able to tolerate coitus, but the pain was so great that she
acquired a horror of the sexual embrace and no longer sought it.
Having much will power, she restrained all erotic impulses during
many years. It was not until the period of the menopause that the
long repressed desires broke out, and at last found a symbolical
outlet that was no longer normal, but was felt to supply a
complete gratification. She sought the close physical contact of
the young children in her care. She would lie on her bed naked,
with two or three naked children, make them suck her breasts and
press them to every part of her body. Her conduct was discovered
by means of other children who peeped through the keyhole, and
she was placed under Penta for treatment. In this case the loss
of moral and mental inhibition, due probably to troubles of the
climacteric, led to indulgence, under abnormal conditions, in
those primitive contacts which are normally the beginning of
love, and these, supported by the ideal image of the early lover,
constituted a complete and adequate symbol of natural love in a
morbidly perverted individual. (P. Penta, _Archivio delle
Psicopatie Sessuali_, January, 1896.)


FOOTNOTES:

[1] The term "erotic symbolism" has already been employed by Eulenburg
(_Sexuale Neuropathie_, 1895, p. 101). It must be borne in mind that this
term, implying the specific emotion, is much narrower than the term
"sexual symbolism," which may be used to designate a great variety of
ritual and social practices which have played a part in the evolution of
civilization.