Many writers are disposed to underrate the importance of this tendency
in spermatorrhoea. The statistics of any of our large insane asylums
will illustrate the influence of masturbation in the production of
insanity. Mr. Holmes Coote, in a discussion which followed Dr.
Drysdale's paper on the "Medical Aspects of Prostitution," read before
the Harveian Society of London, remarked that "he still entertained the
opinion that there were no worse evils appertaining to human weakness
than this. He had opportunities of witnessing the fact that among the
young there was no cause of insanity more common than indulging in
habits which he would not further particularize, but which were known to
result in the most complete bodily and mental prostration."--[British
Medical Journal, Feb. 17, 1866.]
Dr. John P. Gray, the distinguished Superintendent of the State Asylum
at Utica, New York (Twenty-Fourth Annual Report, 1867), thus speaks of
the +influence of masturbation+ in the production of +insanity+: "The
records of this institution show five hundred and twenty-one cases
admitted directly attributable to this vice, and I am well convinced
that the number is greatly understated."
We might add confirmatory testimony from a variety of sources, but the
foregoing is sufficient for our purpose.
IMPORTANT.--_Peculiar, numb, dead, aching, or tingling sensations in
the hands, arms, legs or feet, and headache and specks before the eyes
on stooping or reading; also sleeplessness, too sound sleep, and
apprehensive dreams should be watched for, and the moment they appear
danger from Paralysis or Insanity is to be apprehended and proper
treatment at once taken. These symptoms may mean nothing in some cases,
but they are terrible harbingers of ill in others._