving up their old habits, he found hysteria common and severe.[270] The frequent absence of physical sexual feeling, again, may quite reasonably be taken as evidence of a disorder of the sexual emotions, while the undoubted fact that sexual intercourse usually has little beneficial effect on pronounced hysteria, and that sexual excitement during sleep and sexual hallucinations are often painful in the same condition, is far from showing that injury or repression of the sexual emotions had nothing to do with the production of the hysteria.  It would be as reasonable to argue that the evil effect of a heavy meal on a starving man must be taken as evidence that he was not suffering from starvation.  The fact, indeed, on which Gilles de la Tourette and others have remarked, that the hysterical often desire not so much sexual intercourse as simple affection, would tend to show that there is here a real analogy, and that starvation or lesion of the sexual emotions may produce, like bodily starvation, a rejection of those satisfactions which are demanded in health.  Thus, even a mainly a priori examination of the matter may lead us to see that many arguments brought forward in favor of Charcot’s position on this point fall to the ground when we realize that the sexual emotions may constitute a highly complex sphere, often hidden from observation, sometimes not conscious at all, and liable to many lesions besides that due to the non-satisfaction of sexual desire.  At the same time we are not thus enabled to overthrow any of the positive results attained by Charcot and his school.

It may, however, be pointed out that Charcot’s attitude toward hysteria was the outcome of his own temperament.  He was primarily a neurologist, the bent of his genius was toward the investigation of facts that could be objectively demonstrated.  His first interest in hysteria, dating from as far back as 1862, was in hystero-epileptic convulsive attacks, and to the last he remained indifferent to all facts which could not be objectively demonstrated.  That was the secret of the advances he was enabled to make in neurology.  For purely psychological investigation he had no liking, and probably no aptitude.  Anyone who was privileged to observe his methods of work at the Salpetriere will easily recall the great master’s towering figure; the disdainful expression, sometimes, even, it seemed, a little sour; the lofty bearing which enthusiastic admirers called Napoleonic.  The questions addressed to the patient were cold, distant, sometimes impatient.  Charcot clearly had little faith in the value of any results so attained.  One may well believe, also, that a man whose superficial personality was so haughty and awe-inspiring to strangers would, in any case, have had the greatest difficulty in penetrating the mysteries of a psychic world so obscure and elusive as that presented by the hysterical.[271]