Page:Psychopathia Sexualis (tr. Chaddock, 1892).djvu/284

266 fact that it was but very infrequently that he performed the inadequate and injurious sexual act with his wife, and that he sought and found a substitute in male lovers, he remained neurasthenic. His disease, at times, presents marked exacerbations, even manifesting itself in despairing depression about his matrimonial, sexual, and mental condition, which even extends to violent tædium vitæ.

His wife became hysteropathic and anemic, and the patient attributed this to sexual abstinence. Try as he would to force himself, of late years he has not been able to perform coitus, erection failing completely; while, in intercourse with male lovers, he is very potent.

The son of these unfortunate parents, who is now over nine years old, develops well. The patient adds that formerly, in coitus with his wife, he was potent only when he thought of a beloved man. (From the author’s “Lehrb. der Psychiatrie.”)

Case 114. Autobiography. “The writer of this is a congenital urning. If I have not consorted with other urnings, nevertheless, I am fully informed of my condition; for it has been my lot to see almost all literature on the subject. A short time ago, your work, ‘Psychopathia Sexualis,’ was sent to me. I saw in it that you were working and studying without prejudice in the interest of science and humanity.

“If I cannot tell you much that is new, yet I will speak of a few things which I trust you will receive as one more stone to be used by you in your work; which, I am confident, will, in your hands, aid in saving us.

“When you presume that there is often an hereditary tainted condition, perhaps you are right. My father was subject to spinal disease before my birth; later, he became mentally unsound, and took his own life.

“Another point, which I am inclined to doubt, is the one mentioned by you in another place,—i.e., that onanism practiced from youth may lead to perverse instinct.

“I (merchant, owner of a small business, unmarried) am in the beginning of my thirtieth year. I am apparently healthy, and show scarcely a deviation from the normal masculine type. The first sexual impulses were immediately and exclusively directed to the male sex, and I experienced them from my tenth year. I have masturbated since my twelfth year. Since, in spite of all attempts, coitus with women was always absolutely impossible for me; and since I have never had desire for women—on the contrary, rather aversion; and since my attempts have never resulted in the slightest erection, I have been compelled to satisfy myself by onanism.

“If now I am to confess the manner of my sexual satisfaction, I may say that in my earlier years my fellow-pupils and companions excited me sexually. Now my impulse consists in a desire for boys of about ten, but mostly for youths of from fifteen to twenty years.

“For a long time, strong and healthy cadets, of fine form, have had