The case of the celebrated Dr. M. W. shows that even the female transvestite is greatly concerned in the question of dress.

She is always dressed in the masculine garb. She attributes great importance to the liberty of dress. She is constantly agitating for this liberty. In a letter to a male transvestite, written in Chicago, dated Jan. 12th, 1913, she says: “I have sent the bill to Albany, N. Y., and to Springfield, Ill., and expect to speak in both places on the right of clothes.” Then she continues: “The constitution of the U. S. gives right to life and liberty, and it makes no exception regarding ‘legs’ and ‘sex.’ It guarantees a republican form of government to every State, and it is not republican when the State puts the people in dress-chains.”

Zoöerastia.—One of the most peculiar and monstrous anomalies of the sexual impulse after homosexuality is zoöerastia or bestiality, where the individual se conjungit cum animalibus. The anomaly is as old as history. It was known already at Biblical times. The Mosaic lawgiver punishes the practice with death.BI

As a rule, bestiality is more due to a certain perversity than to a perversion. The fact that the zoöerasts are usually found among those who lack the opportunity for normal congressus (e. g., shepherds, segregated in the mountains for several months at a time) would tend to show that the practice is more a vice than a disease. Still a good many cases of bestiality show a diseased mentality. Even in the case of Gerstlaner (Arch. f. krim. Anthr. u. Krimin., xxxvi, p. 154), which looks more like a vice than a disease, the patient does not seem to be mentally sound.

A man was loitering about in the park of a certain town, where a savage big dog was often seen at large. By some means or other he managed to entice the dog to come near him. Quibusdam contrectationibus ei contigit ut voluptatem animalis concitaret. Tum nates nudavit, se flexit super scamnum, et canem adduxit ut coitum per anum perageret. During the act two policemen appeared on the scene who had great difficulty separare canem ab homine.

Such a case would look more like a vice than a disease. Still a man who can find sexual satisfaction in playing the rôle of the pathicus in any coitus per anum is sexually abnormal. The zoöerastic practices in the case of Sury (Archiv f. krim. Anthrop. u. Kriminalistik, xxxv, p. 314) are also due to a certain anomaly.

A man forty-seven years of age, twelve years married, was from the first day he married insatiable in his hunger for sexual activity. Præter maritam suam servis prædii sui concumbebat. Eodem tempore cum canibus ovibusque conjungebat et cotidie comprimebat porcam.

This man was apparently suffering from satyriasis with inclination to animals. The following two cases which came to the notice of the author also show at the first glance a certain anomaly:

In a certain village, every once and while, dead hens were found. Nobody could find the cause of this peculiar occurrence. One day, a man thirty-five years of age, of high social position, was discovered “in coitione cum gallina.” He always killed the hens in concarnatione. The contractions of the sphincter ani in the animal’s last throes increased his libido.

The circumstances in this case, where a wealthy man, who could easily reach the nearby city with all its opportunities for normal sex activity, still performs such abominable acts, show distinctly that the man was suffering from an anomaly.

The second case is that of a young man, twenty years of age. He began to feel uncomfortable and restless. Cold perspiration broke out all over his body. The knees began to tremble, and he felt a terrible pounding in his head. At the same time he had the imperative impulse cum anseribus jungendi. He often struggled against the desire but he always failed. He simply lost his reasoning power, and when he regained his reason, the act was committed.

No question this patient was suffering from a certain kind of epilepsy where the fits, necessary for the restoration of the patient’s equilibrium, were substituted by zoöerastic debauches. The paroxysmal attacks of psychic unrest and of intensity of feeling for certain experiences were morbid and due to the same fundamental factors, underlying the syndrom of epilepsy.

In women, zoöerastia, judging from the paucity of the cases reported, must be a rare anomaly or vice. The rarity of the occurrence of bestiality in women may be explained by the difficulty of making the animal take the active part in the performance. Still the small number of reported cases may also be due to the difficulty of proving the existence of bestiality in either sex.

When young girls, says Moll, are fond of taking canes in cubilia sua et stupre cum eis ludere, it will be very difficult to convict them of their vices except in surprising them in the very act, which can but seldom be accomplished.

The practice of bestiality by women is as old as history. Besides its mention in the Bible, there is the report by Plutarch that the Egyptian women who were segregated with the sacred goat Mendes practised sodomy with the animal. Herodotus himself saw the women submitting themselves openly to the embraces of the sacred goat.

Karsch relates that in Kamtschatka the women frequently conjungunt canibus.

Some cynics claim that the old maid’s love for dogs which appears so charming and touching, has some deeper reason than mere fondness for animals.

Moll knows of several cases where women keep dogs stupri causa, training the animals to practise cunnilingus on them. He cites a case from the annals of the court, where the woman was accused quod abusa est cane stupri causa movens animal lambere genitalia sua.

Pfaff records a case of a maid-servant on a farm who trained the watch-dog secum commisceri.

Maschka relates a case of a woman, forty-four years of age, who confessed in court se conjunxisse cum cane. Quondam die canis forte saluit inter femora sua et lambit vulvam feminae. Deinde femina inter nuda femora sua animal sumpsit et permulsit abdomen animalis, quoad penis erectus esset. Tum ad sellam nisa, canem ad se pressit et postquam penem inter labia posuit commovit animal ut motiones faceret, usque dum ejaculatio veniret.

Rosse reports the case of a young white, unmarried woman in Washington who was surprised in flagrante delicto with a large English mastiff, who in his efforts se solvere a puella caused an injury of such a nature that she died from hemorrhage within an hour.

All these cases do not reveal any kind of a perversion. The practices seem to have been due to vice or perversity. The following case, communicated to the author by Dr. C., of Tequisquipan, Mexico, who accidentally entered the patient’s hut while she was kneeling on her bed “in copulatione cum mulo suo,” shows distinctly its pathological nature:

The patient, a widow, thirty-six years of age, was married at the age of sixteen and had her first child a year later. Her husband died ten years ago. She had one other child five years ago which died in infancy. She had always been of a passionate nature. Jam undecim annos nata cum viris se conjunxit. Stuprum manu faciebat on and off all her life, especially at the time of menstruation, cum viri ea concumbere nollent. Concarnationes habebat sedecies una nocte, going the rounds of the different nightshifts at the mills. About three years ago she had the first time coitum cum animali. Suus canis erat. Inde sæpe commiscebatur cum canibus. About a year ago, while returning with her burro from a neighboring town, duos canes in conjugio vidit, quod se valde concitavit. Cum mane postmeridianum tempus esset virum celeriter invenire non potuit. Qua re mulum in casam sumpsit et coepit contrectare fascinum, donec emersit. Deinde in grabatum reptavit, posuit muli pedes priores in eo, et ipsa cubitis genibusque nixa est. “Tum femora muli in tergo suo posuit et postquam penem animalis inter labia inseruit; coitum solitum cum animali habuit, in quo ea ipsa motiones fecit celeres aut lentas, secundum necessitatem suam.” She now has the burro trained so that when she lets him enter the hut he commences at once to unsheath antequam potest posituram capere.

The examination of the patient showed nothing abnormal in the organs, except an extreme sensitiveness to touch. The mere separation of the labia induced orgasm. During the examination she had four to five orgasms.

There can be no doubt that this woman was suffering from nymphomania. Men could not satisfy her increased sexual desire, so she took refuge to animals.