PHOTO: a medical journal article that in 1904 published extended quotes from a letter from by a gay man who described his futile attempts to be cured of homosexuality and his decision to be castrated before he got into more trouble (He was fired from his job for being gay). He describes how doctors told him that his problem is all in his head. See Google Books scanned copy of edited by Charles Hamilton Hughes, "The Gentleman Degenerate, A homoseualist's self description and self-applied title," Alienist and Neurologist 25, no. 1 (February 1904): p. 62-70. A good discussion and summary of the article is on the blog page by Jim Burroway, "The Daily Agenda for Thursday, February 7," www.boxturtlebulletin.com posted Feb. 7, 2013. (Note that the term Alienist is an archaic medical term for psychiatrist).
The doctor comments on the letter from a homosexual patient:
These autobiographic reflections of a sexual pervert, with reverse sexual instinct feelings and impulses, are given place here, as contributing to complete the portraiture of the homosexual form of hereditary perversion and also to call attention to the often revealed psychic accompaniment of morbid egoism and craving for sympathy.
Such of this class who have come under my observation and care as patients, have been inclined to write up their cases, without suggestion to that effect and without urging. The morbid egoism to disclose the self-feeling is like that of Claud Hartland, another patient of the editor's, whose book was excluded from the mails.
This narrative does not give details, but were similar to those described by many of Kraft-Ebing's patients troubled by homosexuality. In this case an operation was performed on the filaments of the pudic nerve supplying the testes, but the morbid inclination still persists, notwithstanding the operation and a course of chologogues, antiseptic intestinal treatment and full bromism. (Quoted from edited by Charles Hamilton Hughes, "The Gentleman Degenerate, A homoseualist's self description and self-applied title," Alienist and Neurologist 25, no. 1 (February 1904): p. 62-70)
Although this was medical journal was published only a little more than a century ago, it is amazing to see how medical language has changed concerning homosexuality and it is interesting to see the reference to egoism as being related to homosexuals because the Freudian model of homosexuality, which dominated much of the later 20th Century also asserted that narcissism was the root psychological defect in homosexual men. (Narcissism and egoism are often closely related in most psychological theories.)
