H. Coutagne, "Cas de Perversion Sanguinaire de l'Instinct Sexuel," Annales Médico-Psychologiques, July and August, 1893. D. S. Booth (Alienist and Neurologist, Aug., 1906) describes the case of a man of neurotic heredity who slightly stabbed a woman with a penknife when on his way to a prostitute.
Kiernan appears to have been the first to suggest the bearing of these facts on sadism, which he would regard as the abnormal human form of phenomena which may be found at the very beginning of animal life, as, indeed, the survival or atavistic reappearance of a primitive sexual cannibalism. See his "Psychological Aspects of the Sexual Appetite," Alienist and Neurologist, April, 1891, and "Responsibility in Sexual Perversion," Chicago Medical Recorder, March, 1892. Penta has also independently developed the conception of the biological basis of sadism and other sexual perversions (I Pervertimenti Sessuali, 1893). It must be added that, as Remy de Gourmont points out (Promenades Philosophiques, 2d series, p. 273), this sexual cannibalism exerted by the female may have, primarily, no erotic significance: "She eats him because she is hungry and because when exhausted he is an easy prey."
In the chapter entitled "Le Vol Nuptial" of his charming book on the life of bees Maeterlinck has given an incomparable picture of the tragic courtship of these insects.