A
TREATISE
ON
The CRIME of ONAN;
ILLUSTRATED with
A VARIETY of CASES,
Together with
The METHOD of CURE.
——_Propriis extinctum vivere criminibus._
GALL.
By M. TISSOT, M. D.
AUTHOR of
_Advice to the People in general with regard to
their Health_.
TRANSLATED from
The THIRD EDITION of the ORIGINAL.
LONDON,
Printed for B. THOMAS, in the Strand.
MDCCLXVI.
PREFACE.
_While I was composing in Latin the Original of this small Production, I
was sensible of its defects, and, in the Preface to it, made my apology
for them. But, after the Performance appeared in print, they struck me
much more forcibly; and when I came to examine the French translation of
it, which I had been desired to revise, I judged them intolerable._
_Besides a number of new observations necessarily to be added, there were
faults to be remedied, in the method, and some articles which, being no
more than the first outline, insufficient to convey what I had to say,
required a fuller extent to be given them._
_So many corrections rendered the Work almost a new one, and made it
considerably longer. The difficulty of carrying on this undertaking in a
living language, and all the disagreeable circumstances that must cleave
to it, did not escape me. Nothing could have determined me to engage in
it, but the prospect of the utility to mankind of such an undertaking
well executed, which is, however, what I dare not boast of. It is only my
intention that I can warrant. The crimes of one’s fellow creatures afford
but a melancholic object to concern one’s self with: the consideration
of them can only afflict and mortify one: a sentiment ballanced by no
pleasure but that of hoping to contribute to the diminution of their
frequency, and to alleviate the sufferings which are the consequences of
them._
_But what has given me much more trouble, in this Work, than if I had
written it in Latin, is the embarrassment of expressing images, of which
the terms and descriptions are declared indecent by use. A dispensation,
however, from a due attention to these scruples would have been very
disagreeable to my own disposition, with which I could never have
reconciled any labor at the expence of what I pride myself on, a due
regard for the laws of decency. Yet to this duty it is that are owing the
great difficulties that stopped me at every step. I dare aver, then, that
I have neglected no precaution for giving to this Work all the modesty in
the expressions that the subject would admit. There are, indeed, certain
objectionable images inseparable from this matter; but how could I avoid
them? Was it fit for me, on such important objects, to keep silence?
Doubtless not. The sacred Authors, the Fathers of the Church, who almost
all wrote in living languages; the Theological Writers, have not thought
themselves obliged to pass over in silence the crimes of obscenity,
because they could not be pointed out without naming them, without
words, in short. I judged myself authorised to follow their example,
and I dare say, with St. AUGUSTIN, “If what I have written scandalizes
any vitious persons, let them rather blame their own turpitude than
the words which I have been obliged to make use of, for explaining my
thoughts on the act of generation in mankind. I hope that the truly
modest and virtuous reader will easily forgive the expressions which I
have been forced to employ.” I will add to what this great Divine says,
that I hope to merit the grateful acknowledgment and approbation of the
moral and the sensible, who know the general proneness of the world to
wicked practices, and who will approve, if not my success, at least the
intention of my undertaking._
_I have not in this, no more than in my first edition, touched upon the
moral part, and that for HORACE’s reason_,
——Quod medicorum est
Promittunt Medici——
_I have proposed to myself to write on the diseases produced by
self-pollution, and not on the crime of self-pollution, considered as
a crime; is it not proof enough of its being one, the demonstrating
that it is an act of self-murther? Whoever knows mankind, will not
be difficultly persuaded, that it is easier to give them an aversion
against a vice, by the fear of a present evil, than by reasons founded
on principles, of which there is not care enough taken to inculcate to
them all the truth and solidity. I have applied to myself what an author,
whose name will pass to the remotest posterity, as an honor to the age
in which he lived, makes a Clergyman say: “We are put upon undertaking
to prove the utility of prayer, to a man who does not believe there is a
God; and the necessity of fasting, to one who has, all his life, denied
the immortality of the soul: such an attempt is rather difficult, and
the laugh is not on our side[1].” MARPHURIUS doubted of every thing till
SGANARELLE broke his bones; and then MARPHURIUS believed._
_These ZOÏLUSES of society and literature, who themselves do nothing,
and blame every thing that is done, will have the assurance to say, that
this Work is fitter to spread than to stop this vice, and that it will
make it known to such as would otherwise have remained in ignorance of
it. I shall make them no answer; they deserve none; it is debasing one’s
self to do them that honor: but there are those of weak though virtuous
minds, upon whom these objections might make an impression: to these
I owe a general reflexion, it is this, that, in that point of light,
my Book is liable to no worse exception than what might be made to all
books of morality: they must be all prohibited, if pointing out the
dangers of a vice was the way to multiply it. The sacred writings, those
of the Fathers, those of the Casuists, ought all to be forbidden before
mine is so. Besides, what young person is likely to think of reading a
Treatise of Physic on a matter of which he does not so much as know the
name? It is to be wished, indeed, that this Book were become familiar to
all persons to whom the education of youth is committed; it might be of
service to them to set an early watch; and detect, in time, any practice
of this detestable habit; it would enable them to take the precautions
they should judge necessary for preventing the consequences._
_Those who do not understand Latin, will, perhaps, find fault with there
being too many verses in that language; my answer is, that there are
none which are not connected with the subject, since there is not one
that was not recalled to my mind by the chain of ideas. I have, however,
so disposed them, that they may be skipped without any injury to the
thread of the discourse. Those who understand them, will rather be
pleased with me for them: a traveller is, in the midst of a dreary barren
heath, rejoiced at the sight of a spot of verdure. In short, if it is a
fault, it is not, I hope, more than a venial one, and on so disgustful a
subject, some relaxation from it may be forgiven the author. If there are
no quotations from the Poets in our own language, which would have been
more natural, that is no fault of mine; I knew of none to be quoted._
_This Work, however, has nothing in common with the English one upon
this subject, under the title of ONANIA; and except about two pages and
a half, which I have extracted from it, that rhapsody has been of no use
to me. Those who shall read both performances will, I hope, be sensible
of the total difference there is between them. Those who shall only read
this one of mine, might, without this advertence, be deceived by the
affinity of the titles[2], and be led to imagine some resemblance between
the two books; happily there is none._
_This new edition, is, by the additions, augmented almost a third, and I
hope they will meet with a favorable reception from all competent judges.
There will probably be two objections made to me: the one, that I have
added a great number of observations and authorities, which are little
more than repetitions of those that were already in the first edition;
the other, that in some places I have too much departed from my leading
or principal title, and that I have considered the danger from the
pleasures of love under a general point of view._
_To the first objection, I answer, that in a matter of this nature,
where there is less hope of convincing by reasons than of terrifying by
examples, one can hardly accumulate too many._
_To the second, I say, first, that when two matters are intimately
connected, the more you endeavour to detach one, the worse you treat of
it; secondly, that I was glad to render this Work of as much general
utility as possible._
_I have been told, that it is the reading of that part, that caused
horror to an illustrious Professor: I do not believe it. But if it should
be true, I would desire him to peruse this Preface, which I must suppose
had in such case escaped him._
_In writing upon Inoculation, I had proposed to myself to propagate the
method that I judged the properest to stop the ravages of that murderous
distemper; and I have had the satisfaction of doing, at least, some good:
in composing this Work, I have been encouraged by the hope of checking
the progress of a corruption more rife, more destructive perhaps than
the small-pox itself, and so much the more to be dreaded, for that its
operations being carried on in the shades of secrecy and mystery, it
undermines without noise, without even those, who are its victims,
suspecting its malignity. It was of the greatest importance to make
its dangers known. May that Power, to whom every thing is subordinate,
vouchsafe to my views that blessing without which our best endeavours can
be of no avail!_ PAUL plants, APOLLOS cultivates, but increase is from
GOD alone.
CONTENTS.
_INTRODUCTION_, Page xiii.
ARTICLE I.
_The SYMPTOMS._
Sect. I. _Description drawn from the Works of Physicians_, P. 1.
II. _Observations communicated_, 17.
III. _Descriptions taken from the Book entitled ONANIA_, 20.
IV. _The AUTHOR’s Observations_, 24.
V. _Consequences of self-pollution to the female sex_, 46.
ARTICLE II.
_The CAUSES._
Sect. VI. _Importance of the seminal liquid_, 56.
VII. _An examination of the circumstances which accompany
the emission_, 68.
VIII. _Causes of the dangers particular to self-pollution_, 86.
ARTICLE III.
CURATIVE INDICATIONS.
Sect. IX. _Means of Cure proposed by other Physicians_, 106.
X. _The AUTHOR’s Practice_, 122.
_Air_, 126.
_Aliments_, 131.
_Sleep_, 151.
_Motion_, 155.
_Evacuations_, 157.
_The Passions_, 160.
_Remedies_. 163.
ARTICLE IV.
_Accessory, or Relative DISEASES._
Sect. XI. _Nocturnal Pollutions_, 195.
XII. _The Gleet, or simple Gonorrhœa_, 218.
INTRODUCTION.
Man is every instant losing something of himself, and if he was not
continually repairing that loss, he would soon necessarily fall into a
weakness productive of death. This reparation is effected by aliments.
But these aliments must undergo in the body different preparations, which
are comprehended under the name of nutrition. But when that nutrition
is either not performed, or deficiently so, all these aliments become
useless, and do not hinder the falling into all the evils which are the
consequence of atrophy or inanition. Of all the causes that may hinder
nutrition, there is not perhaps a more common one than over-abundant
evacuations. Such is the fabric of our machine, and in general of all
human machines, that for aliments to acquire the degree of preparation
necessary to repair the body, there must remain in it a certain quantity
of humors well elaborated, and, if I may use the expression, naturalised
to it. If this condition of them is defective, the digestion and coction
of the aliments remains imperfect, and so much the more imperfect, as
the humor that is needed requires the most elaboration, and is of the
most importance.
A healthy robust nurse, from whom the taking some pounds of blood in
twenty-four hours, would probably kill, would furnish to her child
the same quantity of milk, for four or five days running, without any
sensible inconvenience to her, because milk is, of all the humors,
that which requires the least elaboration, being, a secretion almost
distinct from the humors of the body; whereas blood is an essential of
life. There is another humor, the seminal liquid, which has so great an
influence over the forces of the body, and over the accomplishment of
the digestions which repair them, that the Physicians of all ages have
unanimously believed, that the loss of one ounce of this humor weakened
more than the loss of forty ounces of blood.
Some idea may be gathered of its importance, from observing the effects
which it operates on its first beginning to form itself: the voice, the
aspect of the physiognomy, even the lineaments themselves of the face
undergo an alteration: the beard appears, the whole body often takes
another air, from the muscles acquiring a largeness and firmness that
constitute a sensible difference between the body of an adult and, that
of a young man who has not passed the season of pubescence. All these
developements are stopped or hindered by the loss of the organ which
serves for the separation of that liquid which produces them; very just
observations having proved, that the amputation of the testicles, even in
the age of virility, has occasioned the shedding of the beard, and the
return of an infantine voice[3]. After that, can there be any doubt of
the power of its action over the whole body? Does not it sensibly give
reason for apprehending the multitude of evils which must arise from
the waste or profusion of so pretious an humor? Its natural destination
determines the only allowable means of its evacuation. Disorders will
sometimes occasion its efflux. It may be involuntarily lost through the
effect of lascivious dreams. The author of _Genesis_ has left us the
history of the crime of ONAN, doubtless in order to transmit with it that
of his punishment; and we learn from GALEN, that DIOGENES was guilty of
the like pollution.
If the dangerous consequences of the over-abundant loss of this humor
depended only on the quantity, or were the same, quantity for quantity,
with the other humors, it would not, in a physical light, be of much
importance, in which of the above ways the evacuation was made. But
the manner or form here is as essential a point, as the substance of
the thing itself, if I may be indulged this expression, my subject
authorising such licence of language. Too considerable a quantity of
the seminal humor, lost in the natural way, brings on very grievous
disorders, but which are much worse when the same quantity has been
wasted out of the course of nature. Those disorders, which such as
exhaust themselves in the natural commerce of the sexes, bring upon
themselves, are dreadful; but those are much more so which are produced
by self-pollution. It is these last that are properly the objects of this
work; but the intimate connexion which they have with the first, hinders
the separation of them in the description. It is then the description
common to both, that shall form the _first Article_. This shall be
followed by the explanation of the Causes, a _second Article_, in which
I shall state those that render the consequences from self-pollution the
most dangerous: The Means of Cure, and Remarks on some Diseases that
have an affinity to that cause, shall conclude the Work. I will add
throughout, the Observations of the best Authors to those which I have
myself made.
ARTICLE I.
_The SYMPTOMS._
SECTION I.
_Description drawn from the Works of Physicians._
Hippocrates, the most antient and the most exact of all the observers
of Nature, has already described the evils produced by excessive
venery, under the name of the Dorsal Consumption, in Latin, _Tabes
dorsalis_[4].—“This disease (says he) proceeds from the spinal marrow.
It attacks young married folks, or those addicted to lustful excesses.
They have no fever, and though they eat as much as usual, they turn lean,
and waste away. They imagine they feel something, as it were like ants,
descending from the head, and creeping down the back-bone. In their
evacuations by stool or urine, they lose abundance of the seminal liquid
much thinner than it naturally is. They are unfit for generation, and
are often busied in the act of it, in their dreams. Walking, especially
in any bad road, soon puts them out of breath, weakens them, brings
on heavinesses of head; they have a kind of tingling in their ears; at
length an acute fever (_lypiria_) terminates their days.”
Some Physicians have attributed to the same cause, a disease which
HIPPOCRATES describes elsewhere[5], and which has some affinity to the
first: this last they call “the secondary _tabes dorsalis_.” But the
continuance under it of the bodily strength, which he particularly
specifies, appears to me a convincing proof, that this last disease does
not acknowledge the same cause as the first. It seems rather a rheumatic
affection. For example, CELSUS, in his excellent book on the preservation
of health, says, “the pleasures of coition are always pernicious to weak
constitutions, and the frequent use of them enfeebles the strong.[6]”
Nothing can be conceived more dreadful than the description which ARETÆUS
has left us of the evils produced by an over-abundant evacuation of that
humor. “The young (says he) contract the looks and the infirmities of old
age; they become pale, effeminate, torpid, inactive, stupid, and even
drivellers; their bodies are bent, their legs refuse their office; they
have a general distaste, and grow unfit for all the offices of life;
many fall into a palsy[7].” In another place he sets down the pleasures
of venery among the six causes that produce the palsy.
GALEN has seen the same cause produce diseases of the brain and nerves,
and destroy the vital force[8].
He says in another place, that a man who was not thoroughly recovered of
a violent disorder, died on the same night that he acquitted himself of
the nuptial function with his wife.[9]
PLINY the Naturalist tells us, that _Cornelius Gallus_, a Prætor advanced
in years, and _Titus Ætherius_, died in the act itself of coition.[10]
“The stomach (says ÆTIUS) is weakened; the transgressor falls into a
paleness, leanness, dryness; his eyes are hollowed in his head[11].”
These attestations of the most authoritative among the antients, are
confirmed by a crowd among the moderns.
SANCTORIUS, who has, with the greatest accuracy, examined all the causes
that act upon the human body, has observed, that this one weakened the
stomach, ruined the digestions, hindered the insensible perspiration,
the interruptions or disorders of which are attended with such bad
consequences, produced a heat in the liver and kidneys, disposed for the
stone, diminished the natural heat, and commonly drew after it a weakness
of the eyes[12].
LOMMIUS, in his excellent Commentaries on the passage I have quoted
from _Celsus_, seconds the testimonies of his author, with his own
observations. “Too frequent emissions (says he) of the seminal liquid
relax, drain, weaken, enervate, and produce a multitude of evils;
apoplexies, lethargies, epilepsies, a dozingness, maladies of the eyes,
loss of sight, tremors, palsies, convulsions, and of all the kinds of
gout, the most painful one[13].”
There is no reading without horror, the description left us by TULPIUS,
that celebrated Burgomaster and Physician of Amsterdam. “Not only (says
he) the spinal marrow wastes away, but both body and mind languish alike;
the individual perishes miserably. _Samuel Vespretius_ was attacked with
the defluxion of an excessively acrid humor, which first seized the back
part of his head and the nape of his neck: thence it passed to the spine,
the loins, the haunches, and the joints of the thigh, occasioning to the
unhappy patient such acute pains and tortures, that he became totally
disfigured, and fell into a slow fever, that kept consuming him, but not
so fast as he could have wished, his condition being so intolerable, that
he frequently invoked death before it came to his deliverance from his
sufferings[14].”
Nothing (says a celebrated Physician of Louvain) so much weakens the
vital faculties, and abridges life[15].
BLANCARD had seen simple gonorrhœas, consumptions, and dropsies all
acknowledging this cause[16].
MUYS had seen a man as yet unbroken with age, attacked with a spontaneous
gangrene in the foot, which he attributed to venereal excesses[17].
The _Memoirs of curious Naturalists_ mention the circumstance of a loss
of sight, the observation of which deserves a recital at large. “It is
(says the author) unconceivable, what a sympathy the repositories of the
seminal humor have with the whole body, but especially with the eyes.
_Salmuth_ saw a learned hypochondriac run raving mad, and another man,
whose brain was so dried up, that it might be heard shaking as it were
loose within the skull; both owing to their having abandoned themselves
to excesses of venery. I myself saw a man of fifty-nine years of age,
who, three weeks after marriage with a young woman, fell into sudden
blindness, and died at the end of four months[18].”
The over-dissipation of the animal spirits weakens the stomach, palls the
appetite, and nutrition no longer proceeding in its due course or degree,
all the parts languish, and an epilepsy is sometimes the consequence[19].
We cannot, it is true, say that the animal spirits and the seminal
humor are the same thing, but observation has taught us, as will be
subsequently seen, that these two fluids have a great affinity.
M. HOFFMAN has seen the most dreadful accidents follow a waste of the
seed.
“After a long course of nocturnal pollutions (says he) not only the
strength diminishes, the body is emaciated, the face turns pale, but
moreover the memory fails, a continual sensation of cold seizes all
the limbs, the sight dims, the voice grows hoarse[20]; the whole body
insensibly decays; the sleep, disturbed by uneasy dreams, brings with
it no refreshment, and one feels pains like those which follow a severe
beating[21].”
In his consultation for a young man, who, among other disorders, had
brought upon himself a weakness in the eyes, by self-pollution: “I have
(says he) seen many examples of persons, who, even in the age of full
growth, that is to say, when the body is come to the plenary enjoyment
of its vigor, had drawn upon themselves not only a redness and extreme
pains in the eyes, but also so great a weakness of the sight, as to be no
longer able to read or write. I have even seen two instances of a _gutta
serena_ produced by this cause[22].”
It will probably not be unpleasing here, the specifying the history of
the disease which gave rise to the consultation precedently quoted.
“A young man having, from the age of fifteen, abandoned himself to the
practice of self-pollution, had, by the frequency of that act till the
age of twenty-three, brought upon himself such a disorder of the head,
and especially such a weakness in the eyes, that they particularly were
seized with violent convulsions at the time of the seminal emission.
If he attempted to read, he felt a dizziness somewhat like that of
drunkenness. The _pupilla_ was extraordinarily dilated. He suffered
extreme pains in the eye; his eyelids felt heavy, and glewed up every
night; his eyes were always suffused with tears, and in the two corners
of them, both very painful, there was constantly gathering a whitish
matter. Though he ate his meals chearfully, he was reduced to extreme
leanness, and as soon as he had eaten, he would fall into a kind of
drunken stupor.”
The same author has preserved to us another observation on a case,
of which he himself had been an ocular witness, and which deserves a
place here. “A young man about eighteen years of age, having had an
over-frequent intercourse with a servant-maid, fell all on a sudden into
a great faintness, with a general tremor in all his limbs; his face
flushed, and a very weak pulse. He was recovered out of this slate, in
about an hour’s time, but he remained under a general languor. The same
fit frequently returned, with an intolerable anguish, and in eight days
time brought on a contraction and a tumor of the right arm, with a pain
at his elbow, which redoubled at every fit. This disorder proceeded for
some time augmenting, notwithstanding all the remedies that were used.
However, M. Hoffman cured him at length[23].”
M. BOERHAAVE paints these disorders with that energy and exactness which
characterise all his descriptions.
“An excessive profusion (says he) of the seminal humor produces
lassitude, feebleness, immobility, convulsions, emaciation, desiccation,
pains in the membranes of the brain; it obtunds the senses, and
especially the sight; it brings on the _tabes dorsalis_, a general
torpor, and various other diseases which have an affinity to those[24].”
It would not be right here to omit the observations which this great man
communicated to his hearers, on his explaining this aphorism to them, and
which turn upon the different means of evacuation.
“I have (says he) seen a patient, whose illness began by a languor
and weakness all over his body, especially towards the loins; it
was accompanied with such a motion of the tendons, such periodical
convulsions, and wasting away, as were enough to destroy the whole body:
he also felt a pain in the membranes of the brain, a pain which the
patients call a dry burning heat, with which the noble parts are, in
this case, continually affected.
“I have also seen a young man seized with a _tabes dorsalis_. He had
been an extremely pretty figure, and though he had been often admonished
against the over-indulgence of venery, he would still abandon himself
to it, and became so deformed before his death, that all that muscular
roundness, which appears over the spinal apophyses of the loins, was
entirely sunk and flattened. In this case the brain seems to be consumed,
and, in fact, the patients become stupid. The body loses all its
suppleness to such a degree, that I never saw such immobility produced by
any other cause. The eyes also contract a notable dimness, or difficulty
of seeing[25].”
M. de SENAC, in his first edition of his Essays, set forth the dangers
of self-pollution, and denounced to the victims of this infamy all
the infirmities of the most languishing old age, in the flower of
their youth. In the following editions may be seen his reasons for the
suppression of this passage, and of some others.
Mr. LUDWIG, in his description of the evils attending over-abundant
evacuations, does not forget the seminal one.
“The young (says he) of either sex, who abandon themselves to
lasciviousness, ruin their health, by a dissipation of that strength
which by nature was designed to bring their body to its greatest point of
vigor. In short, they fall into a consumption[26].”
M. de GORTER enters into particulars of the most dreadful accidents
deriving from this cause; but as it would be of too great a length to
copy him, I refer to his work those who understand the language in which
he wrote[27].
M. VAN SWIETEN, after a recital of the above-quoted description of the
_tabes dorsalis_ by HIPPOCRATES, adds:
“I have seen all these symptoms, besides many more, befall those who
had abandoned themselves to the infamy of self-pollutions. During three
years, I employed, in vain, all the aids of the medical art, for a young
man, who, by this vile habit, had brought on himself erratic, surprizing,
and general pains, with a sensation sometimes of heat, sometimes of a
very irksome cold all over his body, but especially towards the loins.
These pains having, afterwards, been a little diminished, he felt so
great a cold in his thighs and legs, although those parts seemed to the
touch to have preserved their natural warmth, that he was continually
warming himself at the fire, even during the greatest heats of the
summer. But what more particularly astonished me, was a continual motion
of rotation in the testicles, and the patient complained grievously of a
like motion which he felt in his loins[28].”
This narration does not inform us whether this wretched object terminated
his life at the end of the three years, or, what is worse, yet continued
to languish on, for some time longer; for there could hardly be a third
issue.
M. KLOEKOFF, in a very good work on those distempers of the mind which
depend on the body, confirms, by his observations, what has been here
advanced on this subject.
“Too great a dissipation of the seminal humor weakens the springs of
action in all the solids; thence arise weakness, laziness, listlessness,
hectics, the _tabes dorsalis_, a torpor, and depravation of the senses,
stupidity, madness, epilepsies, convulsions[29].”
M. HOFFMAN had already remarked, that young people who abandoned
themselves to that shameful practice of self-pollution, “lost, little by
little, the faculties of the understanding, especially the memory, and
became intirely unapt for study[30].”
M. LEWIS describes all these evils: but I shall only transcribe from
his work, what relates to the detriment occasioned to the intellectual
faculties.
“All the evils which arise from excesses committed with women, are also
effected in early life, by that abominable practice in school-boys,
a practice which I cannot describe in terms odious enough, _pollutio
sui_, which, actuated more by vitiousness than by sense and reason, and
ignorant of the mischievous consequences, they repeat, &c. &c.[31] ... So
intimately are the mind and body blended together, that there cannot be
any disease of the one which will not influence the other; but in none is
the _mind_ more deeply affected than in this. To add to his infelicity,
a melancholy gloom attends the patient, and silence and solitude are
anxiously sought after.—The chearful haunts of men no longer delight him;
he is absent in company, and will have no part of the conversation. He
is not happy even in his friend: a sense of his misfortune, and perhaps
the aggravating circumstance of having brought it upon himself, for ever
hang on his mind. The company of the female sex he loves indeed, but the
apprehensions that he may be cut off from nuptial felicity, interrupts
the fruition of their pleasing converse. Thus deeply dejected, he
excludes himself from society, wanders in retirement, and it is well if
he seeks not to destroy himself at last[32].”
Fresh observations, subsequently introduced, will confirm the truth of
the preceding dreadful description. That one furnished by M. STORCKE,
in the valuable work which he has published on the history and cure of
diseases, is not less terrible: but I refer the curious to the work
itself, which no physician would wish to be without. The passage I
allude to is in his _Medicus annuus_, T. ii. p. 215, &c. But before I
terminate this Section, I shall here conclusively add a passage in that
excellent work, with which M. GAUBIUS has lately enriched the medical
art. He not only paints the evils, but points out the causes of them,
with that force, that truth, that sagacity, that exactness, which can
belong to none but so great a master. It is a most valuable extract;
and that the coloring of it may appear in its true lustre, I subjoin
to the translation the original of it, in the language of the author’s
expression.
“An immoderate profusion of seed is pernicious, not only through the
waste of that most useful humor, but also through the over-frequent
repetition of that convulsive motion which is produced by the emission.
For the highest pitch of that pleasure is immediately succeeded by so
universal a relaxation of the animal strength, as cannot be borne often
without a consequential enervity. The more frequent a draught there is
on the secretory ducts of the body, the greater is the derivation of
the respective humors of the secretions; so that in the case of the
liquid being repeatedly attracted to the parts of generation, the rest
of the secretions are depauperated: thence, from excesses of venery
follow, weariness, weakness, immobility, a tottering gait, pains of the
head, convulsions, a hebetation of all the senses, and especially of
the sight, blindness, intellectual imbecillity, a feverish circulation,
dryness, leanness, a phthisis, a _tabes dorsalis_, an effeminate habit
of body. These evils are liable to augment and become incurable through
that perpetual pruriency for venery which the mind does not less than
the body at length contract; and from which it follows, that obscene
imaginations haunt even the dreams of persons so affected, and that
the parts prone to the libidinous turgescence are, on every occasion,
impetuously sollicited, while the quantity of the repaired seminal fluid,
were it never so small, occasions constantly a troublesome stimulation,
and is ready to start from its relaxed repositories with any the least
endeavour, or even without any endeavor at all. Whence it is clear why an
excess of this nature is so capable of blasting the flower of youth[33].”