Archive for Sexology

Journals

The first scientific journal devoted enterely to sexual problems appeared in Italy: "Archivio delle psicopatie sessuali", edited by Pasquale Penta 1896. Three years later, in 1899, Magnus Hirschfeld began editing the "Yearbook for Sexual Intermediate Stages" for the Scientific Humanitarian Committee.

Hirschfeld's Zeitschrift für Sexualwissenschaft was the first journal devoted to sexology as a science. Planned as a monthly publication, it appeared for only 1 year (1908) in 12 issues and then was incorporated into another, less specialized journal ("Sexual-Probleme") edited by the young Max Marcuse. However, as a historical document, this first attempt remains of enduring interest and is , in fact, a treasure trove of significant insights. Its scope was appropriately wide: The very first issue contained an article by Sigmund Freud on "Hysterical Fantasy and Its Relation to Bisexuality", and subsequent issues presented original work by Adler, Abraham, Stekel and Sadger. Thus, psychoanalysis was clearly announced as a legitimate part of the sexological effort. Yet Hirschfeld's editorial ambition reached further. He traveled to Italy and personally obtained articles from the "grand old men" Mantegazza and Lombroso. The latter's interest in forensic questions was, of course, shared by Hirschfeld himself, who appeared as an expert witness in some of the most sensational "sex trials" of his time. In addition, the journal contained historical, philological, pedagogical, biological, medical, and ethnological articles.

It is important to note in this context that the great Viennese ethnologist Friedrich Salomon Krauss served (together with the Leipzig physician Hermann Rohleder) as a co-editor of the journal and was, in fact, one of the prime movers in broadening the concept of sex research. His many contributions, and especially his journal Anthropophyteia, deserve much more attention than they are now receiving in sexological circles.

The first scientific periodicals devoted entirely to sexual problems

1. Archivio delle psicopatie sessuali, edited by Pasquale Penta 1896. [70K]	2. Yearbook for Sexual Intermediate Stages, edited by Magnus Hirschfeld 1899. [280K]	3. Journal for Sexology, edited by Magnus Hirschfeld 1908. [91K]

Eventually, in 1914, one the eve of the First World War, Iwan Bloch and the "Nestor of German sex research", Albert Eulenburg, made the second attempt at a purely scientific journal and once more started the Zeitschrift für Sexualwissenschaft as the official organ of the newly founded "Medical Society for Sexology and Eugenics" in Berlin. As they state in their preface, it intends to serve "the study of medical, natural, and cultural problems of sexology". After Eulenburg's and Bloch's death, this journal was also edited by Max Marcuse and survived until 1932. In the following year, Marcuse escaped to Palestine and later died as an Israeli citizen.

The historical importance of this great journal can hardly be exaggerated. For nearly two decades it collected and published the sexological work of the best minds of its time.

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