[237] After this chapter was first published (in the Centralblatt fuer Nervenheilkunde, February, 1896), Fere also compared congenital inversion to color-blindness and similar anomalies (Fere, “La Descendance d’un Inverti,” Revue Generale de Clinique et Therapeutique, 1896), while Ribot referred to the analogy with color-hearing (Psychology of the Emotions, part ii, ch. vii).

[238] See, e.g., Flournoy, Des Phenomenes de Synopsie, Geneva, 1893; and for a brief discussion of the general phenomena of synesthesia, E. Parish, Hallucinations and Illusions (Contemporary Science Series), chapter vii; Bleuler, article “Secondary Sensations,” in Tuke’s Dictionary of Psychological Medicine; and Havelock Ellis, Man and Woman, 5th ed., 1915, pp. 181-4.

[239] Magnan has in recent years reaffirmed this view ("Inversion Sexuelle et Pathologic Mentale,” Revue de Psychotherapie, March, 1914):  “The invert is a diseased person, a degenerate.”

[240] It is this fact which has caused the Italians to be shy of using the word “degeneration;” thus, Marro, in his great work, I Caratteri del Delinquenti, made a notable attempt to analyze the phenomena lumped together as degenerate into three groups:  atypical, atavistic, and morbid.

[241] Hirschfeld and Burchard among 200 inverts found pronounced stigmata of degeneration in only 16 per cent. (Hirschfeld, Die Homosexualitaet, ch. xx.)

[242] Alcohol has sometimes been considered an important exciting cause of homosexuality, and alcoholism is certainly not uncommon in the heredity of inverts; according to Hirschfeld (Die Homosexualitaet, p. 386) it is well marked in one of the parents in over 21 per cent, of cases.  But it probably has no more influence as an exciting cause in the individual homosexual person than in the individual heterosexual person.  From the Freudian standpoint, indeed, Abraham believes (Zeitschrift fuer Sexualwissenschaft, Heft 8, 1908) that even in normal persons alcohol removes the inhibition from a latent homosexuality, and Juliusburger from the same standpoint (Zentralblatt fuer Psychoanalyse, Heft 10 and 11, 1912) thinks that the alcoholic tendency is unconsciously aroused by the homosexual impulse in order to reach its own gratification.  But we may accept Naecke’s conclusions (Allgemeine Zeitschrift fuer Psychiatrie, vol. lxviii, 1911, p. 852), that (1) alcohol cannot produce homosexuality in persons not predisposed, that (2) it may arouse it in those who are predisposed, that (3) the action of alcohol is the same on the homosexual as the heterosexual, and that (4) alcoholism is not common among inverts.

CHAPTER VII.

CONCLUSIONS.