Case 77. A gentleman of very bad heredity consulted me concerning impotence that was driving him almost to despair. While he was young, his fetich was women of plump form. He married such a lady, and was happy and potent with her. After a few months the lady fell very ill, and lost much flesh. When, one day, he tried to resume his marital duty, he was absolutely impotent, and remained so. If, however, he attempted coitus with plump women, he was perfectly potent. Even bodily defects may become fetiches. Descartes, who himself (“Traité des Passions,” cxxxvi) expresses some opinions concerning the origin of peculiar affections in associations of ideas, was always partial to cross-eyed women, because the object of his first love had such a defect. (Binet, _op. cit._) Lydston (“A Lecture on Sexual Perversion,” Chicago, 1890[93]) reports the case of a man who had a love-affair with a woman whose right lower extremity had been amputated. After separation from her, he searched for other women with a like defect.[94]—A negative fetich. When the part of the female body forming the fetich is capable of removal, like the hair, the most extravagant acts may be performed. Therefore, hair-fetichists form an interesting and forensically-important category. While such admirers of female hair are probably not infrequent within physiological limits, and possibly various senses (sight, smell, and hearing, through crepitant sounds,—and certainly touch, just as with velvet- and silk-fetichists, _v. infra_) are thus excited with an accompaniment of lustful feeling; yet, a series of similar pathological cases has also been observed, in which the hair-fetichism had become an overpowering impulse, and driven the individuals to commit crimes.[95],[96] These form the group of hair-despoilers.