["Impulsive insanity" according to Emil Kraepelin : A clinical framework for female criminals at the beginning of the twentieth century]. / Das "impulsive Irresein" nach Emil Kraepelin : Ein Krankheitsbild für die Verbrecherinnen am Beginn des 20. Jahrhunderts.

BACKGROUND: In his comprehensive classification of the beginning of the twentieth century, Emil Kraepelin provided a detailed description of an entity he called "impulsive insanity", which had not been elaborated before him. The forms depicted by him largely corresponded to the offences, which were referred to as typically female in their nature in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. QUESTION: How did Kraepelin classify "impulsive insanity" and what forms did he describe? Did Kraepelin also see these disorders predominantly prevailing in women, did he establish a connection with women's criminality and how did this fit into the discourses of the time on femininity, criminal legislation and degeneration? MATERIAL AND METHODS: This study focused on the clinical picture "impulsive insanity" as described by Emil Kraepelin in his main work, the 8th edition of his Textbook of Psychiatry published between 1909 and 1915. His description was analyzed in detail and embedded in a historical context on the basis of secondary literature. RESULTS: In rudiments Kraepelin's clinical classification is still comprehensible today, although there are major differences to how literature in later years treated this issue. Kraepelin clearly sees "impulsive insanity" as a driving disorder predominantly prevailing in women. DISCUSSION: Elaborating his concept of "impulsive insanity", Kraepelin positioned himself in relation to important scientific discourses of the early twentieth century, such as the debate on criminal legislation and the theory of degeneration. On the basis of the individual forms of "impulsive insanity" described by Kraepelin, various concepts of constructing and pathologizing femininity can be identified. Apparently, it also aims to explain common female crimes within the patriarchal hegemony.

[Concepts of nymphomania in the German academic psychiatry: Changes over the last two centuries]. / Die Konzeptualisierung nymphomanischer Zustände in den Lehrbüchern der deutschsprachigen Schulpsychiatrie vom Beginn des 19. Jahrhunderts bis heute.

BACKGROUND: This chronology aims to provide an overview of the views on nymphomania in the history of German academic psychiatry over the past 200 years. AIM: The aim of this study was to answer the following questions: What are the continuities over that period with regard to the etiology, diagnosis, classification or therapeutic recommendations? What changes can be observed? Was the increase in sexual desire in women seen as a disease or rather as a symptom? What significance did psychiatry attribute to female sexuality at a certain point in time? What reasons can be identified for the perceptions made and conclusions drawn at a certain time? METHODS: A cursory review of the most influential German-language psychiatric textbooks of the respective period was conducted in chronological continuity. Relevant passages were identified, analyzed in detail and compared with each other, taking the historical context into account. RESULTS: At the turn of the 19th and 20th century, a clear break in the understanding of nymphomania as a disease could be observed. In the 19th century, it was seen as a severe mental illness, which was assumed to have been caused at least in part by a peripheral disease of the female reproductive organs and the nervous system associated with them, which could lead to irreversible terminal mental states. In the 20th and 21st centuries, nymphomania was perceived as either a sexual neurosis or a functional sexual disorder, limited to the symptom complex of hypersexuality. The reasons for this were, on the one hand, the overall change in diagnosis resulting from a comprehensive reclassification of mental disorders, which assigned nymphomaniac symptoms of the 19th century to both manic and schizophrenic disorders, and, on the other hand, changes in the perception of female sexuality in the social discourse in general. The fact that nymphomania as a diagnosis was eliminated with the 11th edition of the International Classification of Diseases is a clear expression of this change. CONCLUSION: The concept of nymphomania has undergone considerable changes over time. At the beginning of the 20th century, the understanding of the disease changed significantly, so that it is even possible to distinguish between an early and a late phase. The diagnosis has meanwhile become obsolete.