The eyes, violently
injected, become haggard, and the look uncertain, or, in the majority of
cases, the eyes are closed spasmodically to avoid the contact of the
light. The respiration is hurried, sometimes interrupted, and may be
suspended by the spasmodic contraction of the larynx, and the air, for a
time compressed, is at last emitted in broken and meaningless words. The
congested nervous centers only communicate confused sensations and
volitions; mobility and sensation show extreme disorder; the limbs are
seized by convulsions and sometimes by cramps, or are thrown wildly about
or become stiff like iron bars. The jaws, tightly pressed, grind the
teeth, and in some persons the delirium is carried so far that they bite
to bleeding the shoulders their companions have imprudently abandoned to
them. This frantic state of epilepsy lasts but a short time, but it
suffices to exhaust the forces of the organism, especially in man. It is,
I believe, Galen, who said: 'Omne animal post coitum triste praeter
mulierem gallumque.'"[107] Most of the elements that make up this typical
picture of the state of coitus are not absolutely essential to that state,
but they all come within the normal range of variation.
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