on around bathing establishments has now been in part transferred to massage establishments.  Massage is an equally powerful stimulant to the skin and the sexual sphere,—­acting mainly by friction instead of mainly by heat,—­and it has not yet attained that position of general recognition and popularity which, in the case of bathing establishments, renders it bad policy to court disrepute.

Like bathing, massage is a hygienic and therapeutic method of influencing the skin and subjacent tissues which, together with its advantages, has certain concomitant disadvantages in its liability to affect the sexual sphere.  This influence is apt to be experienced by individuals of both sexes, though it is perhaps specially marked in women.  Jouin (quoted in Paris Journal de Medecine, April 23, 1893) found that of 20 women treated by massage, of whom he made inquiries, 14 declared that they experienced voluptuous sensations; 8 of these belonged to respectable families; the other 6 were women of the demimonde and gave precise details; Jouin refers in this connection to the aliptes of Rome.  It is unnecessary to add that the gynaecological massage introduced in recent years by the Swedish teacher of gymnastics, Thure-Brandt, as involving prolonged rubbing and kneading of the pelvic regions, “pression glissante du vagin” etc. (Massage Gynecologique, by G. de Frumerie, 1897), whatever its therapeutic value, cannot fail in a large proportion of cases to stimulate the sexual emotions. (Eulenburg remarks that for sexual anaesthesia in women the Thure-Brandt system of massage may “naturally” be recommended, Sexuale Neuropathie, p. 78.) I have been informed that in London and elsewhere massage establishments are sometimes visited by women who seek sexual gratification by massage of the genital regions by the masseuse.

FOOTNOTES: 

[21] “Dicens munditiam corporis atque vestitus animae esse immunditiam”—­St. Jerome, Ad Eustochium Virginem.

[22] With regard to the physiological mechanism by which bathing produces its tonic and stimulating effects Woods Hutchinson has an interesting discussion (Chapter VII) in his Studies in Human and Comparative Pathology.

[23] Thus among the young women admitted to the Chicago Normal School to be trained as teachers, Miss Lura Sanborn, the director of physical training, states (Doctor’s Magazine, December, 1900) that a bath once a fortnight is found to be not unusual.

V.

Summary—­Fundamental Importance of Touch—­The Skin the Mother of All the Other Senses.

The sense of touch is so universally diffused over the whole skin, and in so many various degrees and modifications, and it is, moreover, so truly the Alpha and the Omega of affection, that a broken and fragmentary treatment of the subject has been inevitable.