The frequency of the phenomena,
as well as the fact that, on leaving college to enter social life, the
girl usually ceases to feel these emotions, are sufficient to show the
absence of congenital abnormality. The estimate of the frequency of
"flames" in Normal schools, given to Obici and Marchesini by several lady
collaborators, was about 60 per cent., but there is no reason to suppose
that women teachers furnish a larger contingent of perverted individuals
than other women. The root is organic, but the manifestations are ideal
and Platonic, in contrast with some other manifestations found in
college-life. No inquiry was made as to the details of solitary sexual
manifestations in the colleges, the fact that they exist to more or less
extent being sufficiently recognized. The conversations already referred
to are a measure of the excitations of sexuality existing in these college
inmates and multiplied in energy by communication. Such discourse was,
wrote one collaborator, the order of the day, and it took place chiefly at
the time when letter-writing also was easiest. It may well be that sensual
excitations, transformed into ethereal sentiments, serve to increase the
intensity of the "flames.
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