Case 116. Contrary Sexual Instinct in a Woman.—S. J., aged 38, governess, came to me for advice about a nervous trouble. Her father was temporarily insane, and died of a brain disease. The patient is an only child, and even when quite young she suffered with feelings of anxiety and painful ideas. She thought, for example, that she would awake in her coffin after it had been closed; that at confession she might forget something, and make a sinful confession. She suffered much with headache. She was always very much excited and apprehensive, but yet she had to see horrible things, like corpses, etc.
Even in her earliest childhood, the patient was excited sexually, and began to masturbate without any teaching. The menses began at fourteen, and were always accompanied by colicky pains, violent sexual excitement, migraine, and depression. After her eighteenth year she learned to repress her impulse to masturbate.
The patient has never felt any inclination toward persons of the opposite sex. If she thought of marriage, it was only because she sought in matrimony a means of being supported. On the other hand, she felt powerfully attracted by girls. At first she regarded this inclination as friendship; but in the depth of her attachment to female friends, and in the longing she constantly felt for them, she recognized that the feeling was something more than friendship.
The patient cannot understand how a girl can love a man, but she can easily see how a man might love a girl. She always has a lively interest in beautiful women and girls, and is powerfully excited at sight of them. Her longing had always been to kiss and embrace such dear creatures. She had never dreamed of a man, but only of girls. Her delight had been to revel in the sight of them. Separation from such female friends had always made her desperate.
The patient, whose appearance is perfectly feminine and very respectable, states that she has never felt herself in any particular rôle with her friends, not even in dreams. Female pelvis; large mammæ; no sign of beard.
Case 117. Mrs. R., Russian, aged 35, of high social position, was brought to me, in 1886, by her husband for advice.
Father was a physician, and very neuropathic. Paternal grandfather was healthy and normal, and reached the age of ninety-six. Facts concerning paternal grandmother are wanting. All the children of father’s family are said to have been nervous. The patient’s mother was nervous, and suffered with asthma. The mother’s parents were healthy. One of the mother’s sisters had melancholia.
From her tenth year patient has been subject to habitual headache. With the exception of measles, she has had no illness. She was capable, and enjoyed the best of training, having especial talent for music and languages. It became necessary for her to prepare herself for the work of a governess, and during her earlier years she was mentally overworked.