Kiernan (Alienist and Neurologist, January, 1884) reports the case of an epileptic who always had, as an aura, the vision of a beautiful woman in lascivious attitudes, which induced ejaculation. After some years, with treatment with potassium bromide, the vision was changed to that of a devil attacking him with a pitchfork. The instant this reached him, he became unconscious.
The same author speaks of a very respectable man who had, two or three times a year, epileptic attacks of furor and dysthymia, with impulses to pederasty, which lasted a week or two; and of a lady who, with epilepsy that came on during the climacterium, had sexual desire for boys.
Case 152. W., of good heredity, previously healthy; before and after, sound mentally, quiet, kind, temperate. On April 18, 1877, he had no appetite. On the 14th, in the presence of his wife and children, he demanded coitus, first of his wife’s friend, who was present, then of his wife. Taken away, he had an epileptoid attack; after this he became wildly maniacal and destructive, threw hot water on those that tried to approach him, and threw a child in the stove. Then he soon became quiet, but for some days remained confused, and finally came to himself with no memory of the events of his attack. (Kowalewsky, Jahrbücher f. Psych., 1879.)
Another case, examined by Casper (Klin. Novellen, p. 267), may be attributed to epilepsy (larvated). A respectable man attacked four women, one after another, in the open street (once before two witnesses), and violated one of them, “notwithstanding that his young, pretty, and healthy wife” lived hard by.
The epileptic significance of the sexual acts in the following cases is unequivocal:—
Case 153. L., official, aged 40; a kind husband and father. During four years he has offended public morals twenty-five times, for which he has had to endure long imprisonment.
In the first seven complaints he was accused of exposing his genitals to girls from eleven to thirteen years old, while riding by them, and calling their attention by obscene words. While in confinement, he had exposed his genitals at a window which opened on a popular street.
L.’s father was insane; his brother was once met on the street wearing only a shirt. During his military service L. had had two attacks of severe fainting. Since 1859 he had suffered with peculiar attacks of vertigo, at such times becoming weak, tremulous, and deathly pale; it grew dark before his eyes, and he saw bright stars, and was forced to get support in order to keep upright. After violent attacks, great weakness, profuse sweating.
Since 1861 he had been very irritable, which, respected though he was as an official, caused him much trouble in his work. His wife noticed the change in him. He had days when he would run about the house as if insane, holding his head between his hands, striking the wall, and complaining of headache. In 1864 he fell to the ground four times, lying there stiff, with eyes open. Confused states of consciousness were also proved to have occurred.
L. declared that he had not the slightest remembrance of the crime of which he was accused. Observation showed further and more violent attacks of epileptic vertigo. L. was not sentenced. In 1875 paretic dementia developed with a rapidly fatal result. (Westphal, Arch. f. Psych., vii, p. 113.)