The cases in which the perpetrator injures and cuts up the corpse are clearer. Such cases come next to those of lust-murder, in that, in these individuals, cruelty, or at least an impulse to attack the female body, is connected with lust. It is possible that a remnant of moral sense deters from the cruel act on a living woman, and possibly the fancy passes beyond lust-murder and rests on its result, the corpse. Here, also, it is possible that the idea of defenselessness of the body plays a rôle.
Case 23. Sergeant Bertrand, a man of delicate physical constitution and of peculiar character; from childhood silent and inclined to solitude.
The details of the health of his family are not satisfactorily known; but the occurrence of mental diseases in his ancestry is ascertained. It is said that while he was a child he was affected with destructive impulses, which he himself could not explain. He would break whatever was at hand. In early childhood, without teaching, he learned to masturbate. At nine he began to feel inclinations toward persons of the opposite sex. At thirteen the impulse to sexual intercourse became powerfully awakened in him. He now masturbated excessively. When he did this his fancy always created a room filled with women. He would imagine that he carried out the sexual act with them, and then killed them. Immediately thereafter he would think of them as corpses, and of how he defiled them. Occasionally, in such situations, the thought of carrying out a similar act with male corpses would come up, but it was always attended with a feeling of disgust.
In time he felt the impulse to carry out such acts with actual corpses. For want of human bodies, he obtained those of animals. He would cut open the abdomen, tear out the entrails, and masturbate during the act. He declares that in this way he experienced inexpressible pleasure. In 1846 these bodies no longer satisfied him. He now killed dogs, and proceeded with them as before. Toward the end of 1846 he first felt the desire to make use of human bodies. At first he had a horror of it. In 1847, being by accident in a grave-yard, he ran across the grave of a newly-buried corpse. Then this impulse, with headache and palpitation of the heart, became so powerful that, although there were people near by, and he was in danger of detection, he dug up the body. In the absence of a convenient instrument for cutting it up, he satisfied himself by hacking it with a shovel.
In 1847 and 1848, during two weeks, as reported, the impulse, accompanied by violent headache, to commit brutalities on corpses, actuated him. Amidst the greatest dangers and difficulties, he satisfied this impulse some fifteen times. He dug up the bodies with his hands, in nowise sensible, in his excitement, to the injuries he thus inflicted on himself. When he had obtained the body, he cut it up with a sword or pocket-knife, tore out the entrails, and then masturbated. The sex of the bodies is said to have been a matter of indifference to him, though it was ascertained that this modern vampire had dug up more female than male corpses. During these acts he declares himself to have been in an indescribable state of sexual excitement. After having cut them up, he had sometimes reinterred the bodies.
In July, 1848, he accidentally came across the body of a girl of sixteen. Then, for the first time, he experienced a desire to carry out coitus on a cadaver. “I covered it with kisses and pressed it wildly to my heart. All that one could enjoy with a living woman is nothing in comparison with the pleasure I experienced. After I had enjoyed it for about a quarter of an hour, I cut the body up, as usual, and tore out the entrails. Then I buried the cadaver again.” Only after this, as B. declares, had he felt the impulse to use the bodies sexually before cutting them up, and thereafter he had done it in three instances. The actual motive of the exhuming of the bodies, however, was then, as before, to cut them up; and the enjoyment in so doing was greater than in using the bodies sexually. The latter act had always been nothing more than an episode of the principal one, and had never quieted his desires; therefore, he had always cut up the body afterward or mutilated another body. The medico-legal examiners gave an opinion of “monomania.” Court-martial sentence to one year’s imprisonment. (Michéa, Union méd., 1849; Lunier, Annal. méd.-psychol., 1849, p. 153; Tardieu, “Attentats aux moeurs,” 1878, p. 114; Legrand, “La folie devant les tribun.,” p. 524.)
(c) Injury of Women (Stabbing, Flagellation, etc.).—Following lust-murder and violation of corpses, come cases closely allied to the former, in which injury of the victim of lust and sight of the victim’s blood are a delight and pleasure for degenerate men. The notorious Marquis de Sade,[[53]] after whom the combination of lust and cruelty has been named, was such a monster. Coitus only excited him when he could prick the object of his desire until the blood came. His greatest pleasure was to injure prostitutes and then bind their wounds.
Here also belongs the case of a captain mentioned by Brierre de Boismont, who always compelled the object of his affection to place leeches ad pudenda before coitus, which was very frequent. Finally this woman became very anæmic and, as a result of this, insane.
The following case, borrowed from my own clientele, very clearly shows the connection between lust and cruelty, with desire to shed and see blood:—
Case 24. Mr. X., aged 25; father syphilitic, died of paretic dementia; mother hysterical and neurasthenic. He is a weak individual, constitutionally neuropathic, and presents several anatomical signs of degeneration. When a child, hypochondria and imperative conceptions; later, constant alternation of exaltation and depression. While yet a child of ten, the patient felt a peculiar lustful desire to see blood flow from his fingers. Thereafter he often cut or pricked himself in the fingers, and took great delight in it. Very early, erections were added to this, and also if he saw the blood of others; for example, when he saw a servant-girl cut her finger it gave him an intense lustful feeling. From this time his vita sexualis became more and more powerful. Without any teaching he began to masturbate, and always during the act there were memory-pictures of bleeding girls. It now no longer sufficed him to see his own blood flow; he longed to see the blood of young females, especially those that were attractive to him. Often he could scarcely overcome the impulse to injure two cousins and a certain servant. But also young women that were in themselves not attractive induced this impulse when they excited him by some peculiarity of dress or adornment, especially coral jewelry. It was necessary for him to overcome these desires; but in his imagination bloody thoughts were constantly present, and induced lustful excitement. There was an inner relation existing between both thoughts and feelings. Often there were other cruel fancies. He imagined himself in the rôle of a tyrant who had the people shot in crowds with grape-shot. He was compelled to fancy a scene as it would be if enemies were to take a city and mutilate, torture, kill, and rape the young women. In times of quiet this patient, who had a mild disposition and was not morally defective, was shamed and horrified by such cruel, lustful fancies, and they always became immediately latent as soon as his sexual excitement had been satisfied by masturbation.