Dr. King describes what he calls “sexual hysteria in women,” which he considers a chief variety of hysteria.  He adds, however, that it is not strictly a disease, but simply an automatic reaction of the reproductive system, which tends to become abnormal under conditions of civilization, and to be perpetuated in a morbid form.  In this condition he finds twelve characters:  1.  Time of life, usually between puberty and climacteric. 2.  Attacks rarely occur when subject is alone. 3.  Subject appears unconscious, but is not really so. 4.  She is instinctively ashamed afterward. 5.  It occurs usually in single women, or in those, single or married, whose sexual needs are unsatisfied. 6.  No external evidence of disease, and (as Aitken pointed out) the nates are not flattened; the woman’s physical condition is not impaired, and she may be specially attractive to men. 7.  Warmth of climate and the season of spring and summer are conducive to the condition. 8.  The paroxysm in short and temporary. 9.  While light touches are painful, firm pressure and rough handling give relief. 10.  It may occur in the occupied, but an idle, purposeless life is conducive. 11.  The subject delights in exciting sympathy and in being fondled and caressed. 12.  There is defect of will and a strong stimulus is required to lead to action.

Among civilized women, the author proceeds, this condition does not appear to subserve any useful purpose.  “Let us, however, go back to aboriginal woman—­to woman of the woods and the fields.  Let us picture ourselves a young aboriginal Venus in one of her earliest hysterical paroxysms.  In doing so, let us not forget some of the twelve characteristics previously mentioned.  She will not be ‘acting her part’ alone, or, if alone, it will be in a place where someone else is likely soon to discover her.  Let this Venus be now discovered by a youthful Apollo of the woods, a man with fully developed animal instincts.  He and she, like any other animals, are in the free field of Nature.  He cannot but observe to himself:  ’This woman is not dead; she breathes and is warm; she does not look ill; she is plump and rosy.’  He speaks to her; she neither hears (apparently) nor responds.  Her eyes are closed.  He touches, moves, and handles her at his pleasure.  She makes no resistance.  What will this primitive Apollo do next?  He will cure the fit, and bring the woman back to consciousness, satisfy her emotions, and restore her volition—­not by delicate touches that might be ‘agonizing’ to her hyperesthetic skin, but by vigorous massage, passive motions, and succussion that would be painless.  The emotional process on the part of the woman would end, perhaps, with mingled laughter, tears, and shame; and when accused afterward of the part which the ancestrally acquired properties of her nervous system had compelled her to act, as a preliminary to the event, what woman would not deny it and be angry?  But the course of Nature having been