Case 78. _A hair-despoiler._ P., aged 40, artistic locksmith, single. His father was temporarily insane, and his mother was very nervous. He developed well, and was intelligent; but he was early affected with _tics_ and imperative ideas. He had never masturbated. He loved platonically, and often busied himself with matrimonial plans. He had coitus infrequently with prostitutes, but never felt satisfied with such intercourse—rather, disgusted. Three years ago he was overtaken by misfortune (financial ruin), and, besides, he had a febrile disease, with delirium. These things had a very bad effect on his hereditarily-predisposed nervous system. On August 28, 1889, P. was arrested at the Trocadero, in Paris, _in flagranti_, as he forcibly cut off a young girl’s hair. He was arrested with the hair in his hand and a pair of shears in his pocket. He excused himself on the ground of momentary mental confusion and an unfortunate, irresistible passion; he confessed that he had ten times cut off hair, which he took great delight in keeping at home. On searching his home, sixty-five switches and tresses of hair were found, assorted in packets. P. had already been once arrested, on December 15, 1886, under similar circumstances, but was released for lack of evidence. P. states that, for the last three years, when he is alone in his room at night, he feels ill, anxious, excited, and dizzy, and then is troubled by the impulse to touch female hair. When it happened that he could actually take a young girl’s hair in his hand, he felt intensely excited sexually, and had erection and ejaculation without touching the girl in any other way. On reaching home, he would feel ashamed of what had taken place; but the wish to possess hair, always accompanied by great sensual pleasure, became more and more powerful in him. He wondered that previously, even in the most intimate intercourse with women, he had experienced no such feeling. One evening he could not resist the impulse to cut off a girl’s hair. With the hair in his hand, at home, the sensual process was repeated. He was forced to rub his body with the hair and envelop his genitals in it. Finally, quite exhausted, he grew ashamed, and could not trust himself to go out for several days. After months of rest he was again impelled to possess himself of female hair, indifferent as to whose it might be. If he attained his end, he felt himself possessed by a supernatural power and unable to give up his booty. If he could not attain the object of his desire, he became greatly depressed, hurried home, and there reveled in his collection of hair. He combed and fondled it, and thus had intense orgasm, satisfying himself by masturbation. Hair exposed in the cases of hair-dressers made no impression on him; it required hair hanging down from a female head.