The erotomaniac individual’s love is of a platonic nature. Erotomania constitutes a diseased form of ideal love. The physical sexual appetite is generally foreign to the erotomaniac. The object of the individual’s love occupies the mind only. It is a continual obsession of the spirit. The erotomaniac individual makes an abstraction of the physical personality of the adored. It is pursuing an ideal. The erotomaniac is the victim of a mental exaltation which moves the lover to write poetry and love-letters to the object of his or her dreams, without ever sending them off. If possible the erotomaniac follows his or her lover, but never addresses a word to him or her. The erotomaniac wishes to be in possession of the beloved being, to be wedded to the beloved one, but it never thinks of the sensual part. It is after the mental possession of the beloved one. The love of the erotomaniac individual rests upon a vague and hazy ideal. It is the purest love possible. The relation is sacred and beautiful. It is a kind of cult. The beloved object is a divinity whom the patient worships upon his or her knees and whom he and she takes care not to profane even by a carnal kiss. The following case of a fellow-worker in the pathological institute of a university in Switzerland is not uninstructive in this respect: While working over the microscope at the same table, the young physician told the author the following story of his life when he was a boy of sixteen. He was at that time attending college in a middle-sized city in Germany. One day a college friend took him to his home, where he saw his friend’s sister, a young lady of twenty-three years of age, and immediately fell in love with her. Although he was, already at that time, far enough advanced in the ways of the world to see the hopelessness of his love, still the incongruity between the ideal and reality was entirely forgotten. He was altogether oblivious of the material world and imagined himself floating in the realms of the spirits, while dreaming of exquisite harmonies. Day and night he saw before him the object of his adoration. He was filled with ecstasy over her perfection which was greatly exaggerated and only existed in his imagination. For now, with a clearer judgment, he can see distinctly that she must have had noticed at that time his childish emotions and, out of vanity, was somewhat playing with them. In his diaries he finds pledges of perennial veneration and worship and vows of eternal resignation. His memoirs are filled with descriptions of his hopes and fears, joys and sorrows, wishes and despairs.