‘About confusions of the mind due to abnormal conditions of the sexual organs’ by Hermann Joseph Löwenstein

Abstract

At the beginning of the nineteenth century, several works written by physicians and dealing with sexual issues were published. In addition to other issues (for example, the development of psychiatric disorders stemming from conditions in the sexual sphere), they resumed the discussion – which had been going on for about a hundred years, primarily among teachers – about the dangers arising from onania. One of these physicians was the German psychiatrist Hermann Joseph Löwenstein, who wrote a dissertation in 1823 with the title De mentis aberrationibus ex partium sexualium conditione abnormi oriundis. It was part of the anti-onania discourse, which was starting to influence the science of sexuality.

Keywords

anti-onanism discourse Friedrich Nasse Germany John Marten masturbation psychiatry sexual sciences 19th century

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