The perverted appetites and peculiar longings of pregnant women
furnish curious matter for discussion. From the earliest times
there are many such records. Borellus cites an instance, and
there are many others, of pregnant women eating excrement with
apparent relish. Tulpius, Sennert, Langius, van Swieten, a
Castro, and several others report depraved appetites. Several
writers have seen avidity for human flesh in such females.
Fournier knew a woman with an appetite for the blood of her
husband. She gently cut him while he lay asleep by her side and
sucked blood from the wounds--a modern "Succubus." Pare mentions
the perverted appetites of pregnant women, and says that they
have been known to eat plaster, ashes, dirt, charcoal, flour,
salt, spices, to drink pure vinegar, and to indulge in all forms
of debauchery. Plot gives the case of a woman who would gnaw and
eat all the linen off her bed. Hufeland's Journal records the
history of a case of a woman of thirty-two, who had been married
ten years, who acquired a strong taste for charcoal, and was
ravenous for it. It seemed to cheer her and to cure a supposed
dyspepsia. She devoured enormous quantities, preferring hard-wood
charcoal. Bruyesinus speaks of a woman who had a most perverted
appetite for her own milk, and constantly drained her breasts;
Krafft-Ebing cites a similar case.
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