The ancient Greeks regarded the sexual orgasm as a species of epilepsy, as we are informed by Clement, of Alexandria;1 and even CceUus Aurelianus, one of the most noted physicians of antiquity, taught that the nerve shock experienced in sexual intercourse is a "brief epilepsy." The relief of the distended seminal vesicles in the sexual act is not solely that of evacuation. " It is the discharge," as Mr. Ellis well says, " by the most powerful apparatus for nervous explosion in the body, of the energy accumulated and stored up in the slow process of tumescence; and that discharge reverberates through all the nervous centers of the organism."1 In point of fact, the true epileptic seizure does frequently involve the sexual mechanism, appearing most often at puberty, and manifesting itself quite commonly in erection, or satyriasis; and following, in quite enough instances to make it observable, the practice of masturbation. Boerhaave regarded coitus as a "true epilepsy;" and Roubaud, Hammond and other modern writers, have noted the resemblance between both, without, however, identifying them; while almost all authorities regard sexual excess as a cause of epilepsy.