The hollow, sunken eye, the blanched cheek, the withered hands, and
emaciated frame, and the listless life, have other sources than the
ordinary illnesses of all large communities.
When a child, after having given proofs of memory and intelligence,
experiences daily more and more difficulty in retaining and understanding
what is taught him, it is not only from unwillingness and idleness, as is
commonly supposed, but from a disease eating out life itself, brought on by
a self-abuse of the private organs. Besides the slow and progressive
derangement of his or her health, the diminished energy of application, the
languid movement, the stooping gait, the desertion of social games, the
solitary walk, late rising, livid and sunken eye, and many other symptoms,
will fix the attention of every intelligent and competent guardian of youth
that something is wrong.
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