Psychopathia sexualis: With especial reference to contrary sexual instinct: A medico-legal studyKrafft-Ebing, R. von (Richard)
Science
Psychopathia sexualis: With especial reference to contrary sexual instinct: A medico-legal study
Krafft-Ebing, R. von (Richard)
Paraphilias
The case of Henry III shows that contact with a person’s perspiration
may be the exciting cause of passionate love. At the betrothal feast of
the King of Navarre and Margaret of Valois, he accidentally dried his
face with a garment of Maria of Cleves, which was moist with her
perspiration. Although she was the bride of the Prince of Condé, Henry
conceived immediately such a passionate love for her that he could not
resist it, and made her, as history shows, very unhappy. An analogous
instance is related of Henry IV, whose passion for the beautiful Gabriel
is said to have originated at the instant when, at a ball, he wiped his
brow with her handkerchief.
Professor Jäger, the “discoverer of the soul,” refers to the same thing
in his well-known book (2d ed., 1880, chap. xv, p. 173); for he regards
the sweat as important in the production of sexual effects and as being
especially seductive.
One learns from reading the work of Ploss (“Das Weib”) that attempts to
attract a person of the opposite sex by means of the perspiration may be
discerned in many forms in popular psychology.
In reference to this, a custom which holds among the natives of the
Philippine Islands when they become engaged, as reported by Jäger, is
remarkable. When it becomes necessary for the engaged pair to separate,
they exchange articles of wearing-apparel, by means of which each
becomes assured of faithfulness. These objects are carefully preserved,
covered with kisses, and smelled.
The love of certain libertines and sensual women for perfumes[23]
indicates a relation between the olfactory and sexual senses.
A case mentioned by Heschl (_Wiener Zeitschrift f. pract. Heilkunde_,
March 22, 1861) is remarkable, where the absence of both olfactory lobes
was accompanied by imperfectly developed genitals. It was the case of a
man aged 45, in all respects well developed, with the exception of the
testicles, which were not larger than beans and contained no seminal
canals, and the larynx, which seemed to be of feminine dimensions. Every
trace of olfactory nerves was wanting, and the trigona olfactoria and
the furrow on the under surface of the anterior lobes were absent. The
perforations of the ethmoid plate were sparingly present, and occupied
by nerveless processes of the dura instead of by nerves. In the mucous
membrane of the nose there was also an absence of nerves. Finally, the
clearly-defined relation of the olfactory and sexual senses in mental
diseases is worthy of notice, in that in the psychoses of both sexes
dependent on masturbation, as well as in insanity due to disease of the
sexual organs of the female, or during the climacteric[24], olfactory
hallucinations are especially frequent, while in cases where a sexual
cause is wanting they are very infrequent.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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