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Any of the narcotics, but especially chloroform, ether, nitrous oxid, opium and its alkaloids, and chloral hydrate, might be administered with a sexual object in view, but there are only a few cases in which this has been actually done. In most recorded cases where such agents have played a part in rape the narcotic has been given for some other purpose, and the unconscious state has offered a favorable opportunity. It is possible to chloroform a sleeping person without breaking the slumber, but it requires great care and skill, and the chances of failure and success are about equal even under most favorable circumstances. Other states of temporary unconsciousness might be used for sexual purposes; syncope, epileptic unconsciousness, cataleptic and hysteric conditions, and the hypnotic state may be mentioned in particular. However, accusations of rape based on testimony related to such states of mind should be most carefully scrutinized, since such cases have been repeatedly shown to be instances of intentional or delusional false accusation.

The frequency of false accusations of rape is notorious, and demands particular discussion. The possibility of such a state of the case should never be left out of account in any instance. Motives of such false charges vary; they may be made with the purpose of revenge, blackmail, or even ignorantly; or they may be the result of hallucinatory or delusional ideas. When false accusations are made from motives of revenge or for the purpose of blackmail, attempts often are made to manufacture evidence of a physical kind corroborative of the charge. The female may inflict injuries on herself to counterfeit signs of violence. Such injuries are usually trivial in nature, and are situated on parts of the person easily accessible to her hands-i. e., the limbs and genitals. Such self-inflicted injuries are more likely to be present as abrasions and scratches than as bruises. In cases where there are signs of violence, care is always to be exercised to study them with relation to their condition and the time of their alleged infliction.

False accusations, made by designing women for the purpose of blackmail, are on record. After exciting genital inflammation in their children, they have made this the basis of complaint. Ignorance of the fact that young children are often subject to acute genital catarrh of an innocent nature has often led to trials for rape, on the assumption that a child was suffering with specific venereal disease. Men who have been innocently associated with such a child are the easy victims of such a combination of accidental disease and common ignorance and suspicion.

Another class of false accusations is based on the complaint that some narcotic, like chloroform, was used to produce unconsciousness. Such a charge should be circumstantially investigated to ascertain whether the alleged facts pertaining to the administration and action of the drug in question are in accord with known characteristics of its action; or whether, in case the agent is not known, they correspond with the action of any known drug.

False accusations of rape committed during pathologic states of unconsciousness demand most careful study; for such mental states are

often followed by hallucinatory and delusional ideas that may have had origin in dreamy ideas present in the unconscious state. In these and allied cases, in order to render the accusations convincing, they should be substantiated by objective evidence of the most unequivocal kind. The instant a plaintiff attempts to describe events that took place while she was unconscious, the testimony is invalidated; but it is to be remembered that even so-called states of epileptic unconsciousness may leave behind a dreamy summary of events that took place during its continuance.

There is no doubt that the hypnotic state might be induced and used for a sexual purpose. Accusations of rape based on such a condition, however, call for the greatest caution in the expression of an opinion by the medical witness. States of unconsciousness may be induced by hypnotic procedures and suggestions, or the subject may be placed in a state in which she is devoid and incapable of will, entirely controlled by the operator, but perfectly conscious of what takes place. It is to be remembered that the hysteric are very amenable to hypnosis; that the hypnotic state of mind is preeminently hallucinatory, and, therefore, a favoring soil for the growth of lasting delusions; that the hypnotic state of unconsciousness is abnormal in itself; therefore testimony derived from such mental states should be accepted only with a full understanding of these facts. The celebrated trial of the hypnotist Czinski, in 1895, who was convicted of a sexual crime, as published by Enke, of Stuttgart, contains a lengthy and instructive practical review of the opinions of authorities on this subject.

Autohypnotic and cataleptic states are to be viewed in a light like that essential to an understanding of hypnosis induced by a second person.

Physicians and dentists are especially open to the danger of being subjected to false accusations by females; commonly such complaints are based upon a state of unconsciousness existing during the action of some anesthetic. The most frequent form of accusation is that, during the state of unconsciousness, while deprived of all power of will or resistance, the assault was made. Such a statement should be scrutinized carefully and corroborated by other evidence, if possible, before it is given decisive weight; for there are cases on record where such complaints were shown to be hallucinatory by the testimony of the most disinterested witnesses-and even by parents of the girl-who were present at the time of the alleged assault.

False accusations of rape are often made by women while in insane conditions; the possibility of such an event must never be allowed to outweigh the necessity for caution in crediting statements of a sexual character made by an insane female. Objective evidence should be required.

When a considerable period has elapsed between the date of the alleged assault and the lodging of the complaint, unless the delay is obviously the result of innocence, shame, or ignorance, the possibility of a motive of revenge or blackmail should always be considered.

Physicians, perhaps, more than men of any other class, are open to false accusations of a sexual nature, made by designing females with the purpose of blackmail; this possibility is to be remembered in such cases.

When an idiot, imbecile, or insane person is the subject of a sexual assault, the crime is commonly rape, for, aside from resistance and force, such persons are incapable of giving legal consent; but it would also be essential for the prosecution, in such a case, to prove that the ravisher was aware of the irresponsibility of the female.

Since the age of consent, in the case of youthful females, is the pivotal point upon which the crime of rape turns when coitus has been accomplished without force, it would seem that the actual and apparent age should be considered in case the offender yielded to solicitations by one apparently beyond the age of consent.

It is a sad fact that the most frequent sexual crime is assault of female children ranging in age from babyhood to early girlhood. Such assaults in Europe are sometimes due to the belief that intercourse with a virgin (child) cures gonorrhea; sometimes to the hope that childish ignorance and weakness will make resistance slight or success easy; sometimes to fears of impotence on the part of the male, who hesitates to make an attempt with an adult through fear of ridicule (the inexperienced and the senile). It is possible that a debauchee might attempt to find lost pleasure by such a crime. A true sexual perversion might express itself in a preference for children. Of course, in many cases children are the accidental victims of proximity to a man inflamed by inordinate passion under favoring circumstances. In cases of rape of very young children the sexual contact without serious injury can consist of nothing more than vulvar penetration. Where the genitals are found wounded or torn after such an attack, the lesions are usually the result primarily of attempted dilatation by means of the finger or other hard object. But the genital passage of a child is capable of being greatly dilated by repeated gentle efforts; and such disproportionate dilatation, without lesions, should lend color to the suspicion that a child presenting such an anomaly had been improperly approached.

There are secondary consequences of rape that may raise important legal questions. Impregnation entails additional liability in law. Aside from the secondary consequences of the venereal affections, injury inflicted in a rape may lead to serious or even fatal secondary results. Death may speedily result from shock, hemorrhage, or grave injury; or it may follow later from sepsis or hemorrhage into the central nervous system. The peritoneal cavity is especially liable to injury or secondary implication. In any case where a physician is called upon to examine the subject of a sexual assault it is his duty to proceed with rigid asepsis, to avoid the possibility of having secondary consequences attributed to his neglect.

Sexual congress with male children by adult females is in some of the states punished as indecent assault. The most serious consequences of such a crime are moral injury and venereal disease, but it is not an offense of great medicolegal importance.

Some of the questions that arise in connection with sexual abuse, short of intercourse, when practised on children call for discussion, because of the possibility of their raising a suspicion of the graver crime of rape. The disgusting possibilities of a less serious kind are manustupration practised on children; seduction of children to manustuprate the offender; seduction of children for sexual exhibition. But the most important cases of the kind are those in which female children are involved, and which raise the question of actual sexual contact. An appeal in such cases may be made to the anatomic evidence afforded by the genitals, remembering the frequency with which children manipulate their own genitals. Gentle manual irritation would leave no characteristic sign behind. The child confines her rubbing to the vestibule; the elder seducer is more likely to direct his manipulations to the vagina. The conditions found, if not absolutely indicative of sexual contact, as they can seldom be, must depend for interpretation upon less direct testimony.

UNNATURAL SEXUAL OFFENSES.

Incest. Of the unnatural sexual crimes none is more offensive to general moral sensibility than the highest degree of incest. Legally, incest is intercourse of man and woman who are related in any of the degrees which law makes prohibitive of marriage.

Incest is unknown to common law, and is a statutory crime, punishable in many states as felony. The most aggravated form of the crime is that which combines incest with rape.

There is a universal repugnance in the human family to sexual relations between persons closely related by ties of blood. The moral sense of savages and civilized people is so offended by incest that it has given rise to the belief that incest is avoided in obedience to an innate instinct of aversion. Such an explanation of the fact is but a change in terms and no explanation at all. Attempts at explanation have been satisfied by the conclusion that the origin of this universal aversion to sexual congress with blood relations is the result of teaching made necessary by experience of the evil results to offspring of consanguineous marriages. Were this an adequate explanation, we should certainly find among savage people instances where the effects of experience had not yet led to avoidance of incestuous marriage-an observation yet to be made. A phenomenon of life, universal in its manifestation, must depend upon something more certain than accident of teaching derived from experience; the more since the experience of inbreeding is not under all circumstances or immediately disastrous to progeny. Observation shows that there is no inherent aversion to marriage of blood relations per se, but repugnance for marriage of those that have been associated intimately in the family, or, among primitive peoples, in the tribe. This aversion naturally gave rise to the once wide-spread custom of marriage by capture, the remains of which are still to be found in many matrimonial customs of civilized peoples.

The raison d'être of this aversion to incestuous alliances may be discovered by an appeal to known psycho-physiologic laws. It is only necessary to consider the psychology and physiology of sexual development to make this clear. Normally, the distinctive mental characteristics of sex are developed comparatively late; they may be delayed in their unfolding even for some time after the sexual glands have begun their functional activity. The primary period of childhood may be spoken of as practically asexual. This period of indifferent sexuality, physical and mental, normally extending over many years-fourteen to sixteenis the period of development during which the deepest and most enduring impressions are made on the mind. These early impressions are

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