conditions. Low morality and great sexual desire, with lack of opportunity of natural indulgence, are the principal motives of this unnatural means of sexual satisfaction, which is resorted to by women as well as by men.
To Polak we owe the knowledge that in Persia bestiality is frequently practiced because of the delusion that it cures gonorrhea; just as in Europe an idea is still prevalent that intercourse with children heals venereal disease.
Experience teaches that bestiality with cows and horses is none too infrequent. Occasionally the acts may be undertaken with goats, bitches, and, as a case of Tardieu's and one by Schauenstein show (Lehrb., p. 125), with hens.
The action of Frederick the Great, in the case of a cavalryman who had committed bestiality with a mare, is well known: "The fellow is a beast, and shall be reduced to the infantry."
The intercourse of females with beasts is limited to dogs. A monstrous example of the moral depravity in large cities is related by Maschka ("Handb.," iii)—the case of a Parisian female who showed herself in the sexual act with a trained bull-dog, to a secret circle of roués, at 10 francs a head.
There has been, heretofore, but little legal consideration of the mental condition in those given to violation of animals. In several cases known to the writer, the individuals were weak-minded. In Schauenstein's case there was insanity.
The following case of bestiality is one that was certainly conditioned by disease. He was an epileptic. In this case the desire for animals appeared as an equivalent of the normal sexual desire:—
Case 188. X., peasant, aged 40; Greek-Catholic. Father and mother were hard drinkers. Since his fifth year patient has had epileptic convulsions,—i.e., he falls down unconscious, lies still two or three minutes, and then gets up and runs wildly about with staring eyes. Sexuality was first manifested at seventeen. The patient had inclinations neither for women nor for men, but for animals (birds, horses, etc.). He had intercourse with hens and ducks, and later with horses and cows. Never any onanism.
The patient paints pictures of saints; is of very limited intelligence. For years, religious paranoia, with states of ecstasy. He has an "unspeakable" love for the Virgin, for whom he would sacrifice his life. Taken to hospital, he proves to be free from infirmity and signs of degeneration.
