_Incidents――Observation――Historical Data, and Sexual Hygiene._――Nature
furnishes us a vast field for speculation and inquiry, when even
confined within the domain of certainties; and there is an occult line
beyond which everything is speculative and imaginary; but there are
facts enough in common view to enlighten the seeker after knowledge by
simply collecting commonplace occurrences and gleaning therefrom their
rich lessons. Observation, by association and comparison, and correct
judgment will teach us many things not in the least hypothetical――facts.
To comprehend the obscure relations of the sexual function and the
varieties of morbid changes, we must first systematically inquire into
a few of nature’s designs, and ascertain thereby the true purpose of
the sexual organs.
What purpose? is the first point at issue in any observation, and must
be answered by the physiologist and Physician in this investigation,
as he _only_ has the results of abuse, or wrong application, to
investigate and correct.
The production of healthy offspring must be nature’s only design for
the sexual organs. How to accomplish this end, is the great question of
scientific observers.
It seems quite axiomatic to remark, that maturity and perfect
development _only_ can assure perfect reproduction of the species.
Again, that pleasure should always attend the act of copulation,
otherwise the pain of parturition and the care of rearing the young
would always militate against the perpetuation of the race.
With the normal condition of the sexual organs and functions the
physician has comparatively little to do; but with their abuses he has
all to do. To comprehend the abnormal, he must be familiar with the
normal condition of structure and function. Masturbation is a small
part of the indiscretions and evils of the sexual; and the lesions
growing out of such evils are too numerous to mention. There is no
doubt venereal diseases grew out of the evils of repetition of sexual
congress, with certain unknown violations of nature’s laws, by depraved
human beings.
I am credibly informed of an occasion: “A prostitute received the
embraces of eleven men in immediate succession: the ninth and eleventh
took gonorrhœa, and again gave it; but the prostitute remained free
from the disease until two months after, when she took the disease from
one to whom she had given it, on the above-mentioned occasion, after
which she spread it through a small town in which she lived and also in
which she was in the habit of plying her vocation. She was free from
disease before this occasion.”
It is no more doubted that a male will contract a purulent urethritis
from contact with a woman during her menstrual crisis, or if she be
afflicted with an infective leucorrhœa; but such a discharge in the
male is not generally contagious, and he may indulge freely without
giving the disease.
Uncleanliness may be considered a common cause of sexual disease in
both sexes.
_Masturbation_, after the age of maturity is no more injurious, aside
from the degradation it leads to, than the same number of contacts
in the natural manner; but in the youth the undeveloped organs
suffer, as well as the nerve-centers which supply these organs with
nervous energy. The youth is inclined to indulge the habit after once
initiated, greatly to the detriment of the spinal cord, and through
this to the general nervous system. He is inclined to practice the
deplorable vice oftener than he could find opportunity to gratify his
passion in the natural way. As a rule, to the indiscretions of youth is
confined the permanent injury to the nervous system. It is at an early
age, when so much injury is done, that the very common practice occurs
at schools, when boys club together in squads and go behind embankments
of stone-wall, or creek-banks; or a boy isolates himself, as it were,
to “shell out a grist by hand.” With such ample opportunities, and with
the habit fully established, the acts are repeated with such frequency
that exhaustion of the nervous power must often attend this wonderful
deviation from nature’s designs.
With all this supposed nervous weakness, I do not incline to the
opinion that more injury is done to the sexual organs by this practice,
in and of itself, than is accomplished through the impressions wrought
upon the brain from reading spermatorrhœa literature of advertising,
“private-disease” specialists. I am satisfied that I have seen bad
cases recover by putting their minds at ease. The carefully worded
little books, that are sent broadcast to drive in those who have been
indiscreet, are money-making dodges, and are of great injury to the
confiding and simple.
When the injury has become very extensive and the condition of habit
very depraved, a young man becomes so attached to his lothly vice that
he will refuse the natural way of gratifying the erotic desire. He is
not in the least influenced by one of the opposite sex, and prefers his
own company, or isolation.
It is not the mule only that suffers from masturbation, but girls
as well, though not so commonly, suffer from this peculiar sexual
neurasthenia and hysteria growing out of sexual abuse. Our opportunities
for discovering the extent of such practices in the unmarried female are
very limited; consequently, we remain in ignorance to a great degree.
The married woman furnishes the physician the majority of the practice
in this class of cases, as she also suffers from a mismanagement of the
sexual congress; and it is only to the married woman that the practical
physician will need to devote extensive attention, and only through
her, in this sphere, can much information be obtained.
In the prostitute, sexual contacts are too promiscuous, and she is
too unreliable, to afford any very trustworthy information, further
than may be judged by the aspect of one who has followed the business
for a decade. It is little to know that her life, as a rule, is short
and her social redemption next to impossible, and her entailed ills
irremediable. When the habit of self-pollution is once established by
a girl, it is worse than in the male; as a female is not so likely
to yield to any sort of a vice as a male, and she will carry it to a
greater extreme. Modesty and fear of giving offence will always impede
the advancement of knowledge in regard to the sexual functions in the
so-called chaste and unmarried.
The married female’s sexual life and acts are often brought to the
knowledge of her physician. I have often been asked the question,
why so many married women become invalids from uterine and ovarian
diseases? Not referring to child-bearing, abortions, and many
indirect causes of disease which are numerous, but not enough to
furnish an etiology for the long category of nervous ailments with
which the medical man has to contend, my answer is, sexual abuse; a
misunderstanding of the sexual functions; a non-adaptation of two
individuals joined in marriage. It is not so commonly excessive
venery; or too often repeated coition; but unrequited passion. Man is
too likely to forget his duty to his wife and look first to his own
gratification. Any sexual embrace not attended with sexual orgasm, is
very detrimental and causes disease. With the brutal man and phlegmatic
woman this condition is quite likely to occur, and more especially if
the man has been a masturbator. Where the latter condition has caused
a partial impotency, the sexual orgasm very commonly occurs before or
immediately after the intromission of the penis, in which condition
beatitude is impossible, and the physician is most likely to be
consulted by one of the parties.
It will not improve our knowledge to be too modest on this question.
As medical men we have the diseases of the sexual organs and their
_sequelæ_ to treat, and we must discuss the causes. My suggestion,
that a couple should be matched, sexually, seems not out of place;
and if this condition is not present at first, it must be obtained
by adaptation. My observation has been supplied with a number of
instances of once faithful wives, who had forsaken their husbands for
this seeming little discrepancy or neglect, and associated themselves
happily with more adaptable mates.
These singular facts confront us, and as teachers and scientific men
we may, when consulted, if familiar with the causes, suggest remedies.
I have many times corrected this discrepancy in domestic felicity by
a little careful instruction, and thereby prevented the impending
dissolution of the marriage relation.
This might well be termed matrimonial hygiene.
Such grave facts are brought to the knowledge of the family physician,
and he has but to listen to find out all: he has only a few questions
to put, and the case is before him. No indecency to be indulged in:
such cases must be conducted with the strictest sense of honor and
decorum, or the bond of confidence and trust will be immediately
forfeited.
_Continence_, while in itself not an abuse, in any manner, of the
sexual organs, yet is a fruitful source of disease. The erotic male
may contract troublesome disease, both local and general, by too close
proximity with a voluptuous female; and why not as much a cause of
disease in the female? It is the condition so commonly caused by the
affectionate and chaste embraces of parties “engaged to be married.”
When this condition exists the marriage ceremony had better be
consummated as soon as possible, or injury may come to both parties.
The case of a young married couple, lately under observation, is
instructive. The wife was stricken with paralysis, from which she
was eight months in recovering. During her illness she became much
reduced in flesh and will. She recovered in flesh, but remained very
neurasthenic for many months. I made use of all methods of treatment
by drugs and electricity. I could detect no organic trouble. When
interrogating the husband, I ascertained that they had, through fear of
doing injury to the wife, remained continent, and, being too modest,
had not consulted the family physician on this very delicate subject.
I immediately advised sexual congress freely, and the neurasthenia
gradually disappeared. She has since remained in perfect health. She
was afflicted, as she supposed, with all manner of diseases. She was
often too feeble to walk, and required assistance or a cane, to walk
across the room. She was irritable and fretful, often crying, and
no reason could be given for any trouble, as she was provided with
everything asked for. It may seem a venturesome advice to render, yet
I can but urge the natural use of the sexual organs when there is a
strong erotic excitement, following a long period of continence, when
this desire is not a morbid one; which is likely to be the case only in
the depraved, after long abuses.
Were it not for mistakes so commonly made by individuals in selecting
such imperfect and inadaptable mates, the very poetical words of the
old maids and bachelors, “_single blessedness_,” might better read,
“_single cursedness_.” With the chances as they now are, it is an
important question, whether it is more advisable for a maiden lady to
marry or to remain continent and pine.
A loathsome abuse of the sexual organs, not usually recognized by the
fastidious, exists, in which one of the individuals, taking a part in
this abnormal sexual act, uses the mouth as a vagina. Some of these
benighted creatures are males, others females. Houses of prostitution
of the present day are so accommodating to their patrons that they
keep females who serve degraded males in this manner. I am credibly
informed that they prefer this method; that the erotic desire has
been transferred from the genitals to the tongue. Any person who may
be inclined to exercise a doubt, may easily convince himself of its
truthfulness by visiting one of the many low-down “houses of ill fame”
in any one of our large cities.
From _The Laws of Life_ we extract the language of a clergyman:
“I have officiated at forty weddings since I came here, and in
every case save one, I felt that the bride was running an awful
risk. Young men of bad habits and fast tendencies never marry
girls of their own sort, but demand a wife above suspicion.
So, pure, sweet women, kept from the touch of evil through
the years of their girlhood, give themselves, with all their
costly dower of womanhood, into the keeping of men who, in
base associations, have learned to undervalue all that belong
to them, and then find no time for repentance in the sad after
years. There is but one way out of this that I can see, and
that is for you――the young women of the country――to require,
in association and marriage, purity for purity, sobriety for
sobriety, and honor for honor. There is no reason why the young
men of this Christian land should not be just as virtuous as
its young women; and if the loss of your society and love be
the price they are forced to pay for vice, they will not pay
it. I admit, with sadness, that not all our young women are
capable of this high standard for themselves or others, but
I believe there are enough earnest, thoughtful girls in the
society of our country to work wonders if faithfully aroused.”
_Sodomy_, or sexual contact of a human being with an animal, is an
ancient practice and but little indulged in at the present day; as our
laws are very rigid against such _degraded and inhuman treatment of
animals_. There has been a civilizing influence, since human beings
have organized societies for the “Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.”
But it will nevertheless be remarked, that this elevating tendency
came about entirely through the respect for animals, and not for human
beings. Were it not for love of animal property and legal watch-care
over our animals, and plenty of opportunity to gratify the sexual
desire in other ways, the habits of the people would be no better
than in ancient times, when sodomy so extensively prevailed. This
beastiality may have been a cause of venereal disease――syphilis――which
can be traced back to ancient times, without a doubt.
In addition to such abuses, there were worships quite as degrading.
Phallus was a figure of the virile member, which was carried about
at the festival of _Bacchus_ as a symbol of the generative powers of
nature. The _Athenians_, who refused to show proper respect to Phallus,
were punished by Bacchus with a severe disease of the penis. Such may
be concluded from the “_History of the Phallus in Greece_.” Priapus
is now supposed to have been a venereal specialist, differing in no
respect from such modern specialists, to whom, it is said, votive
offerings were donated, and his great skill caused him to be worshipped
and deified; hence the term priapismus, which is commonly applied to
morbid erections, so frequently occurring in gonorrhœa and paralysis
of the insane, and which is also applied to the active stage of the
condition otherwise known as satyriasis.