INTRODUCTIONTHE COMPELLING IMPORTANCE

OF THIS EPOCH-MAKING WORK ON

SEXUAL ANTHROPOLOGY
The author of this book has already won a distinguished
name in the world of science in the fields, unfortunately so
long fallow, of medical history and anthropology. His
extremely important treatise Der Utsprung der Syphilis,"
the result of exhaustive researches into entirely new material,
seems to have decisively settled in the affirmative the much
debated and variously answered question of the modern
American origin of syphilis. The present work, not so
voluminous but by no means of less importance, Dr. Bloch
designates modestly as a "by-product" of those
investigations. Physicians and jurists, anthropologists and
social historians, will be greatly indebted to him, as this
smaller work will bring them much nearer to the solution of
a problem of compelling and universal interest, the question
of the origin, the physiogenesis and psychogenesis of the
many forms of sexual anomalies and abnormalities,
especially of homosexuality, masculine "uranism" and
feminine "tribadism." Bias and limited outlook have been
obvious in the explanations proposed hitherto. For instance,
since the problem of the homosexual aberrations first
received serious scientific attention
2 ASSAILING "PSYCHOPATHIA SEXUALIS"
(and that has been no long time) the dominant opinion, as is
well known, has been that these were fundamentally due to
congenital constitutional defectiveness, were "degeneration

phenomena" closely connected with our cultural

development as highly conducive to the creation of
neuropathic and psychopathic predisposition. The
generalization "psychopathia sexualis," coined by a famous
writer and accepted almost without question, has won great
popularity and an influence almost unopposed scientifically
for the concept of sexual anomalies as real disease
conditions affecting principally if not exclusively individuals
of degenerate heredity. This hitherto prevailing concept, with
its extremely unfortunate consequences, Bloch has assailed
with weighty arguments, andwhat carries yet more weight
with abundance of new data either entirely unknown
before or insufficiently evaluated. If in this field, as in the
question of the origin of syphilis, his findings differ from
those of the majority of his predecessors and, as I think, are
more accurate than they, he has had the advantage of
approaching the subject not from the limited and biased
viewpoint of the physician and medical historian but with the
freer and wider outlook of the anthropologist and ethnologist
and with all requisite scholarly equipment. Only thus was he
able to prove that the causes of the genesis of the many
sexual aberrations and the sources of homosexuality exist
almost everywhere, on a great scale, independently of time,
place, racial conditions and culture forms. This proposition,
at least in respect to one class of aberrations, is indeed
proved amply and definitely in the present volume.
On the basis of this established proof we shall have to
contradict the unjustified accusation constantly made against
our

REFINEMENTS IN SAVAGE SEXUALITY 3

age and the modern phases of culture that they promote the
development of sexual aberrations in an extraordinary
fashion and to an unprecedented degree. Instead, we seem to
have proof for the unqualified statement that just as the sex
impulse itself as purely physical impulse has remained intact
and unaltered through all the ages and the changes of the
culture forms, so too the so-called "aberrations" and
"deteriorations" of this basic impulse, the sexual anomalies,
which appear in the shape of fetishism, sadism, masochism,
and homosexuality, have played their typical roles always
and almost everywhere in similarly recurrent fashion so far
as our knowledge reaches. External factors, "occasional
causes" of the most varied sorts, naturally have had more or
less the effect of promoting the rise and spread of this or that
form of aberration at certain times and in certain places. Yet
we must not be deluded into thinking that progressive
cultural development has been accompanied by a constant
proportionate increase of refinement upon sexual indulgence.
We find the most sophisticated distortions and monstrous
aberrations among the peoples most primitive culturally, the
savages regarded always mistakenly as better than we.
In general, ethical, religious, superstitious attitudes, customs,
and fashions, rather than culture as an actual integral factor,
have played the temporally predominant role in the etiology
of single sexual aberrations, though it may be conceded that
old civilizations in a stage of decadence have an unfavorable
influence on individuals in that intellect is developed at the
expense of character and will-power. At any rate, the theory
that sexual perversions specifically homosexuality are

congenital must be dropped or greatly modified. We doctors

are truly the last to shed any tears over it, because if we have
to do with merely acquired bad habits or disorders artificially
4 INFLUENCE OF OBSCENE BOOKS AND ART
fostered by external circumstances we shall feel much more
in a position than formerly to deal effectively with them
curatively, and, better yet, preventively, prophylactically.
Many details of Dr. Bloch's bookI cannot go into them
here; I would merely mention for instance the section on the
influence of obscene books and works of artpoint to vast
possibilities in this respect. Not less important is the stimulus
which this thesis will give to forensic medicine. On the basis
of the hitherto prevalent theory sexual-pathologic problems
have had to be handled virtually in mass, according to a
stereotyped pattern. Now the cases can be freely
individualized. We are just at the beginning of an evolution
of scientific treatment of the psychological and the socialanthropologic as well as the purely criminalistic aspects of
penology. The physician, schooled in accurate thinking and
rich in practical understanding, seems best fitted to facilitate
this development.
I think the present work will appeal to a wide circle of
readers and arouse an intelligent interest in these questions,
touching state and society so closely. I would emphatically
recommend it to the physician and to all who have a part in
making and administering the law.
Dr. Albert Eulenburg.

World-renowned sexologist, physician, author and scientist

of Berlin