Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine [464]
the wound up himself. Four days later the left was treated the same way. The spermatic cord however escaped, and a hematoma, the size of a child's head, formed on account of which he had to go to the hospital. This man acted under an uncontrollable impulse to mutilate himself, and claimed that until he castrated himself he had no peace of mind.
There is a similar report in an Italian journal which was quoted in London. It described a student at law, of delicate complexion, who at the age of fourteen gave himself up to masturbation. He continually studied until the age of nineteen, when he fell into a state of dulness, and complained that his head felt as if compressed by a circle of fire. He said that a voice kept muttering to him that his generative organs were abnormally deformed or the seat of disease. After that, he imagined that he heard a cry of "amputation! amputation!" Driven by this hallucination, he made his first attempt at self-mutilation ten days later. He was placed in an Asylum at Astino where, though closely watched, he took advantage of the first opportunity and cut off two-thirds of his penis, when the delirium subsided. Camp describes a stout German of thirty-five who, while suffering from delirium tremens, fancied that his enemies were trying to steal his genitals, and seizing a sharp knife he amputated his penis close to the pubes. He threw the severed organ violently at his imaginary pursuers. The hemorrhage was profuse, but ceased spontaneously by the formation of coagulum over the mouth of the divided vessels. The wound was quite healed in six weeks, and he was discharged from the hospital, rational and apparently content with his surgical feat.
Richards reports the case of a Brahman boy of sixteen who had contracted syphilis, and convinced, no doubt, that "nocit empta dolore voluptus," he had taken effective means of avoiding injury in the future by completely amputating his penis at the root. Some days after his admission to the hospital he asked to be castrated, stating that he intended to become an ascetic, and the loss of his testes as well as of his penis appeared to him to be an imperative condition to the attainment of that happy consummation. Chevers mentions a somewhat similar case occurring in India.
Sands speaks of a single man of thirty who amputated his penis. He gave an incomplete history of syphilis. After connection with a woman he became a confirmed syphilophobe and greatly depressed. While laboring under the hallucination that he was possessed of two bodies he tied a string around the penis and amputated the organ one inch below the glans. On loosening the string, three hours afterward, to enable him to urinate, he lost three pints of blood, but he eventually recovered. In the Pennsylvania Hospital Reports there is an account of a married man who, after drinking several weeks, developed mania a potu, and was found in his room covered with blood. His penis was completely cut off near the pubes, and the skin of the scrotum was so freely incised that the testicles were entirely denuded, but not injured. A small silver cap was made to cover the sensitive urethra on a line with the abdominal wall.
There is a record of a tall, powerfully-built Russian peasant of twenty-nine, of morose disposition, who on April 3d, while reading his favorite book, without uttering a cry, suddenly and with a single pull tore away his scrotum together with his testes. He then arose from the bank where he had been sitting, and quietly handed the avulsed parts to his mother who was sitting near by, saying to her: "Take that; I do not want it any more." To all questions from his relatives he asked pardon and exemption from blame, but gave no reason for his act. This patient made a good recovery at the hospital. Alexeef, another Russian, speaks of a similar injury occurring during an attack of delirium tremens.
Black details the history of a young man of nineteen who went to his bath-room and deliberately placing his scrotum on the edge of the tub he cut it crossways down to the wood. He besought
There is a similar report in an Italian journal which was quoted in London. It described a student at law, of delicate complexion, who at the age of fourteen gave himself up to masturbation. He continually studied until the age of nineteen, when he fell into a state of dulness, and complained that his head felt as if compressed by a circle of fire. He said that a voice kept muttering to him that his generative organs were abnormally deformed or the seat of disease. After that, he imagined that he heard a cry of "amputation! amputation!" Driven by this hallucination, he made his first attempt at self-mutilation ten days later. He was placed in an Asylum at Astino where, though closely watched, he took advantage of the first opportunity and cut off two-thirds of his penis, when the delirium subsided. Camp describes a stout German of thirty-five who, while suffering from delirium tremens, fancied that his enemies were trying to steal his genitals, and seizing a sharp knife he amputated his penis close to the pubes. He threw the severed organ violently at his imaginary pursuers. The hemorrhage was profuse, but ceased spontaneously by the formation of coagulum over the mouth of the divided vessels. The wound was quite healed in six weeks, and he was discharged from the hospital, rational and apparently content with his surgical feat.
Richards reports the case of a Brahman boy of sixteen who had contracted syphilis, and convinced, no doubt, that "nocit empta dolore voluptus," he had taken effective means of avoiding injury in the future by completely amputating his penis at the root. Some days after his admission to the hospital he asked to be castrated, stating that he intended to become an ascetic, and the loss of his testes as well as of his penis appeared to him to be an imperative condition to the attainment of that happy consummation. Chevers mentions a somewhat similar case occurring in India.
Sands speaks of a single man of thirty who amputated his penis. He gave an incomplete history of syphilis. After connection with a woman he became a confirmed syphilophobe and greatly depressed. While laboring under the hallucination that he was possessed of two bodies he tied a string around the penis and amputated the organ one inch below the glans. On loosening the string, three hours afterward, to enable him to urinate, he lost three pints of blood, but he eventually recovered. In the Pennsylvania Hospital Reports there is an account of a married man who, after drinking several weeks, developed mania a potu, and was found in his room covered with blood. His penis was completely cut off near the pubes, and the skin of the scrotum was so freely incised that the testicles were entirely denuded, but not injured. A small silver cap was made to cover the sensitive urethra on a line with the abdominal wall.
There is a record of a tall, powerfully-built Russian peasant of twenty-nine, of morose disposition, who on April 3d, while reading his favorite book, without uttering a cry, suddenly and with a single pull tore away his scrotum together with his testes. He then arose from the bank where he had been sitting, and quietly handed the avulsed parts to his mother who was sitting near by, saying to her: "Take that; I do not want it any more." To all questions from his relatives he asked pardon and exemption from blame, but gave no reason for his act. This patient made a good recovery at the hospital. Alexeef, another Russian, speaks of a similar injury occurring during an attack of delirium tremens.
Black details the history of a young man of nineteen who went to his bath-room and deliberately placing his scrotum on the edge of the tub he cut it crossways down to the wood. He besought