Such extreme cases of cruelty as the last two are never found in sadistic women, at least none are on record. The woman playing the passive rôle can naturally have no use for a dead mate. She needs an active live one. Hence only the first three degrees are found in women. Moraglia claims that some women’s features manifest cruelty during conjugation. At the beginning of the orgasm the face becomes distorted, and by showing her teeth such a woman assumes a certain ferocity of expression that is sometimes frightening. One of the author’s patients, a woman of twenty-six years of age, mother of two children, would take on a cruel look at the height of her sexual excitement immediately before the orgasm. This frightened the husband so that he sought medical advice. She would also grasp with her teeth her consort’s lips and tongue and bite them. Slight sadistic features are, therefore, not uncommon in women. Especially in modern times, with the increasing effemination of men and the corresponding masculination of women, the aggressive woman is not so great a rarity. The biting and scratching of the companion during sexual excitement is, therefore, not uncommon and falls yet within physiological limits. But when the individual is driven to whip, pinch and prick the body, or, particularly the genitals of her companion, in the blind impulse to satisfy sexual desire, such expression of gratification does not correspond with the natural purposes, and the acts become perverse. Such uncontrollable emotions may even lead the individual to homicidal thoughts. Phylogenetically it is significant that sadism is found even among the lower female animals. At the time of sexual union, crabs tear off limbs from the bodies of their consorts. Spiders often bite off the heads of their mates. It is the male spider who impregnates the female at the risk of his life, and sometimes perishes in the attempt. It is the male bee that after conjugium with the queen falls dead from the fatal embrace, leaving her to fling aside his entrails and calmly pursue her course. Sadism may, hence, be considered a kind of atavism. It shows man to be, as Schopenhauer puts it, in reality a wild, cruel animal. We only see him in a tame state, which we call civilization. In history it is known that not only the degenerated Caesars, like Nero or Tiberius, took great pleasure and delight in having youths and maidens slaughtered before their eyes, but the same is also reported of women, who did not shrink from committing sadistic acts. Valeria Messalina and Catherine de Medici found great pleasure in having the ladies of their courts whipped before their eyes. Branton relates that Catherine loved to whip with rods the prettiest ladies of her court only to satisfy her lust. Among the cases reported in recent medical literature the case of Krafft-Ebing is remarkable.