BAD TASTE (CACOGEUSIA)

Abstract

In a review of the symptomatology of 1,000 psychiatric patients at the Vanderbilt Psychiatric Clinic a few years ago, I found a symptom the significance of which was not apparent to me—that of bad taste in the mouth. I was surprised to find that it was recorded in only 20 cases—in all of which the patients were women. The sexual monopoly seems in itself curious and leads naturally to certain psychoanalytic interpretations. Psychoanalysts are familiar with the symbolic substitution of the mouth for the vagina, which occurs not only in dreams but in reality. The erotic significance of all the body orifices is generally accepted by freudian analysts, and the polymorphous perverse pleasures of the infant gain distorted expression in the neurotic adult. One sees clearly in fellatio the interchangeability of the mouth and the vagina. There are other associations which connect this symptom with sexuality. Outstanding is the sense