or less than, or equal to, the physical desire of the man.  To those, of course, who regard marriage from the old-fashioned and grossly immoral standpoint of Melancthon and other theologians, and who consider a wife as the divinely ordained vehicle for the chartered intemperance of her husband, it will seem grotesque in the highest degree that a physiological inquirer should attempt to advise them how often to seek the embraces of their wives; but those who regard woman from the standpoint of a higher ethics, who abhor the notion that she should be only the vehicle for her husband’s passions, and who demand that she shall be mistress of her own body, will not be ungrateful for any guidance that physiology can afford them.  It will be seen presently, moreover, that the study of the weekly rhythm does afford us some less inexact clue to the desired solution.

One curious fact may be mentioned before we quit this interesting question.  It is stated that “Solon required [of the husband] three payments per month.  By the Misna a daily debt was imposed upon an idle vigorous young husband; twice a week on a citizen; once in thirty days on a camel-driver; once in six months on a seaman."[380] Now it is certainly striking that Solon’s “three payments per month” exactly correspond with my records of 37 discharges annually.  Had Solon similarly recorded a series of observations upon himself?

THE LUNAR-MONTHLY RHYTHM.

We now come to that division of the inquiry which is of the greatest physiological interest, although of little social import.  Is there a monthly period in man as well as in woman?  My records indicate clearly that there is.

In searching for this monthly rhythm I have utilized not only the data of the eight completely-recorded years, but also those of the three years of 1886, 1889, and 1891, for, although it would obviously have been inaccurate to utilize these incomplete records when calculating the yearly rhythm, there seems no objection to making use of them in the present section of the inquiry.  It is hardly necessary to remark that the terms “first day of the month,” “second day,” “third day,” etc., are to be understood as denoting “new-moon day,” “day after new moon,” “third lunar day,” and so on; but it should be explained that, since these discharges occur at night, I have adopted the astronomical, instead of the civil, day; so that a new moon occurring between noon yesterday and noon to-day is reckoned as occurring yesterday, and yesterday is regarded as the first lunar day:  thus, a discharge occurring in the night between December 31st and January 1st is tabulated as occurring on December 31st, and, in the present discussion, is assigned to the lunar day comprised between noon of December 31st and noon of January 1st.