igS THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY
woman of loose morals, separated from her husband. The rela- tions between the two last for some time in spite of the opposi- tion of the family, until Catherine, after having given Paolo the syphilis, grows cold toward him and excites his jealousy by tak- ing another lover. Paolo complains of his abandonment, but she repels him with contemptuous words. In exasperation he seizes a razor and with two strokes cuts her throat, killing her. He then turns the weapon against himself and inflicts two great wounds in the left side, one of them penetrating the pleural cavity.
There are numerous cases of amorous couples who drown the transports of their embraces in a violent death. Another proof of this observation of the impulsivity of the sexual instinct is found in the decidedly morbid acts developed in the period of puberty. In the cases of psychosis of puberty observed and published by me, it is remarkable that the patients who reveal an especial exaggeration of the sexual instinct by obscene words and tendencies always exhibited tendencies toward combativity and cruelty. During his convalescence oneof these challenged his nurses to a wrestling match, in which they would throw each other upon the ground. On the contrary, the only case in which these tendencies were lacking was precisely that one in which there were no erotic tendencies, and the patient could be cured at home.
In woman, in whom coquetry takes the place of combativity in the struggle for love, we find lacking this criminal tendency to fierceness. The appearance of violent criminality is, further- more, much later, and rather in connection with maternity, under the form of instinct of defense of one's offspring.
These same conditions — more copious cerebral irrigation and consequent psychic hyperaesthesia — could not fail to be sug- gested, though in an inferior degree, even in normal conditions. And such a fact was clearly revealed by a series of investigations of the conduct of young people of different social conditions and both sexes. The first investigation was made upon the young people in the Casa Benefica of Turin, in which are received waifs, orphans, and children abandoned by their families. These chil- dren are received between the ages of ten and fifteen, and some
