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
After the attempt it suddenly became clear to him what he had done. He
openly confessed his crime, which he remembered in all its details,
but which seemed to him to be something abnormal. He could not help
it. For some days after this, C. suffered with headache and
congestions, and was now and then excited and restless, and slept
badly. His mental functions are undisturbed, but he is, nevertheless,
a congenitally peculiar man, with a character weak and devoid of
energy. The facial expression has something lascivious and peculiar
about it. He suffers with hæmorrhoids. The genitals present nothing
abnormal. The cranium is narrow and retreating at the forehead. Body
large and well nourished. With the exception of diarrhœa, there is no
disturbance of the vegetative functions.
Case 12. Mrs. E., aged 47. Uncle on father’s side was insane; father
was sanguine, and given to excess in venery. Patient’s brother died of
an acute cerebral affection. Patient from childhood has been nervous,
eccentric, and romantic; and while little more than a child manifested
excessive sexual desire, and at ten began sexual indulgence. At
nineteen, marriage. Unhappy married life; her husband, who was normal,
did not satisfy her, and until recent years she constantly had other
friends besides her husband. She was well aware of the immorality of
her life, but felt her powerlessness against her insatiable desire,
which she sought to keep, at least outwardly, a secret. Later she
thought that she had suffered with a “mania for men.” Patient has
borne six children. Six years ago she was thrown from a wagon and
received a severe cerebral concussion. Following this there was
melancholia, with delusions of persecution, which sent her to the
asylum. She is approaching the climacterium, and of late the menses
have been profuse and too frequent. Since this period she is pleased
to note that the previously powerful sexual impulse has declined.
Proper behavior. Slight degree of descensus uteri and prolapsus ani.
Hyperæsthesia sexualis may be continuously present with exacerbations,
or it may be intermittent or periodic. In the latter case it is a
cerebral neurosis _per se_ (_vide_ “Special Pathology”), or an
accompanying symptom of a condition of general psychical excitement
(mania; episodically in dementia paralytica, dementia senilis, etc.).
Lentz has published a remarkable case of intermittent satyriasis
(_Bulletin de la société de méd. légale de Belgique_, Nr. 21):—
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