Page:Psychopathia Sexualis (tr. Chaddock, 1892).djvu/228

210 was reversed, when suddenly I saw her changed in the sense I now feel myself,—viz., she as man,—and I felt myself a woman in contrast with her; so that I left her with ill-concealed vexation. At that time she had not yet come to understand her own condition perfectly.

“Since then, all my sensory impressions are as if they were feminine in form and relation. The cerebral system almost immediately adjusted itself to the vegetative; so that all my ailments were manifested in a feminine way. The sensitiveness of all nerves, particularly that of the auditory and olfactory and trigeminal, increased to a condition of nervousness. If only a window slammed, I was frightened inwardly; for a man dare not tremble at such things. If food is not absolutely fresh, I perceive a cadaverous odor. I could never depend on the trigeminus; for the pain would jump whimsically from one branch of it to another; from a tooth to an eye. But, since my transformation, I bear toothache and migraine more easily, and have less feeling of fear with stenocardia. It seems to me a strange fact that I feel myself to be a fearful, weak being, and yet, when danger threatens, I am much rather cool and collected; and this is true in dangerous operations. The stomach rebels against the slightest indiscretion (in female diet) that is committed without thought of the female nature, either by ructus or other symptoms; but particularly against abuse of alcoholics. The indisposition after intoxication that a man who feels like a woman experiences is much worse than any a student could get up. It seems to me almost as if one feeling like a woman were entirely controlled by the vegetative system.

“Small as my nipples are, they demand room, and I feel them as mammæ; just as during the beginning of puberty, the nipples swelled and pained. On this account, the white shirt, the waistcoat, and the coat trouble me. I feel as though the pelvis were female; and it is the same with the anus and nates. At first the sense of a female abdomen was troublesome to me; for it cannot bear trousers, and it always possesses or induces the feminine feeling. I also have the imperative feeling of a waist. It is as if I were robbed of my own skin, and put in a woman’s skin that fitted me perfectly, but which felt everything as if it covered a woman; and whose sensations passed through the man’s body, and exterminated the masculine element. The testes, even though not atrophied or degenerated, are still no longer testes, and often cause me pain, with the feeling that they belong in the abdomen, and should be fastened there; and their mobility often bothers me.

“Every four weeks, at the time of the full moon, I have the molimen of a woman for five days, physically and mentally, only I do not bleed; but I have the feeling of a loss of fluid; a feeling that the genitals and abdomen are (internally) swollen. A very pleasant period comes when, afterward and later in the interval for a day or two, the physiological desire for procreation comes, which with all power permeates the