Today’s Oppressive Yet Truly Morbid Fact!
During the night of August 6, 1896, amid a deadly heat wave, New Yorkers received no relief from the heat, suffering through a sleepless night of continued high humidity and a temperature that never dropped below 74 degrees. In the morning a brisk northeast breeze had carried the promise of rain and a break to the humidity. But the rain did not fall, and both the temperature and humidity continued to rise.
The official temperature was deceptive. While the official high temperature for Manhattan on Thursday, August 6, was 91, only 2 degrees higher than the previous day, all New Yorkers agreed that it felt at least 5 degrees hotter, as the humidity rose to 87 percent. The Tribune noted that as the temperature reached its official high at 1:35 in the afternoon, “There were plenty of street thermometers that registered 101 degrees, and plenty more pedestrians who were willing to swear that it must be at least 120 degrees.” Those pedestrians were not far off, as the temperature and humidity combined for a heat index of 123 degrees.
The New York World called Thursday “the worst day of the year.” While the more staid New York Times dryly listed names of heat victims, the sensationalist yellow press seemed to relish the disaster, offering dramatic accounts of life, death, and insanity during the heat wave.
The Was Rotten Days (and Nights)!
The World recounted the sad fate of George Kupfer, a truck driver in a lumberyard. With his wife ill and unable to provide her husband with breakfast or lunch, Kupfer went the entire day working in the oppressive heat without eating. He left work complaining that he felt “queer in his head.” Returning home at 7:00 p.m. Kupfer told his wife he felt ill and began to cry bitterly before dropping to the floor unconscious. When he came to, he called for his wife, apparently unable to recognize her when she tried to calm him. Neighbors soon arrived at the Kupfer home, “where they found him lying there breathing like a horse that has finished a hot race.” A little girl ran outside crying that a man was dying, and an ambulance was called.
Kupfer resisted help and became abruptly violent. When the police tried to subdue Kupfer so he could be loaded into the ambulance, he bit one policeman on the hand and hit another in the face. Finally the police and ambulance attendants were able to place Kupfer in a straitjacket and take him to Bellevue Hospital. The doctor diagnosed the heat as the main culprit affecting Kupfer’s mind.
Amid the chaos caused by the heat, newspapers also reported continuing tragedy. Mrs. John Roberts suffered a double tragedy, losing her husband to the heat and all her belongings to a fire. John Roberts worked on the Hamburg steamship pier in Hoboken, New Jersey. He was overcome on his way back from work, and friends assisted him to his home, where he died in spite of a doctor’s best efforts. Leaving her husband’s body in their home, Mrs. Roberts went to the undertaker to arrange the funeral. Arriving back home after dark, she lit a small oil lamp to place near her husband. “The little woman’s hands trembled so violently that the lamp fell,” one paper reported. “In an instant the room was in flames.” Firemen came and extinguished the fire, but Mrs. Roberts lost everything. Finally able to reenter her home, she collapsed on her husband’s charred coffin, sobbing, “What next, oh Lord? What next?” The double shock now caused Mrs. Roberts to collapse, leaving her in critical condition.
Culled from: Hot Time in the Old Town
Sexual Deviant Du Jour!
The following case study of a “deviant” with Hyperaesthesia Sexualis (i.e., abnormally increased sexual desire) is culled from Psychopathia Sexualis (1931).
Case 12. Hyperaesthesia sexualis. Masturbatio coram discipulis in schola.
Z., 36 years of age, father of seven children, president of school, confessed that he committed masturbation in school whilst sitting at his desk, which, however, prevented the act being seen by the pupils as it was encased all around. He drank more than usual on the preceding evening, had been provoked to anger before going to school, and had been excited by the sight of some very pretty girls attending his lecture. This produced a violent erection and led to masturbation. After the act the became conscious at once of his compromising position, but the thought that the pupils had not noticed his excitement had helped him to regain self-possession.
His previous conduct being without a blemish, the authorities suspected a pathological condition and insisted upon a medical examination by the author.
The facts elicited were the following: Z. came from healthy parents. Two close relations were epileptics. At the age of 13 Z. suffered from a severe concussion of the brain, which produced an acute dementia lasting three weeks. Since that time frequent spells of irritability and intolerance of alcohol.
At the age of 16 awakening of vita sexualis with abnormal vigor and pronounced sexual emotions. Lascivious literature and pictures of women produced satisfying ejaculation. From the age of 18 onward he indulged now and then in coitus. But as a rule the touching of a woman’s arm sufficed to produce orgasm and ejaculation. He married at the age of 24 and indulged in coitus three or four times daily, and besides practised masturbation, coupled with ideal coitus.
With the bird of his fourth child (three years ago) Z. was forced, for economical reasons, to restrain himself from sexual intercourse as he despised anticonceptional means. Tactus feminarum, which produced pollutio diurna, proved unsatisfactory as did also automasturbation. He suffered much from incessant sexual excitement, which at the end of periods of six weeks became so strong that it affected his mind and will power sensibly. Only masturbation kept him from committing sexual violence on women. He became very irritable and easily flew into passion, yelled and raged about the house and even beat wife and children.
It often happened now that at the height of such a spell he would fall over and become unconscious, rattling from the throat in a peculiar manner. After a few minutes he would recover again with complete amnesia of what had happened. An attack of this kind had, however, not preceded the act with which he now stood charged, but had occurred three days afterward.
Z. was an intelligent, decent man, [except for, you know, that whole wife beating thing – DeSpair] most penitent and filled with shame.
He understood quite well that he could no longer teach at a girl’s school and bewailed his unnatural, unbridled sensuality.
He made no attempt in any way excuse his actions but pointed out that his nervous system had been thoroughly shaken of late by libido insatiata and overwork (lessons up to twelve hours daily)..
Vegetative functions normal; parietal protuberance of cranium; genitals large, lax, but normal.
Patellar reflexes much exaggerated.
In my report I pointed out that Z. suffered from a pathologically exaggerated vita sexualis and most probably from epilepsy, and had committed the act whilst subject to a sexual affection which depressed the power of self-control to a minimum.
Further legal proceedings were withdrawn. Z. was pensioned off.