Case 12. Mrs. E., aged 47. Uncle on father’s side was insane; father was sanguine, and given to excess in venery. Patient’s brother died of an acute cerebral affection. Patient from childhood has been nervous, eccentric, and romantic, and while little more than a child manifested excessive sexual desire, and at ten began sexual indulgence. At nineteen, marriage. Unhappy married life; her husband, who was normal, did not satisfy her, and until recent years she constantly had other friends besides her husband. She was well aware of the immorality of her life, but felt her powerlessness against her insatiable desire, which she sought to keep, at least outwardly, a secret. Later she thought that she had suffered with a “mania for men.” Patient has borne six children. Six years ago she was thrown from a wagon and received a severe cerebral concussion. Following this there was melancholia, with delusions of persecution, which sent her to the asylum. She is approaching the climacterium, and of late the menses have been profuse and too frequent. Since this period she is pleased to note that the previously powerful sexual impulse has declined. Proper behavior. Slight degree of descensus uteri and prolapsus ani.
Hyperæsthesia sexualis may be continuously present with exacerbations, or it may be intermittent or periodic. In the latter case it is a cerebral neurosis per se (vide “Special Pathology”), or an accompanying symptom of a condition of general psychical excitement (mania; episodically in dementia paralytica, dementia senilis, etc.).
Lentz has published a remarkable case of intermittent satyriasis (Bulletin de la société de méd. légale de Belgique, Nr. 21):—
