Page:Psychopathia Sexualis (tr. Chaddock, 1892).djvu/80

62 simultaneous fading of the idea of normal satisfaction. No matter what the external form of the act may be, the mentally perverse predisposition and instinct of the individual are essential to an understanding of it.

(a) Lust-Murder (Lust Potentiated as Cruelty, Murderous Lust Extending to Anthropophagy).—The most horrible example, and one which most pointedly shows the connection between lust and a desire to kill, is the case of Andreas Bichel, which Feuerbach publishes in his “aktenmässige Darstellung merkwürdiger Verbrechen.”

It cannot be doubted, from what has gone before, that a great number of so-called lust-murders depend upon a combination of hyperæsthesia and paræsthesia sexualis. As a result of this perverse coloring of the feelings, further acts of bestiality with the body may result—e.g., cutting it up and wallowing in the intestines. The case of Bichel points to this possibility.

A modern example is that of Menesclou (Annales