Stimulated by folklore association of eye affections and childbirth and the relationship between styes and menstruation, the author found, in a succession of 158 patients, that an exceptional interest in childbirth was present in 92% of patients with styes, in 80% with tarsal cysts, and in only 23% of those suffering from other eye conditions. He then cites a long series of clinical cases in which diseased conditions of the eye were found invariably to be associated with an interest in childbirth [? sexual curiosity] and he speculatively discusses this as a couvade manifestation and hence as an unexpected demonstration of the significance of emotional forces in the genesis of somatic disorders.