Page:Psychopathia Sexualis (tr. Chaddock, 1892).djvu/61

Rh the beginning of November on account of spastic spinal paralysis. He declares he comes of a healthy family. A stutterer from his youth. Cranium microcephalic (cf. 53 cm.). Patient somewhat imbecile. He was never sociable, never had a sexual emotion. The sight of a woman never had anything enticing for him. He never had a desire to masturbate. Erections frequent, but only on waking in the morning with a full bladder, and without a trace of sexual feeling. Pollutions very infrequent,—about once a year, in sleep,—and usually while dreaming that he is concerned with a female. These dreams, however, as his dreams in general, are not markedly erotic. He says the act of pollution is not accompanied by any pleasurable sensation. Patient does not feel this absence of sexual sensations. He gives the assurance that his brother, aged 34, is in exactly the same sexual condition as himself, and he makes it seem probable that a sister, aged 21, is in a similar state. A younger brother, he says, is normal sexually. The examination of his genitals reveals nothing abnormal besides phimosis.

Hammond (“Sexual Impotence”), even with his wide experience, reports only the following three cases of anæsthesia sexualis:—

Case 5. Mr. W., aged 33; strong, healthy, with normal genitals. He had never experienced libido, and had vainly sought to awaken his defective sexual instinct by means of obscene stories and intercourse with prostitutes. On the occasion of such attempts he experienced only disgust, with even a feeling of nausea, and became nervously and mentally exhausted. Only once, when he forced the situation, did he have a transitory erection. W. had never masturbated, and had had pollutions about once every two months from his seventeenth year. Important interests demanded that he marry. He had no horror feminæ, and longed for a home and a wife, but felt that he was incapable of the sexual act. He died, unmarried, in the American civil war.

Case 6. X., aged 27; genitals normal; never felt libido. Mechanical or thermic stimuli easily induced erection, but instead of libido sexualis there was regularly a desire for alcoholic indulgence. Such excesses also induced erections, and he then sometimes masturbated. He had a disinclination for women and a loathing of coitus. If, with an erection, he made an attempt at coitus, it disappeared at once. Death in coma during an attack of cerebral hyperæmia.

Case 7. Mrs. O., normally developed, healthy, menstruated regularly; aged 35, fifteen years married. She never experienced libido, and never had any erotic excitement in sexual intercourse with her husband. She was not averse to coitus, and sometimes seemed to experience pleasure in it, but she never had a wish for repetition of cohabitation.