Many propagandists have suggested that people contemplating the step of marriage should first acquaint themselves with the facts of life. What is generally recommended is that the intending person read some appropriate biology or sex technique book, the more to understand the peculiarities of the opposite sex. Sometimes the suggestions are altogether more thorough-going. For instance, Balzac (in his "Catechisme conjugal") suggests that "No man should marry before he has studied anatomy and dissected the body of a

The first sex institute was the Magnus Hirschfeld Institute fur Sexualwissenschaft, Berlin, and doomed only to survive a few years. In 1933 it was destroyed by the Nazis.

The only three studies, pre-Kinsey, which approached nationwide coverage in the U.S. were limited to college students.

The largest pre-Kinsey study - which just preceded the first Kinsey report -was "The Sex Life of Unmarried Men" (1947) by L. B. Hohman and Bertram Schaffner, based on interviews with 4,600 selective service selectees at military induction centres in New York State and Baltimore.

There is good evidence that China is the first country in the world to have abolished syphilis. J. S. Horn describes how this was done in "Away with all Pests". Felix Greene has made similar impressive claims for the record of modern China in the area of venereal disease. Thus - "Perhaps one of the most spectacular victories achieved by the new regime has been the virtual wiping out of venereal disease. I visited, in all, ten hospitals in China in city and country, old and new. In each one I asked about the incidence of syphilis. In each it drew a similar response:

A number of sexologists studied the effects of masturbation before the extensive programme launched by Masters and Johnson.

In modern observations of human coitus efforts are made to measure heart rate during sexual excitement, climax, the resolution phase, etc. The first attempts to measure heart rate during sexual intercourse date back to 1896, when G. Kolb carried out a range of experiments in this area. In the 1930s E. P. Boas and E. F. Goldschmidt made similar observations and in 1950 G. Klumbies and H. Kleinsorge included heart rate, blood pressure and respiratory changes in their experiments.

In 1863 Eckhard first demonstrated that stimulation of the sacral nerves produced penile erection; he called the nerves the nervi erigentes.

Semans and Langsworthy (1938) demonstrated in the cat that stimulation of the sacral and hypogastric nerves would result in a sexual response in the male organ. Dilation of the penile arteries and erection of the penis was produced by stimulation of the first, second, and third sacral nerves.

There has been a number of studies of pornography, notably in Scandinavia, but also in West Germany, Israel, Britain, and America. The most thorough study of pornography is without doubt the one carried out by the Presidential Commission in the U.S. In 1967 the Congress created a Commission to investigate the effects of obscenity and pornography on the people of the United States, each member of the Commission being appointed by President Johnson. The final report was remarkable in that it recommended repeal of obscenity legislation as

The rich tradition of American sexological research began early in the nineteenth century. As we have seen, by the 1870s it became possible, on a limited scale, to observe human coitus directly. Dr. Beck observed human orgasm in August 1972. In fitting a woman with a pessary to correct retroversion of the uterus she was quick to request that Beck take care lest she experience orgasm, a likelihood in view of her nervous temperament and passionate nature. However, out of scientific curiosity, Beck decided to provoke an orgasm in the woman and

One of the oldest sexist surveys has the flavour of personal experience and is set in the form of a dialogue between the Chinese Yellow Emperor and the goddess instructress, The Forthright Female (Su Nu).