person, is not extremely uncommon; it has been noted of men of
high intellectual distinction; it occurs in women as well as men; when
existing in only a slight degree, it must be regarded as within the normal
limits of variation of sexual emotion.

The occasional cases in which the urine is drunk may possibly
suggest that the motive lies in the properties of the fluid
acting on the system. Support for this supposition might be found
in the fact that urine actually does possess, apart altogether
from its magic virtues embodied in folk-lore, the properties of a
general stimulant. In composition (as Masterman first pointed
out) "beef-tea differs little from healthy urine," containing
exactly the same constituents, except that in beef-tea there is
less urea and uric acid. Fresh urine--more especially that of
children and young women--is taken as a medicine in nearly all
parts of the world for various disorders, such as epistaxis,
malaria and hysteria, with benefit, this benefit being almost
certainly due to its qualities as a general stimulant and
restorative. William Salmon's _Dispensatory_, 1678 (quoted in
_British Medical Journal_, April 21, 1900, p. 974), shows that in
the seventeenth century urine still occupied an important place
as a medicine, and it frequently entered largely into the
composition of Aqua Divina.

Its use has been known even in England in the nineteenth century.
(Masterman, _Lancet_, October 2, 1880; R. Neale, "Urine as a
Medicine," _Practitioner_, November, 1881; Bourke brings together
a great deal of evidence as to the therapeutic uses of urine in
his _Scatalogic Rites_, especially pp. 331-335; Lusini has shown
that normal urine invariably increases the frequency of the heart
beats, _Archivio di Farmacologia_, fascs. 19-21, 1893.)

But it is an error to suppose that these facts account for the
urolagnic drinking of urine. As in the gratification of a normal
sexual impulse, the intense excitement of gratifying a scatalogic
sexual impulse itself produces a degree of emotional stimulation
far greater than the ingestion of a small amount of animal
extractives would be adequate to effect. In such cases, as much
as in normal sexuality, the stimulation is clearly psychic.

When, as is most commonly the case, it is the process of urination and not
the urine itself which is at