Our remarks on the cerebellum, spinal marrow, and erectile tissue, may apply to all parts of the genital apparatus; as each part may be a direct cause of venereal excitement, and consequently an indirect cause of venereal excesses. This is certainly true of the mucous membrane, which lines the genito-urinary passages. Every one knows that acute inflammation of the interior of the urethra often causes painful erections, and which may attend a deformity of the penis; and hence the term _chordee_ is applied to these blenorrhœas. We have seen, when speaking of diurnal pollution, that chronic inflammations of this canal may be followed by losses of semen. The presence of a stone in the bladder usually causes an itching and tickling at the end of the penis, which has sometimes been the beginning of bad habits. If, after excesses of the table, coition is indulged in to excess, it is because the abuse of wine and liquors stimulates the mucous membranes, and particularly those of which we are speaking--excites their action, and new desires arise. Is it not on the special character possessed by cantharides, of inflaming the urinary passages, that the violent satyriasis caused by this remedy depends?
The phenomena we have mentioned are seen much more frequently in females than in males, as the mucous membrane of the genital organs is much more extensive and more exposed to the action of external agents in the former. We have known several cases of nymphomania to be caused by herpetic affections, which were seated within the vulva. Biett knew a case of it in a female, sixty years old, affected with prurigo of this part. Trousseau has known similar cases. Hence, the irritations of the vulva, attended with itching, have been considered by many authors among the causes of onanism. Eczema, when it has extended to the vulvo-vaginal mucous membrane, has been known to induce this habit violently in females. Ascarides, which have escaped from the anus, have often caused violent itching, and afterward a venereal excitement, which was followed by the same result. Beck has known these worms to produce nymphomania in a female seventy years old. Bitter injections into the vagina were followed by the evacuation of a great number of these animals, and by the cessation of the symptoms.