This man was apparently suffering from satyriasis with inclination to animals. The following two cases which came to the notice of the author also show at the first glance a certain anomaly:
In a certain village, every once and while, dead hens were found. Nobody could find the cause of this peculiar occurrence. One day, a man thirty-five years of age, of high social position, was discovered “in coitione cum gallina.” He always killed the hens in concarnatione. The contractions of the sphincter ani in the animal’s last throes increased his libido.
The circumstances in this case, where a wealthy man, who could easily reach the nearby city with all its opportunities for normal sex activity, still performs such abominable acts, show distinctly that the man was suffering from an anomaly.
The second case is that of a young man, twenty years of age. He began to feel uncomfortable and restless. Cold perspiration broke out all over his body. The knees began to tremble, and he felt a terrible pounding in his head. At the same time he had the imperative impulse cum anseribus jungendi. He often struggled against the desire but he always failed. He simply lost his reasoning power, and when he regained his reason, the act was committed.
No question this patient was suffering from a certain kind of epilepsy where the fits, necessary for the restoration of the patient’s equilibrium, were substituted by zoöerastic debauches. The paroxysmal attacks of psychic unrest and of intensity of feeling for certain experiences were morbid and due to the same fundamental factors, underlying the syndrom of epilepsy.
In women, zoöerastia, judging from the paucity of the cases reported, must be a rare anomaly or vice. The rarity of the occurrence of bestiality in women may be explained by the difficulty of making the animal take the active part in the performance. Still the small number of reported cases may also be due to the difficulty of proving the existence of bestiality in either sex.
When young girls, says Moll, are fond of taking canes in cubilia sua et stupre cum eis ludere, it will be very difficult to convict them of their vices except in surprising them in the very act, which can but seldom be accomplished.
The practice of bestiality by women is as old as history. Besides its mention in the Bible, there is the report by Plutarch that the Egyptian women who were segregated with the sacred goat Mendes practised sodomy with the animal. Herodotus himself saw the women submitting themselves openly to the embraces of the sacred goat.
Karsch relates that in Kamtschatka the women frequently conjungunt canibus.
Some cynics claim that the old maid’s love for dogs which appears so charming and touching, has some deeper reason than mere fondness for animals.