Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6: Sex in Relation to SocietyEllis, Havelock
Science
Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6: Sex in Relation to Society
Ellis, Havelock
Sex; Sex (Psychology)
The frequency of hereditary degeneration has been noted by
Bonhoeffer among German prostitutes. He investigated 190 Breslau
prostitutes in prison, and therefore of a more abnormal class
than ordinary prostitutes, and found that 102 were hereditarily
degenerate, and mostly with one or both parents who were
drunkards; 53 also showed feeble-mindedness (_Zeitschrift für die
Gesamte Strafwissenschaft_, Bd. xxiii, p. 106).
The most detailed examinations of ordinary non-criminal
prostitutes, both anthropometrically and as regards the
prevalence of anomalies, have been made in Italy, though not on a
sufficiently large number of subjects to yield absolutely
decisive results. Thus Fornasari made a detailed examination of
sixty prostitutes belonging chiefly to Emilia and Venice, and
also of twenty-seven others belonging to Bologna, the latter
group being compared with a third group of twenty normal women
belonging to Bologna (_Archivio di Psichiatria_, 1892, fasc. VI).
The prostitutes were found to be of lower type than the normal
individuals, having smaller heads and larger faces. As the author
himself points out, his subjects were not sufficiently numerous
to justify far-reaching generalizations, but it may be worth
while to summarize some of his results. At equal heights the
prostitutes showed greater weight; at equal ages they were of
shorter stature than other women, not only of well-to-do, but of
the poor class: height of face, bi-zygomatic diameter (though not
the distance between zygomas), the distance from chin to external
auditory meatus, and the size of the jaw were all greater in the
prostitutes; the hands were longer and broader, compared to the
palm, than in ordinary women; the foot also was longer in
prostitutes, and the thigh, as compared to the calf, was larger.
It is noteworthy that in most particulars, and especially in
regard to head measurements, the variations were much greater
among the prostitutes than among the other women examined; this
is to some extent, though not entirely, to be accounted for by
the slightly greater number of the former.
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