He devised (with allusion to Uranos in Plato's _Symposium_) the word uranian or urning, ever since frequently used for the homosexual lover, while he called the normal heterosexual lover a dioning (from Dione).

He regarded uranism, or homosexual love, as a congenital abnormality by which a female soul had become united with a male body--_anima muliebris in corpore virili inclusa_--and his theoretical speculations have formed the starting point for many similar speculations.

His writings are remarkable in various respects, although, on account of the polemical warmth with which, as one pleading _pro domo_, he argued his cause, they had no marked influence on scientific thought.[119] This privilege was reserved for Westphal.

After he had shown the way and thrown open his journal for their publication, new cases appeared in rapid succession.

In Italy, also, Ritti, Tamassia, Lombroso, and others began to study these phenomena.