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Acton, the great medical authority, points out that in some persons the

termination of the orgasm is accompanied by an epileptiform convulsion of

more or less severity. This is succeeded by a great amount of prostration.

This is seen in a very exaggerated form in the buck rabbit, which, after

each copulation, may be noticed to fall on his side in a sort of epileptic

fit, the whites of the eyes being turned up. The animal then gives several

spasmodic twitches with its hind legs, and lies panting for several moments

until the nervous system recovers itself.

 

Acton mentions cases of deaths occurring in houses of prostitution as well

as in the marriage bed as arising from the adverse influence of the sexual

orgasm on the nervous system and on the body as a whole, especially in

susceptible individuals. Entomological works abound with cases in which

death follows copulation.

 

Geddes and Thomson, in their book, "The Evolution of Sex", refer to the fact

that some spiders normally die after fertilizing the female, and such

sacrifice of the male occurs also in other species. The association of

reproduction and death is well known in the case of flying insects, as the

common mayflies. Emergence into winged liberty, the love-dance and the

process of fertilization, the deposition of eggs and the death of the

parents, are often the crowded events of a few hours. "In higher animals",

say these authors, "the fatality of the reproductive sacrifice has been

greatly lessened, yet death may tragically persist, even in human life, as

the direct nemesis of love..... The temporarily exhausting effect of even

moderate sexual indulgence is well known, as well as the increased liability

to all forms of disease while the individual energies are thus lowered.....

Reproduction is the beginning of death."