_Observations communicated._
I shall preserve no other order than that of the dates of my receiving
these observations.
“I have (says my illustrious friend M. ZIMMERMANN,) seen a man of
twenty-three years of age, who became epileptic, after having weakened
himself by frequent self-pollutions. As often as he had nocturnal
pollutions, he fell into a complete fit of epilepsy. The same thing
happened to him after any commission of that act, from which however
he would not abstain, notwithstanding those consequences, and all the
admonitions against it. Having, however, abstained from it for some time,
I cured him of the nocturnal pollutions, and had even hopes of removing
his epilepsy, of which the fits were already gone off. He had recovered
his strength, his stomach, his sleep, and a very good color, after having
looked like a corpse. But being returned to his acts of self-pollution,
which were always followed by an attack of the epilepsy, he came at
length to be taken with fits in the street, and he was found one morning
dead in his chamber, fallen out of his bed, and bathed in his own blood.”
May I be allowed one question, which occurred to me when I read this
observation? It is this: Can such as blow their brain out with a pistol,
who drown themselves in a river, or cut their own throats, be accounted
more guilty of self-murther than this man?
My friend adds, without entering into particulars, that he knows another
who is in the same case: I have since learnt, that he ended his days in
the same manner.
“I knew (says Mr. ZIMMERMANN) a man of great genius, and of almost
universal knowledge, whom frequent pollutions had reduced to lose all
the activity of his understanding, and whose body was exactly in the
condition of the patient that consulted Boerhaave[34].”
Of this case I shall hereafter take notice.
I owe the two following facts to M. RAST, junior, an eminent Physician of
Lions, with whom I had the pleasure of passing some months at Montpelier.
A young man at Montpelier, a student of physic, perished by his excesses
in the practice of self-pollution. His imagination was so horror-struck,
that he died in a sort of despair, fancying that he saw hell open, on the
side of him, to receive him.
A child of that town, not above six or seven years old, taught, I
believe, by a servant-maid, practised it so frequently; that a hectic
fever coming on, soon cut him off. His fury of passion for this act was
so great, that there was no hindering him to the very last days of his
life. When it was represented to him that he was hastening his death, his
comfort, he said, was, that he should the sooner rejoin his father, who
was dead a few months before.
M. MIEG, a celebrated physician of Basil, well known in the literary
world by some excellent dissertations, and to whom his country is obliged
for his introduction of inoculation, of which he continues the practice
with great ability and equal success, has communicated to me a letter
of the Professor STEHELIN, a name ever dear to literature, in which I
have found many interesting and useful observations. Some I reserve for
properer places in the course of this work. Here I shall but subjoin two
instances.
The son of M. ——, aged about fourteen or fifteen years, died of
convulsions, and a kind of epilepsy, of which the original cause
was self-pollution. In vain was he attended by the most experienced
physicians of the town.
I also know a young lady of twelve or thirteen years old, who by this
execrable practice has drawn upon herself a consumption, together with
a timpanous abdomen, the _fluor albus_, and an incontinence of urine.
Though medicines have alleviated her complaints, she is still but in a
languishing condition, and I dread fatal consequences.