Wilson Collection: “Inverts” and “Alienists”

(Title page of Dr. Richard von Krafft-Ebbing’s influential book, Psychopathia Sexualis, 1893 edition)

Under construction.

“Inverts” and “Alienists”

Late in the century, physicians and psychiatrists (known as “alienists”) proclaimed themselves experts on homosexuality.[1] To them it was a disease to be cured. Their prescriptions ranged from cold sitz baths (1884) to castration (1893).[2][3] Doctors called homosexuality “sexual inversion,” alleging that same-sex sexual feelings contradicted anatomical sex.[4][5] (“Invert” was a common medical term for a homosexual.[6]) A leading figure was Viennese psychiatrist Richard von Krafft-Ebing who promoted a degeneracy theory of homosexuality.[7] About him, homosexual-rights pioneer John Addington Symonds stated, “The ignorance of men like...Krafft-Ebing...is incalculable, and is only equalled to their presumption.”[8]

References 1. Jonathan Ned Katz, Gay/Lesbian Almanac: A New Documentary: In Which Is Contained… (New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1983), 245. 2. Jonathan Katz, Gay American History: Lesbians and Gay Men in the U.S.A. (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1976), 134. 3. Ibid., 136. 4. Katz, Almanac, 147. 5. Rictor Norton, The Myth of the Modern Homosexual: Queer History and the Search for Cultural Unity (Washington: Cassell, 1997), 69. 6. Katz, Almanac, 144. 7. Neil Miller, Out of the Past: Gay and Lesbian History from 1869 to the Present, revised and updated (New York: Alyson Books, 2006), 16. 8. Rictor, Myth, 70.