The woman loses control of her passions, and can not restrain herself from stuprum manu aut concubitus. She becomes absorbed in sexual gratification, as seen in the case reported by Reti:
The patient lived happily with her husband until after the birth of her first child. From that moment she became a slave of her insatiable lust. An irresistible craving suddenly took hold of her, an indomitable lust seized her to embrace men. She felt a morbid itching in muliebribus, an inexplicable excitement, a burning desire for sexual gratification. In the beginning her husband tried to satisfy her until he discovered his impossibility to do so. She did not allow an hour of the day to pass without demanding gratification from her husband. He was terrified to see her premere muliebria to the edge of the table or against the door or any other hard subject, in order to satisfy her sensual appetite. When she became worse from day to day, her husband took her to the hospital for examination. At the introduction of the speculum, a morbid contraction of the constrictor cunni muscle occurred suddenly. The touch of the carunculae myrtiformes provoked intense pain. After surmounting the obstacle, however, the pain ceased and a blissful rapture appeared. “Now! Now!” exclaims the patient, when the entire speculum was within the vagina. A convulsive movement seized her entire body, a thrill went through her, et motiones vehementis congressus fecit.
Some nymphomaniac women have illusions of coition. Such a case has been reported by Rosse.
A comely young woman who suffered from nymphomania practised stuprum manu to excess and declared one day that several persons, among them her clergyman, se constupraverunt. The sexual excitability in this case was exaggerated to such an extent that the mere sight of a man, even of the attending physician, suggested a repetition of the act to provoke the venereal spasm. So persistent was the habit that on tying her hands se feminavit with her heel. To prevent this her feet were secured, but she succeeded in bringing about an orgasm fricando femora ultro citroque ita ut clitoridem excitaret. The patient died at a retreat.
If the hyperaesthetic woman is unable to satisfy her desires she shows all the symptoms of general neurasthenia. Especially does she suffer from neuralgia of the ovaries. The case of Rohleder is the best example of the disturbances unsatisfied nymphomania may cause.
The patient, a girl of eighteen, and a member of a family of good social standing, was engaged to be married. Until she was sixteen and a half years of age she was always well. At that time she made the acquaintance of her intended. Then a great change took place in her disposition. She became very nervous and moody. Now she was very gay, but a moment later became deeply melancholy. Her menstruation was regular, but at that period she suffered great pains at the ovaries, especially before the menses set in. When she met with her fiancé her pains increased so that they caused convulsions. She could find some relief stupro manu. After she got married, all the symptoms disappeared.
Masturbation.—The anomaly of masturbation is the most common sexual aberration, and if found in the very young it assumes the dignity of a perversity. In the adult, masturbation, if practised with moderation, can not be considered pathological. According to Paget masturbation causes no more nor less harm than normal coitus, if practised with the same frequency and under the same conditions with regard to health, age and circumstances.
Prof. Oscar Berger (Archiv f. Psychiatrie, Vol. VI, 1876) says masturbation is such a frequent manipulation that out of a hundred boys and girls ninety-nine have temporarily been addicted to it, and the hundredth, the so-called pure individual, is concealing the truth. Moll quotes a physician as saying: “Whoever denies having masturbated, has often only forgotten it; whoever claims of never having masturbated is still doing it.”
Now, giving due allowance to the exaggeration of these authors in the heat of the discussion, the truth remains that the greater part of humanity has one time or another practised autoeroticism. If what the quacks and ignoramuses tell us about its dangers be true, humanity ought to have passed into oblivion long ago, or at least ought to have entirely degenerated. But we are all still alive, hale and healthy, hence moderate masturbation can not have the disastrous effects which some authors are pleased to describe.
Erb (Handbuch für Rückenmarkkrankheiten, p. 163) says, the effects upon the nervous system in a man must be essentially the same, whether the frictions of the glans take place in the vagina or are carried out in any other way. The nervous shock of ejaculation remains the same, and the nervous excitement ought to be greater where the female is used. Hence masturbation, moderately practised, exercises no direct destroying effects upon a good constitution.