on Indigestion, vividly describes the appearance of the eyes sometimes seen in ovarian disorder:  “The glittering flash which glances out from some female irides is the external indication of ovarian irritation, and ‘the ovarian gleam’ has features quite its own.  The most marked instance which ever came under my notice was due to irritation in the ovaries, which had been forced down in front of the uterus and been fixed there by adhesions.  Here there was little sexual proclivity, but the eyes were very remarkable.  They flashed and glittered unceasingly, and at times perfect lightning bolts shot from them.  Usually there is a bright glittering sheen in them which contrasts with the dead look in the irides of sexual excess or profuse uterine discharges.”

The activity of the glandular secretions, and especially those of the skin, during detumescence, would lead us to expect that such secretory activity is an index to an aptitude for detumescence.  As a matter of fact it is occasionally, though not frequently, noted by medical observers.  It is stated that the erotic temperament is characterized by a special odor.[157] The activity of the sweat-glands is seldom referred to by medical observers in describing persons of erotic temperament, although the descriptions of novelists not infrequently contain allusions to this point, and the literature of an earlier age shows that the tendency to perspiration, especially the moist hand, was regarded as a sure sign of a sensual temperament.  “The moist-handed Madonna Imperia, a most rare and divine creature,” remarks Lazarillo in Middleton’s comedy Blurt, Master-Constable, to quote one of many allusions to this point in the Elizabethan drama.

The lips are sometimes noted as red and everted, perhaps thick[158]; Tardieu remarked that the typically erotic woman has thick red lips.  This corresponds with the characteristic type of the satyr in classic statues as in later paintings; his lips are always thick and everted.  Fullness, redness, and eversion of the lips are correlated with good breathing, the absence of anaemia, laughter, a well-fleshed face.

This kind of mouth indicates, perhaps, not so much a congenitally erotic temperament, as an abandonment to impulse.  The opposite type of mouth—­with inverted, thin, and retracted lips—­would appear to be found with especial frequency in persons who habitually repress their impulses on moral grounds.  Any kind of effort to restrain involuntary muscular action may lead to retraction of the lips:  the effort to overcome anger or fear, or even the resistance to a strong desire to urinate or defecate.  In religious young men, however, it becomes habitual and fixed.  I recall a small band of medical students, gathered together from a large medical school, who were accustomed to meet together for prayer and Bible-reading; the majority showed this type of mouth to a very marked degree:  pale faces, with drawn, retracted lips.  It may be termed