“You see, I have given the matter a great deal of thought and I have studied the subject. I thought to myself, coughing and urinating are very much alike. In both operations products of the organism are removed from the body. A woman urinates with a small stream which does not reach far. But many men urinate with force and are able to throw out their stream,—a distance of several feet.”
Already this statement showed that back of the fear of consumption there stood some hidden sexual motive. B. carried the analogy still further:
“Men are also able to ejaculate, while women only omit a little moisture which trickles down upon their parts.... At any rate, I am particularly afraid of infection through some tubercular man.”
I inquired into the circumstances under which this fear first showed itself and how long he had it and in reply received the following interesting confession:
“For a long time I lived with a nephew who occupied a separate room in my home. My married daughter came once to pay us a visit because her child had whooping cough and she was advised that a change of air would be beneficial.”
(It is characteristic that he was not afraid of catching whooping cough, although he knew of a serious case,—an elderly man who had caught the infection and as a result was seriously ill for months. The fear of tuberculosis thus shows itself to be a misdirected notion.)
“It became necessary for me to share with my nephew the same sleeping room,” continued the man. “He had but recently returned from Meran and was considered cured.... But you know, how these alleged cures turn out upon closer examination. During the night I became uneasy and several times I heard my nephew coughing. I noticed that he did not sleep, and I also could not fall asleep because the thought tormented me that I would surely catch the infection. The first thing I did next morning was to call my physician; he laughed at me but upon my persistent questioning he told me: ‘If you are as afraid as all that, you better sleep in a separate room!’ I did not wait to be told twice and for a number of weeks after that I slept at a hotel. But here too, I began to think, perhaps some tubercular man has occupied the room before me, and could not sleep! I had night sweats and after that I no longer believed the physicians’ reassurances and was convinced that this was a sign of the first stage of consumption....”
We note that the elderly gentleman had become homosexually roused by the presence of his nephew and this craving appeared to his consciousness masked under the form of a fear of tubercular infection.
“I could tear my hairs out by the roots, to think that I had done such a foolish thing!”
“What foolish thing?”