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Every psycho-analyst will be able to bring illustrative evidence in confirmation of Dr. Abraham's valuable and instructive paper.1 To comment adequately on it would demand a monograph in itself. It is perhaps worth while, however, to publish a couple of notes taken from material that passed through my hand at the time of reading the paper.
1The girl associates the wish for a penis with the wish for a gift from the father (first penis, later child). The following unfortunate combination of circumstances reinforced a strong castration complex in a woman patient. There was only one other child, an elder brother of whom she was both jealous and envious. He had a congenitally deformed foot and the father took the greatest pains to get this right. He took him regularly to a famous surgeon in London, where the boy had among other treatment no fewer than eleven operations, and at home he used to massage the boy's leg twice a day, to the neglect of the girl. They were ultimately successful with the leg, but the girl felt that every effort was made to give the boy a good member and none at all to remedy her predicament. That the foot is a common unconscious symbol for the penis has been extensively established.
The girl played with dolls until she was three, when a baby was born in her best friend's house, after which she became masculine, took no more interest in dolls or babies and absolutely refused to bear a child even when happily married.