Note 106 — III. GENERAL PATHOLOGY.[28] (continued 5)

Dr. Moll, of Berlin, called my attention to the fact that in Moritz’s Magazin f. Erfahrungsseelenkunde, vol. viii, Berlin, 1791, there are references to contrary sexual instinct in man. In fact, there two biographies of men are reported who manifested an enthusiastic love for persons of their own sex. In the second case, which is particularly noteworthy, the patient himself explains his aberration by the fact that, as a child, he was caressed only by grown persons, and, as a boy of ten or twelve years, only by his school-fellows. “This, and the want of association with persons of the opposite sex, in me, caused the natural inclination toward the female sex to be entirely diverted to the male sex. I am still quite indifferent to women.”

It cannot be determined whether such a case is one of congenital (psycho-sexual hermaphroditism?) or acquired contrary sexual instinct. The oldest case of contrary sexual instinct, that has thus far been proved in Germany, is that of a woman who was married to another, and gratified herself sexually with a leathern priapus. A case of viraginity, historically and legally interesting, derived from the legal proceedings, which took place early in the eighteenth century, is reported by Dr. Müller (Alexandersbad), in Friedrich’s Blätter f. ger. Medicin, 1891, part iv.