In the light of Westerman Holstijns 'Oral Erotism in Paraphrenia Facts and Theories' (the International Journal of Psycho-analysis, Vol. XV, S. 273) Dr. Stärcke reconsiders his well-known hypothesis of the scybalum as the primitive persecutor, and inquires whether oral factors are of greater importance than anal in this disease. Not denying the presence of oral fixation —connected with early weaning—as determining the regression to narcissism involved in paranoia, but reiterating the importance of anal-ambivalence in providing the break-away from the more sublimated and organized homosexuality of the same syndrome, he finds no reason to modify his previous views. He shews that even in delusions of oral persecution—poisoning—the persecuting substance always has a mixed or a purely anal origin, and that it is much more often something indefinitely defiling than a definite poison, while the result feared is not death but fertilization, impotence, madness or defilement