CARE OF SELF DURING PUBERTY
As the anxious mother bird watches day after day, while keeping her
eggs warm, for the sound of the little tapping from the inside followed
by the soft bill and wondering eyes of her little ones, so did your
mother anxiously watch and pray for the coming of her helpless baby.
In her warm nest, the womb, you lay from the meeting of the two cells
until your tiny body was completely formed. This was a period of nine
months. Then you were born.
No boy or man can have a full appreciation of all he owes a mother
until this wonderful work of nature is thoroughly implanted on his
memory, never to be effaced. While the period of watching and waiting
is only nine months, to the mother it is a whole lifetime. For to her
it means ALL her life――sometimes she gives her life for yours. Think
what wondrous love there must be for a woman to run the risk with
pleasure and happiness. Every moment of these nine months the mother
has her mind upon one thing: the tiny life growing in her womb,
nourished by her blood, given oxygen through her breath, brought into
the world smiling and laughing because the mother is laughing and
smiling. And her one hope is that you will be able to go through your
life smiling and laughing; that you will so live and grow that both of
you can show to the world the most powerful searchlight known to man:
the light which shines from a pure face and healthy mind. And such a
light is far more penetrating than you have ever realized. It searches
out truth, it reflects your mother’s face even after she has gone; it
makes others happy and brings hope to many worried homes. And it is
your mother who lights this bright ray of a pure mind; but it is your
duty to keep the flame and reflector ever active and shining.
Thousands of boys and men have brought tears and dimmed the once bright
eyes of their mothers. They have not consciously done so. It is against
all nature for a boy to deliberately inflict pain and grief upon his
mother. When he does, it is because he has been ignorant of all his
mother has gone through for him. He has never been told in plain talks
just all his mother worried and suffered while waiting for him to make
his appearance on this earth. He never fully realized how she often
dragged herself around weighted with his little body; how her nights
were sleepless on his account; how she worked, sacrificed and planned
for him. He never knew how careful she was about her food so he might
grow strong while in her womb; how she forced herself to walk when
every step was an effort, how she tried to keep her mind upon pleasant
subjects and to read only such books as might send pleasant and
beneficial impulses to his then unconscious mind.
When you have reached eight or ten years of age you have never been
told how careful you should be to use kind words and be ever on the
watch to help your mother in little things, because there is a little
sister or brother growing in your mother’s womb who will soon be in
the cradle. No, you have of course been told to be always kind to her;
to help her in little matters; but JUST why you should now be more
careful than usual has been kept from you. So if you have been cross
and disobedient at times; brought tears to your mother, and who knows
but unconscious tears to the little unborn one, you are not wholly
to blame. You didn’t know, and nine times out of ten, if you asked
questions about how babies come, you were put off with queer answers or
else told not to ask such questions. The fault has been in a wrong idea
of instruction. Your mother was never allowed to know when she was a
child; your father picked up what knowledge he could from older boys,
which was generally wrong knowledge gathered from another generation
of boys, and your teachers and those of your parents were either
criminally silent or themselves ignorant.
From all this false attitude of teachers has grown much of the misery
and disease which is with us to-day. It is my intention to have
this misery and disease abolished, and it can be done by giving you
the information your parents and teachers did not possess until too
late. All information regarding right sex living and care should be
in the possession of the boy and youth while they can utilize such
information. Of what use is it to you after the harm has been done
through ignorance? No use; more――it does much harm when it comes too
late.
“Oh, Doctor; if I had only known. Can I never be a well man again? Why
didn’t my teachers and parents tell me all this was wrong?”
I am going to try to stop the cause for these pitiable cries so that in
your and future generations they shall be no longer heard.
In the same manner you have been kept from knowing the absolute
necessity of attending to the sex organs with the absence of any ideas
except those of cleanliness. It is as reasonable for you to clean
the teeth and leave the wax to accumulate in the ears until deafness
follows, as it is to wash your hands and neglect the penis.
Your sex organ needs attention at an early age. If you have parents who
understand this matter, they have instructed you in the details; but
if you are like most boys, these have been left to chance and possible
wrong treatment.
The gland of the penis secretes a cheesy material. This is constantly
being poured out in small quantities and unless cleaned away will at
first become offensive to the nostrils, then irritating and in some
cases proceed to an inflammation which will require the services of a
surgeon.
But to begin with the small boy. He should pull back the foreskin every
morning as he washes, and with a soft cloth soaked in warm water,
remove all the accumulation. Do it carefully; but don’t forget to
do it, even if you have to let the face go. The reason for being so
particular about this matter I shall explain further on in these Chats.
If your foreskin is too long, or if it hangs over so as to retain
some drops of urine after you have relieved the bladder, go first to
your father; and if you are so unfortunate as not to have a father or
mother to whom you can go in these matters――and I know there are many
such――go to your doctor and explain to him.
Many boys are far better off when circumcised. This is a simple little
operation――just the snipping off the overhanging foreskin. If your
parents have been wise and instructed in this necessary detail of the
sex toilet, you will have been circumcised when a baby. But you cannot
blame them if it has been neglected. However, _your_ boy will have a
right to blame you if he is allowed to be a victim of irritation and
inflammation of the penis when he is a youth.
As you grow older this detail of the toilet becomes more and more
necessary, for at puberty――fourteen to sixteen years of age――all your
glands become very active, and those of the penis especially so.
I have told you in the first Chat about the bad effects of allowing
your bowels to retain matter that should always be kept out of the
body. The absorption of the poisons from this dead stuff left from food
causes headaches, laziness and in time affects the complexion. It is a
lot of natural filth left in the pocket of the lower bowel which Nature
intends should be thrown out daily. There are muscles in this bowel or
pocket especially for this purpose. If you neglect to work the muscles
placed for this purpose, they soon become weak, inactive and refuse to
perform their duty unless irritated by some drug, salts or castor oil.
In a healthy boy――one who has taken any decent care of himself――these
medicines are never needed. If such methods to make the muscles of the
lower bowel work are constantly used, the muscles lose their tone and
of course usefulness. Then in later life the veins become full of black
blood, swell and often burst. These swollen veins are generally called
piles. You see how you can avoid these disagreeable things, which are
only plain signs that the man or boy has kept in his lower bowel filthy
stuff. Just think for a moment; would you allow filthy stuff to remain
in your pocket? Of course not; yet if this stuff were kept there, it
would not do you physical harm. It would be a little disagreeable, I
admit, but not bring about the ill health it does when kept in the
pocket of the bowel.
Now, when you have the gland of the penis inflamed from the gathering
of the matter behind it, you can readily see how it may be aggravated
by any other dead material in the same region of the body. And this
region in the growing boy is very sensitive to all disturbances. So
here is another reason why you should empty your bowels EVERY day.
You will ask: Why is this secretion coming behind the gland of the
penis harmful if it is natural?
It is there to keep the gland and its covering from growing together.
If it were not there the urine would irritate and inflame the parts.
Whenever we have inflammation we have a tendency to growth. Under these
circumstances the covering of the penis would adhere to the gland, and
then would come great trouble.
The secretion is a sort of oil for the sliding parts. But this oil has
to be renewed by fresh oil――this is the reason for washing the old,
rancid oil and letting fresh oil take its place. Again, if this rancid
secretion is allowed to remain it becomes absorbed and then you have
another poison in your system.
It is useless for a boy to try to become a strong man unless his sex
organs have the best of care. I don’t mean that you should keep your
mind upon the subject; quite the contrary. If you have kept them clean
and attended to the little matters I have mentioned, your mind will not
be upon the sex organs. If you wash your teeth every day and have them
always in good condition, you do not think of them. You chew your food
thinking of the coming ball game――not of your teeth. But if you neglect
them soon come pain and trouble; then in spite of all the thinking of
the next ball game, your mind WILL go to those awful teeth.
Just so with your sex organs; a decent regard for their care drives out
all thoughts but what are necessary and decent.
The neglect or abuse of the sex organs――this latter subject we shall
have a plain talk about――affects all the other portions of the body.
It causes stupidity and soft muscles. Sometimes big muscles will be
seen in a youth who has neglected the toilet of his organs. But these
muscles are fatty muscles. They do not contain strong, blood-red fibres
of true muscles. Moreover, the FORCE behind these muscles, the nerve
cells, are themselves weakened by the absorption of secretions and the
whole general effect of the unclean and often abused parts.
Remember this fact: You cannot perform big deeds when a man if you
have neglected the little ones belonging to the development of your
body. The foundation of every big structure, brain or building, is the
essential part of the work. Unless this is built upon solid ground and
of solid material, ruin comes when pressure is brought to bear.
I have seen hundreds of men with powerful brains and intellects unable
to utilize them because their foundations for withstanding pressure
were weak. And it was ever the same old cry: “No one ever told me,
Doctor!”
At an early age you will be faced by a great injury to all boys. It is
the appearance in the public schools of smutty pictures, lecherous talk
and nasty stories. Now all these go to make for a weak foundation. If
you have grasped the full sense of sex life,――what it means to your
future, what it can do for a glorious life or a miserable end,――you
will shun such nasty things as you would a boy with the smallpox. I
want you all to know everything about sex life; but smut and filth are
not connected with this knowledge. They have nothing to do with sex
development. Nothing more to do with a full appreciation of the powers
growing in you than the ulcers of a foul disease have to do with the
growth of a healthful skin.
These nasty tales and pictures befoul a good mind. In listening or
looking you are simply allowing your growing brain to wallow in a
pigsty of thought. Scientific books on sex life, all the real knowledge
you can obtain covering the real meaning of life, are proper reading.
It is not necessary to roll in a manure heap to understand the care
and diseases of cows. It is not necessary, but harmful, to live in an
atmosphere of vice and mental filth to understand man and woman.
So you can see that it is as important to keep the mind clean as it
is any organ. For one affects the other. If you have an unclean mind,
poisons flowing through the brain from filthy talk, you will find that
the sex organs will feel the effect. This is a dangerous state. Clean
both at once and keep them clean as they grow.
Why, boys, there is scarcely one of your waking dreams of big deeds
that is not possible of being true if you keep a mind clean for big
thoughts and work. But this mind cannot work if it has to compete with
foul matter working alongside.
If you were engaged upon some delicate work and had a chap working
alongside of you who pulled down as fast as you built up, what would
you do? Throw that fellow out. Of course. Well, if he gets along inside
of your good thoughts, throw HIM out.
At this early age in your career I would not advise you to attempt any
missionary work among those boys of evil thoughts and acts. Just let
them alone; have nothing to do with them. This will appeal to such
boys much more than any attempt at “goody-goody” talk. I don’t believe
in this kind of education for the boys of vicious habits; it doesn’t
appeal to them. What you can do if they ask questions is to show them
the PRACTICAL side of the whole matter: That you want to be a strong
man, a man who can do things, a man whose children will bless instead
of curse him.
Sometimes it is necessary to smash a boy who makes evil suggestions to
you. Don’t talk to him, smash him in the face. Smash him good and hard.
Remember that if you have followed my advice and directions you will
have much more strength than a boy of evil thoughts and habits. Such a
one will be a coward; even if he LOOKS larger than you.
But beyond all, don’t blame such a boy; don’t unjustly blame him for
what he is. Perhaps he had not had the chances you have had. Possibly
he has had no parents to care for him and his associations have been
such that he cannot see the good in life. Remember that such a boy has
some good in him; often he wants to be the right kind of a fellow but
does not know how. After you have licked him――if he makes any really
bad suggestions――then he may become your good friend. If so, then you
can tell him what you know. But no preaching, mind you. Don’t try to
make him think you are any better than he is. Just let him understand
that you know what is necessary to make a strong and successful man.
Then he will want to know.