“Still, I always thought I was a man with obscure masculine feeling; and whenever I associated with ladies, I was still soon treated as an inexperienced lady. When I wore a uniform for the first time, I should have much preferred to have slipped into a lady’s costume, with a veil; I was disturbed when the stately uniform attracted attention. In private practice I was successful in the three principal branches. Then I made another military campaign; and during this I came to understand my nature; for I think that, since the first ass, no beast of burden has ever had to endure with so much patience as I have. Decorations were not wanting, but I was indifferent to them.
“Thus I went through life, such as it was, never satisfied with myself, full of dissatisfaction with the world, and vacillating between sentimentality and a wildness that was for the most part affected.
“My experience as a candidate for matrimony was very peculiar. I should have preferred not to marry, but family circumstances and practice forced me to it. I married an energetic, amiable lady, of a family in which female government was rampant. I was in love with her as much as one of us can be in love,—i.e., what we love we love with our whole hearts, and live in it, even though we do not show it as much as a genuine man does. We love our brides with all the love of a woman, almost as a woman might love her bridegroom. But I cannot say this for myself; for I still believed that I was but a depressed man, who would come to himself, and find himself out by marriage. But, even on my marriage-night, I felt that I was only a woman in man’s form; sub femina locum meum esse mihi visum est. On the whole, we lived contented and happy, and for two years were childless. After a difficult pregnancy, during which I was in mortal fear of death, the first boy was born in a difficult labor,—a boy on whom a melancholy nature still hangs; who is still of melancholy disposition. Then came a second, who is very quiet; a third, full of peculiarities; a fourth, a fifth; and all have predisposition to neurasthenia. Since I always felt out of my own place, I went much in gay society; but I always worked as much as human strength would allow. I studied and operated; and I experimented with many drugs and methods of cure, always on myself. I left the regulation of the house to my wife, as she understood house-keeping very well. My marital duties I performed as well as I could, but without personal satisfaction. Since the first coitus, the masculine position in it has been repugnant, and, too, difficult for me. I should have much preferred to have the other rôle. When I had to deliver my wife, it almost broke my heart; for I knew how to appreciate her pain. Thus we lived long together, until severe gout drove me to various baths, and made me neurasthenic. At the same time, I became so anæmic that every few months I had to take iron for some time; otherwise I would be almost chlorotic or hysterical, or both. Stenocardia often troubled me; then came unilateral cramps of chin, nose, neck, and larynx; hemicrania and cramps of the diaphragm and chest-muscles. For about three years I had a feeling as if the prostate were enlarged,—a bearing-down feeling, as if giving birth to something; and, also, pain in the hips, constant pain in the back, and the like. Yet, with the strength of despair, I fought against these complaints, which impressed me as being female or effeminate, until three years ago, when a severe attack of arthritis completely broke me down.
“But before this terrible attack of gout occurred, in despair, to lessen the pain of gout, I had taken hot baths, as near the temperature of the body as possible. On one of these occasions it happened that I suddenly changed, and seemed to be near death. I sprang with all my remaining strength out of the bath: I had felt exactly like a woman with libido. Too, at the time when the extract of Indian hemp came into vogue, and was highly prized, in a state of fear of a threatened attack of gout (feeling perfectly indifferent about life), I took three or four times the usual dose of it, and almost died of haschisch poisoning. Convulsive laughter, a feeling of unheard of strength and swiftness, a peculiar feeling in brain and eyes, millions of sparks streaming from the brain through the skin,—all these feelings occurred. But I could not force myself to speak. All at once I saw myself a woman from my toes to my breast; I felt, as before while in the bath, that the genitals had shrunken, the pelvis broadened, the breasts swollen out; a feeling of unspeakable delight came over me. I closed my eyes, so that at least I did not see the face changed. My physician looked as if he had a gigantic potatoe instead of a head; my wife had the full moon on her nates. And yet I was strong enough to briefly record my will in my note-book when both left the room for a short time.
“But who could describe my fright, when, on the next morning, I awoke and found myself feeling as if completely changed into a woman; and when, on standing and walking, I felt vulva and mammæ! When at last I raised myself out of bed, I felt that a complete transformation had taken place in me. During my sickness a visitor said: ‘He is too patient for a man.’ And the visitor gave me a plant in bloom, which seemed strange, but pleased me. From that time I was patient, and would do nothing in a hurry; but I became tenacious, like a cat, though, at the same time, mild, forgiving, and no longer bearing enmity,—in short, I had a woman’s disposition. During the last sickness I had many visual and auditory hallucinations,—spoke with the dead, etc.; saw and heard familiar spirits; felt like a double person; but, while lying ill, I did not notice that the man in me had been extinguished. The change in my disposition was a piece of good fortune which came over me like lightning, and which, had it come with me feeling as I formerly did, would have killed me; but now I gave myself up to it, and no longer recognized myself. Owing to the fact that I still often confounded neurasthenic symptoms with the gout, I took many baths, until an itching of the skin with the feeling of scabies, instead of being diminished, was so increased that I gave up all external treatment (I was made more and more anæmic by the baths), and hardened myself as best I could. But the imperative female feeling remained, and became so strong that I wear only the mask of a man, and in everything else feel like a woman; and gradually I have lost memory of the former individuality. What was left of me from the gout, the influenza ruined entirely.
“Present Condition: I am tall, slightly bald, and the beard is growing gray. I begin to stoop. Since having the influenza, I have lost about a quarter of my strength. Owing to a valvular lesion, my face looks somewhat red; full beard; chronic conjunctivitis; more muscular than fat. The left foot seems to be developing varicose veins, and it often goes to sleep; but it is not really thickened, though it seems to be.
“The mammary region, though small, swells out perceptibly. The abdomen is feminine in form; the feet are placed like a woman’s, and the calves, etc., are feminine; and it is the same with arms and hands. I can wear ladies’ hose, and gloves, 7½ to 7¾ in size. I also wear a corset without annoyance. My weight varies between 168 and 184 pounds. Urine without albumen or sugar, but it contains an excess of uric acid. But if there is not too much uric acid in it, it is clear, and almost as clear as water after any excitement. Bowels usually regular; but should they not be, then come all the symptoms of female obstipation. Sleep is poor,—for weeks at a time only two or three hours long. Appetite quite good; but, on the whole, my stomach will not bear more than that of a strong woman, and reacts to irritating food with cutaneous eruption and burning in the urethra. The skin is white, and, for the most part, feels quite smooth; there has been unbearable cutaneous itching for the last two years; but during the last few weeks it has diminished, and is now present only in the popliteal spaces and on the scrotum.
“Tendency to perspire. Perspiration was previously as good as wanting, but now there are all the odious peculiarities of the female perspiration, particularly about the lower part of the body; so that I have to keep myself cleaner than a woman. (I perfume my handkerchief, and use perfumed soap and eau-de-Cologne.)
“General Feeling: I feel like a woman in a man’s form; and even though I often am sensible of the man’s form, yet it is always in a feminine sense. Thus, for example, I feel the penis as clitoris; the urethra as urethra and vaginal orifice, which always feels a little wet, even when it is actually dry; the scrotum as labia majora; in short, I always feel the vulva. And all that that means one alone can know who feels or has felt so. But the skin all over my body feels feminine; it receives all impressions, whether of touch, of warmth, or whether unfriendly, as feminine, and I have the sensations of a woman. I cannot go with bare hands, as both heat and cold trouble me. When the time is past when we men are permitted to carry sun-umbrellas, I have to endure great sensitiveness of the skin of my face, until sun-umbrellas can again be used. On awaking in the morning, I am confused for a few moments, as if I were seeking for myself; then the imperative feeling of being a woman awakens. I feel the sense of the vulva (that one is there), and always greet the day with a soft or loud sigh; for I have fear again of the play that must be carried on throughout the day. I had to learn everything anew; the knife—apparatus, everything—has felt different for the last three years; and with the change of muscular sense I had to learn everything over again. I have been successful, and only the use of the saw and bone-chisel are difficult; it is almost as if my strength were not quite sufficient. On the other hand, I have a keener sense of touch in working with the curette in the soft parts. It is unpleasant that, in examining ladies, I often feel their sensations; but this, indeed, does not repel them. The most unpleasant thing I experience is fœtal movement. For a long time—several months—I was troubled by reading the thoughts of both sexes, and I still have to fight against it. I can endure it better with women; with men it is repugnant. Three years ago I had not yet consciously seen the world with a woman’s eyes; this change in the relation of the eyes to the brain came almost suddenly, with violent headache. I was with a lady whose sexual feeling was reversed, when suddenly I saw her changed in the sense I now feel myself,—viz., she as man,—and I felt myself a woman in contrast with her; so that I left her with ill-concealed vexation. At that time she had not yet come to understand her own condition perfectly.
“Since then, all my sensory impressions are as if they were feminine in form and relation. The cerebral system almost immediately adjusted itself to the vegetative; so that all my ailments were manifested in a feminine way. The sensitiveness of all nerves, particularly that of the auditory and olfactory and trigeminal, increased to a condition of nervousness. If only a window slammed, I was frightened inwardly; for a man dare not tremble at such things. If food is not absolutely fresh, I perceive a cadaverous odor. I could never depend on the trigeminus; for the pain would jump whimsically from one branch of it to another; from a tooth to an eye. But, since my transformation, I bear toothache and migraine more easily, and have less feeling of fear with stenocardia. It seems to me a strange fact that I feel myself to be a fearful, weak being, and yet, when danger threatens, I am much rather cool and collected; and this is true in dangerous operations. The stomach rebels against the slightest indiscretion (in female diet) that is committed without thought of the female nature, either by ructus or other symptoms; but particularly against abuse of alcoholics. The indisposition after intoxication that a man who feels like a woman experiences is much worse than any a student could get up. It seems to me almost as if one feeling like a woman were entirely controlled by the vegetative system.