The abnormal state of consciousness implicates the whole course of feeling and desire, and is accompanied by general physical excitement like that that accompanies coitus (v. “Physiology”). Often the genitals are in a constant state of turgor (priapism in males).
The man affected with this sexual passion seeks to satisfy his desire at any price, and, therefore, becomes very dangerous to women. Faute de mieux, he practices onanism or sodomy. The nymphomaniacal woman seeks men by exhibition, or to attract them by her sensual conduct; at the sight of men she is intensely excited sexually, and satisfies herself by masturbation, or by pelvic movements of coitus.
Satyriasis is infrequent. Nymphomania is more frequently observed, and not seldom in the climacteric. It may occur in senility. Abstinence,[[124]] with constant excitation of the sexual sphere as a result of psychical or peripheral irritation (pruritus pudendi, oxyuris, etc.), may cause these conditions, but probably only in those predisposed.
The assertion that it may also result from poisoning by cantharides seems to depend upon confounding it with priapism. The primary lustful feeling that accompanies priapism due to cantharides soon becomes painful. Satyriasis and nymphomania are acute abnormal psycho-sexual states.
There are also cases that, not without reason, might be called chronic satyriasis or nymphomania. To these belong the men who, for the most part as a result of abusus veneris, or more particularly of masturbation, suffer with neurasthenia sexualis, and at the same time have intense libido sexualis. The imagination, as in acute cases, is in a state of excitement, and the mind full of obscene images; so that the most elevated ideas are besmirched with the most cynical images and thoughts.
The thought and desire of such men are solely directed to the sexual sphere; and since their flesh is weak, led on by their fancy, they come to indulge in the grossest perversions of the sexual act.
Analogous cases in women may be called chronic nymphomania. They naturally lead to prostitution. Legrand du Saulle (“La folie,” p. 510) reports interesting cases which apparently are pure.
Melancholia.—The thoughts and feelings of melancholiacs are not favorable for the excitation of sexual desires. At the same time, these patients sometimes masturbate. In my experience such cases have always been hereditarily predisposed and previously given to onanism. The act did not seem to be so much due to a lustful desire as to be induced by habit, ennui, anxiety, and the impulse to change temporarily the painful mental condition.
Hysteria.—In this neurosis the sexual life is very frequently abnormal; indeed, always in predisposed individuals. All the possible anomalies of the sexual function may occur here, with sudden changes and peculiar activity; and, on an hereditary degenerate basis and in moral imbecility, they may appear in the most perverse forms. The abnormal change and inversion of the sexual feeling are never without effect upon the patient’s disposition.
The following case, reported by Giraud, is one of this nature worthy of repetition:—