Page:Psychopathia Sexualis (tr. Chaddock, 1892).djvu/448

430 was recognized as a woman, and sentenced to imprisonment for six months.

2. In 1773, another woman, dressed as a man, courted a girl, and asked for her hand; but the trick did not succeed.

3. Two women lived together as man and wife for thirty years. On her death-bed the "husband" confessed her secret to those about her.

Coffignon (op. cit., p. 301) makes later statements worthy of notice.

He reports that this vice is, of late, quite the fashion,—partly owing to novels on the subject, and partly as a result of excessive work on sewing-machines, the sleeping of female servants in the same bed, seduction in schools by depraved pupils, or seduction of daughters by perverse servants.

The author declares that this vice ("saphism") is met more frequently among ladies of the aristocracy and prostitutes.

He does not differentiate physiological and pathological cases, nor, among the latter, the acquired and congenital cases. The details of a few cases, which are certainly pathological, correspond exactly with the facts that are known about men of contrary sexuality.

The saphists have their places of meeting, recognize each other by peculiar glances, carriage, etc. Saphistic pairs like to dress and ornament themselves alike, etc. They are then called "petites sœurs" (little sisters).

This horrible kind of sexual indulgence is so monstrous that the presumption of a psychopathic state is, under all circumstances, justified; and Maschka's recommendation, that the mental condition of the perpetrator should always be investigated, is well founded. In any case, an abnormal and decidedly perverse sensuality is required to overcome the natural repugnance which man has for a corpse, and permit a feeling of pleasure to be experienced in sexual congress with a cadaver.

Unfortunately, in the majority of the cases reported, the mental condition was not examined; so that the question whether necrophilia is compatible with mental soundness must remain open. But any one having knowledge of the horrible aberrations of the sexual instinct would not venture, without further consideration, to answer the question in the negative.