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DISEASES OF THE GENERATIVE SYSTEM. 401
first insensibly, but afterward very manifestly; they
have fever, their hands are almost always damp with
perspiration, burning, or else icy cold ; in the end
they become dry, cracky, trembling, and without power;
their arms are characterized by the same peculiarities ;
the skin is rigid and crepitant ; they daily lose that soft
and elastic roundness which one feels in touching the
skin of persons who enjoy health ; are they often also
bathed in perspiration during the whole night.
" The teeth of some break ; the enamel looks as if
it were cracked, or it is broken into small notches like
those of a fine saw, results of their close pressure and
grinding one against another, occasioned by the con
vulsions which almost always accompany the acts of
solitary indulgence.
" This grinding of the teeth sometimes takes place
with a very great noise. One of the patients whose
history I have reported, exhibited this peculiarity
in an
extreme degree, in the convulsions which came on
every moment, so that one could not listen to it without
shivering.
"
Every thing bespeaks in these persons exhaustion,
and is indicative of sadness, ennui, and disgust; they
are timid ; but it is not the amiable timidity of modesty
and chastity, which is very different from what they
display.
" The timidity natural to a young person is an orna
ment to her ; theirs overwhelms them ; are more
they
confused than timid ;
or nothing pleases interests them,
neither the society of their relations or companions, nor
dancing, nor the occupations of their sex and age. Re
pose, indolence, and solitude, of which they
are at