Page:Psychopathia Sexualis (tr. Chaddock, 1892).djvu/288

270 correspondence of a perverse sexual character, which showed that he had had perverse intercourse for years with all classes of people.

X. came of a neurotic family. His paternal grandfather died by suicide while insane. His father was a weak, peculiar man. One brother masturbated at the age of two. A cousin was sexually perverse, and practiced perverse acts, similar to those of X., while a youth; he became weak-minded, and died of spinal disease. A paternal great-uncle was an hermaphrodite. His mother’s sister was insane. His mother is said to have been healthy. X.’s brother is nervous and irascible.

X., likewise, was nervous as a child. The mewing of a cat would create great fear in him; and if one but imitated the voice of a cat, he would cry bitterly, and run to others for protection. Slight physical disturbance caused violent fever. He was a quiet, dreamy child, of excitable imagination, but of slight mental capabilities. He did not indulge much in boyish games; he preferred feminine pursuits. It gave him especial pleasure to curl the hair of the house-maid or of his brother.

At thirteen X. went to an Institute. There he practiced mutual masturbation, seduced his comrades, and, by his cynical conduct, made them unmanageable; so that he had to be taken home. At that time the parents found love-letters with lascivious contents, showing perverse sexuality. From the age of seventeen he studied under the strict surveillance of a professor in a Gymnasium. He made but sad progress in learning. He had only a talent for music.

After finishing his studies, the patient entered the University, at the age of nineteen. There he attracted attention by his cynical character and his association with young persons who were thought to be given to masculine love. He began to be dandified ; wore striking cravats, and shirts that were low cut; he forced his feet into narrow shoes, and curled his hair in a remarkable way. This peculiarity disappeared when he left the school, and had returned home.

At the age of twenty-four he was for a long time neurasthenic. From that time until his twenty-ninth year, he was earnest and skillful in his profession; but he avoided the society of the opposite sex, and constantly associated with men of doubtful character.

The patient would not allow a personal examination. In writing, he made the excuse for this that it would be of no use, because his impulse to his own sex had existed from his earliest childhood, and was congenital. He had always had horror feminæ, and had never been inclined to avail himself of the charms of women. Toward men he felt himself in the rôle of a man. He recognized his impulse toward his own sex as abnormal, and excused his sexual indulgence as being the result of an abnormal natural condition.

Since his flight X. lives out of Germany, in Southern Italy, and, as I learned from a letter, now, as before, he indulges in perverse love. X. is an earnest, stately man, of masculine features, well-grown beard, and