Page:Psychopathia Sexualis (tr. Chaddock, 1892).djvu/390

 dren, and living in happy matrimony. Eight years ago he suffered a violent fright. For some weeks thereafter he had a feeling of apprehension and cardiac attacks. Then came attacks, at intervals of several months or a year, of what the patient called his "moral catarrh." He became sleepless. After three days, loss of appetite, increasing irritability, strange appearance; fixed stare, staring into space; paleness, changing with redness; tremor of the fingers; red, shining eyes, with peculiar glassy expression; and violent, quick manner of speech. There was a desire for girls of from five to ten years, even for his own daughters. He would beg his wife to guard the children. For days at a time, while in this state, he would shut himself in his room. Previously he was compelled to pass school-girls on the street, and he found a peculiar pleasure in exposing his genitals before them, by acting as if about to urinate.

For fear of exposure, he shuts himself in his room, full of desire, incapable of movement, and torn by feelings of fear. Consciousness seems to be undisturbed. The attacks last from eight to fourteen days, The cause of their return is not clear. Improvement is sudden; there is great desire for sleep, and, after this is satisfied, he is again well. In the interval there is nothing abnormal. The author assumes an epileptic foundation, and considers the attacks to be the psychical equivalents of epileptic convulsions (!).

Mania.—With the general excitation that here exists in the psychical organ, the sexual sphere is likewise often implicated. In maniacal individuals of the female sex, this is the rule. In certain cases, it may be questionable whether the instinct, which, in itself, is not intensified, is simply recklessly manifested, or whether it is present in actual abnormal intensity. For the most part, the latter is the true assumption,—certainly so where sexual delusions and their religious equivalents are constantly expressed. In accordance with the degrees of intensity of the disease, the intensified instinct is expressed in different forms.

In simple maniacal exaltation in men, courting, frivolity, and lasciviousness in speech, and frequenting of brothels, are observed; in women, inclination for the society of men, personal adornment, perfumes, talk of marriage and scandals, suspicion of the virtue of other women; or there is manifested the religious equivalent,—pilgrimages, missionary work, desire to go into a cloister or to become the servant of a