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Ellis, Havelock, 1859-1939

"Sexual Inversion"

Among 1500 patients in the
asylum during one year, active _pedicatio_ occurred in about 1
per cent. of cases, these patients being frequently idiots or
imbeciles and at the same time masturbators, solitary or mutual.
Hirschfeld informed Naecke that, among homosexual persons,
hysterical conditions (not usually on hereditary basis) are
fairly common, and neurasthenia of high degree decidedly
frequent, but though stages of depression are common he had never
seen pure melancholia and very seldom mania, but paranoiac
delusional ideas frequently, and he agreed with Bryan of
Broadmoor that religious delusions are not uncommon. General
paralysis occurs, but is comparatively rare, and the same may be
said of dementia praecox. On the whole, although Hirschfeld was
unable to give precise figures, there was no reason whatever to
suppose an abnormal prevalence of insanity. This was Naecke's own
view. It is quite true, Naecke concluded, that homosexual actions
occur in every form of psychosis, especially in congenital and
secondary dements, and at periods of excitement, but we are here
more concerned with "pseudo-homosexuality" than with true
inversion.


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