ings, and thus leads to the impulse to indulge in acts of necrophilia.
The cases of mutilation of bodies mentioned in literature seem to be pathological; but, with the exception of the celebrated one of Sergeant Bertrand (v. infra), they come far from being described and observed with exactness. In certain cases there may be nothing more than the possibility that unbridled desire sees in the idea of death no obstacle to its satisfaction. The seventh case mentioned by Moreau is perhaps such a one:—
A man, aged 23, attempted to rape a woman, aged 53. Struggling, he killed her and then violated her, threw her in the water, and fished her out again for renewed violation. The murderer was executed. The meninges of the anterior lobes were thickened and adherent to the cortex.
French writers have recorded numerous examples of necrophilia. Two cases concerned monks, where they were performing the watch for the dead. In a third case the subject was an idiot, who also suffered from periodical mania, and after commission of rape was sent to an insane asylum, and there mutilated female bodies in the mortuary.
In other cases, however, there is undoubtedly direct preference of a corpse to the living woman. When no other act of cruelty—cutting into pieces, etc.—is practiced on the cadaver, it is probable that the lifeless condition itself forms the stimulus for the perverse individual. It is possible that the corpse—a human form absolutely without will—satisfies an abnormal desire, in that the object of desire is seen to be capable of absolute subjugation, without possibility of resistance.
Brierre de Boismont (Gazette médicale, July 21, 1859) relates the history of a corpse-violator who, after bribing the watchman, had gained entrance to the corpse of a girl of sixteen, who belonged to a family of high social position. At night a noise was heard in the death-chamber, as if a piece of furniture had fallen over. The mother of the dead girl effected an entrance, and saw a man dressed in his night-shirt springing from the bed where the body lay. It was at first thought that the man was a thief, but the real explanation was soon discovered. It was afterward ascertained that the culprit, a man of good family, had often violated the bodies of young women. He was sentenced to imprisonment for life.
The story of a prelate, reported by Taxil (“La prostitution contemporaine,” p. 171), is of great interest as an example of
