Case 24
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Case 24 from Psychopathia Sexualis based on the Rebman translation.
Ardisson, born, 1872, belonged to a family of criminals and insane. At school he learned readily ; he was not addicted to drink, had no epileptic antecedents, never had an illness, but was rather weakminded. The man who adopted him and with whom he lived, was a moral outcast. When A. came of puberty he practised masturbation, devorare solebat sperma proprium [and had the habit of drinking his own sperm] because "it would be a pity to lose it." He ran after the girls, but could not understand why they shunned him. Loco quo mulieres urinaverunt, lotium bibere solebat [Where women urinated, he drank the urine]. He did not think that there was anything wrong about this. He was looked upon in the village as a venal felon. With his adopter he shared the favours of the beggar women that stayed over night at their house. He was fond of fornication, was a mamma fetichist and loved mammas sugere. Later on he fell to necrophily. He exhumed cadavers of females ranging from three to sixty years of age, sucked their breasts, practised cunnilungus on them, but rarely coitus or mutilation. Once he carried away the head of a woman, at another time the whole corpse of a little girl three and one-half years old. After his ghoulish deeds he would re-arrange the grave properly. He lived isolated by himself, was at times very morose, never showed signs of heart. As a rule, however, he was not of an evil disposition even when in prison. Several times he worked as a stonemason. Remorse and shame over his misdeeds were unknown to him. In 1892 he had for a while acted as a gravedigger. He deserted from the army and then took to begging from house to house. He loved to eat rats and cats. When arrested and returned to the regiment he deserted again. He was not punished because he was not held responsible. Dismissed from the army he again became a gravedigger. When a girl of seventeen who had very prominent breasts was buried his old passion awoke again. He unearthed the cadaver and profaned it in his usual manner. This happened from now on very frequently. The head of one woman which he took home with him, he covered with kisses and called it his bride. He was caught after he had taken home the body of a child three and one-half years of age which he secreted in the straw. On this he gratified his sexual desires even whilst the putrid body was falling to pieces. The stench filling the house betrayed him. Laughingly he admitted everything. A. was small of stature, and prognathous and feeble; skull symmetrical; general tremor; genitals normal, without sexual emotion ; intelligence very limited ; devoid of all moral sense. A. was pleased with prison life. (Epaulard op. cit.)
(c) Injury to 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. The notorious Marquis de Sade1, after whom this combination of lust and cruelty has been named, was such a monster. Coitus only excited him when ho could prick the object of his desire until the blood came.
- 1 Taxil (op. cit.) gives more detailed accounts of this sexual monster, which must have been a case of habitual satyriasis, accompanied by perverse sexual instinct. Sade was so cynical that he actually sought to idealise his cruel lasciviousness and to be the apostle of a theory based upon it. He became so bad (among other things he made an invited company of ladies and gentlemen erotic by causing to be served to them chocolate bonbons which contained cantharides) that he was committed to the insane asylum at Charenton. During the revolution of 1700 he escaped. Then he wrote obscene novels filled with lust, cruelty and the most lascivious wenes. When Bonaparte became Consul, Sade made him a present of his novels, magnificently bound. The Consul had the works destroyed and the author committed to Charenton again, where he died at the age of sixty-four. Sade was inexhaustible in his lascivious publications, which were markedly intended for advertisement.
Fortunately it is difficult today to obtain copies. Extant are: " Histoire de Justine," 4 vols. ; " Histoire de Juliette," 6 vols. ; Philosophie dans le boudoir," London, 1805. Interesting is Sade's biography by J. Janin, 1835.
A scientific and very thorough study of Sadism has recently been made by Dr. Marciat, " Bibliothèque de criminologie" xix., 1899 (Paris, Masson). It gives an analysis and table of contents of Sade's writings. cf. also Duhren, " The Marquis de Sade " 1900.
His greatest pleasure was to injure naked prostitutes and then dress their wounds.
The case of a captain belongs here, 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 anaemic and, as a result of this, insane.
The following case, from my own practice, very clearly shows the connection between lust and cruelty, with desire to shed and see blood :
