Laurent (loc. cit.) has brought
forward several cases which may illustrate this point. Thus, he speaks of
two young girls of about 16 and 17, slightly neuropathic, but without
definite hysterical symptoms, who, during the menstrual period, feel
themselves in a sort of electrical state, "with tingling and prickling
sensations and feelings of attraction or repulsion at the contact of
various objects." These girls believe their garments stick to their skin
during the periods; it was only with difficulty that they could remove
their slippers, though fitting easily; stockings had to be drawn off
violently by another person, and they had given up changing their chemises
during the period because the linen became so glued to the skin. An
orchestral performer on the double-bass informed Laurent that whenever he
left a tuned double-bass in his lodgings during his wife's period a
string snapped; consequently he always removed his instrument at this time
to a friend's house. He added that the same thing happened two years
earlier with a mistress, a _cafe-concert_ singer, who had, indeed, warned
him beforehand. A harpist also informed Laurent that she had been obliged
to give up her profession because during her periods several strings of
her harp, always the same strings, broke, especially when she was playing.
A friend of Laurent's, an official in Cochin China, also told him that the
strings of his violin often snapped during the menstrual periods of his
Annamite mistress, who informed him that Annamite women are familiar with
the phenomenon, and are careful not to play on their instruments at this
time.
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