_The GLEET, or simple GONORRHŒA._
“The _Gonorrhœa_ (says GALEN, who knew none but the simple one) is a
running of the seed without erection.” Many authors, in all ages, make
mention of it, and MOSES, the most antient of all. In the observations
of HIPPOCRATES may be seen the example of a Mountaineer, whose disorder
seems to have been a marasmus, and who had an involuntary evacuation of
the urine and seminal liquid[149]. M. BOERHAAVE seems, however, as to
the seminal efflux, to have set down this disorder among the number of
doubtful things. “You may (says he) read in books of physic, that the
seed has sometimes run, without its being perceived or felt. But this
disorder must be extremely rare, as I know of no instance in the which
the seed has come out without some degree of titillation: or else it was
not the true seminal liquid separated in the testicles, and amassed in
the seminal vesicules, though I have seen the liquid of the _prostatæ_
flow forth[150].” This authority is, doubtless, very respectable; but
besides that M. BOERHAAVE does not decisively pronounce on this point, he
has against him all the Physicians; and, not to go out of his own school,
one of his most illustrious disciples, GAUBIUS, admits the evacuation
of the seed without sensation. My own observations leave me no room to
doubt of the existence of both the one and the other disorder. I have
seen men who, after a virulent _gonorrhœa_, after excesses of venery, or
self-pollutions, had a constant running at the yard, but which did not
render them incapable of erection and ejaculation; they even complained,
that a single ejaculation weakened them more than a running of some
weeks; which is an evident proof that the liquid of these two evacuations
was not the same; and that that which comes by a _gonorrhœa_ flows only
from the _prostatæ_, from some other glands about the urethra, from the
follicular cellules distributed over its whole length, or, in short, from
the dilated exhaling vessels. I have seen other men, who, like the first,
had a continual running, but a running which weakened them much more, and
which rendered them incapable of all venereal pruriency, of all erection,
and, from that very circumstance, of all ejaculation, though the
testicles had no appearance of any disqualification for their functions.
It seems to me demonstrated, that, in these last, the true testicular
semen came away without sensation. Those then who know the structure of
the parts of generation, will easily bring themselves to believe, that
the first case must be much more frequent than the last; but of the last
they will also readily conceive the possibility of existence. The authors
of the greatest exactness have called that the true _gonorrhœa_, in which
they apprehended that the matter of the running was the genuine semen;
the other they termed the _spurious_ or _catarrhal gonorrhœa_.
The dangers of the genuine running are very considerable. In the
beginning of the first Section, _On the Symptoms_, the description by
ARETÆUS has been quoted. “How (says he, in the same place) can one avoid
the being weakened, when that which is so essential to the vital forces
is continually slipping away, in waste. It is in the seminal liquid alone
that eminently resides the strength of man.”
CELSUS, who lived before the times of ARETÆUS, says positively, “That
the running of the seed without venereal sensation, brings on a
consumption[151].”
JOHN, son of ZACHARIAS, more commonly known by the name of ACTUARIUS,
in a work which he composed for the service of the Ambassador whom the
Emperor of Constantinople was sending to the North, is, upon this point,
of the same opinion with the authors I have already quoted. “If (says he)
the running of the seed, which proceeds without erection, and without
sensation, sails for any time, it produces necessarily a consumption and
death; for the most balsamic part of the humors and the animal spirits
are thereby dissipated and lost[152].”
Some of the most modern authors agree also, on this head, with the
antients. “The whole body (says SENNERTUS) becomes emaciated, and
especially the back; the patients grow weaker and weaker; they languish;
they have pains in the loins; they turn hollow-eyed[153].”
BOERHAAVE ranks this _gonorrhœa_ among the causes of the palsy; and it
may be remarked, that he admits in this place a _gonorrhœa_ of pure
seed. “The palsy (says he) which comes from a _gonorrhœa_, is incurable,
because the body is exhausted[154].”
On this matter there may also, in an excellent dissertation of M. KOEMPF,
be found some interesting observations[155].
This disorder may draw its origin from many remote causes. The proximate
cause is always unitedly constituted of a defectiveness or depravity in
the liquids, of which the running consists, they being too thin, and
often too acrid; and of a great relaxation of the parts. The defect in
the liquids denotes a want of elaboration, which is owing to a general
weakness; this requires tonic remedies, which the weakness of the organs
also indicates; the coincident circumstances determine the choice
of them. It would be out of place to enter here on all the relative
particulars, and upon which there may be found instructive lights in
many medical writers, and especially in SENNERTUS, author of the best
compendium of practical physic that we have.
The same remedies as are pointed out in the course of this work, against
the other consequences of pollution, are applicable in this case; the
cold-bath, the bark, martials, and corroboratives. BOERHAAVE says, that
the _hepatica_ (liverwort) produces excellent effects (_egregios sane
præstat usus_) in the inveterate _gonorrhœa_, where it depends on the
relaxation of the organs[156]. Sometimes, to direct the tendency which
habit gives to humors towards the same part, it may not be amiss to
begin by some laxatives: there are even some great Physicians, who have
attributed to them an almost specific efficacy against this disorder;
experience yet more than reason has proved to me the contrary. Those
who will give themselves the trouble of reading the authors whom I have
above quoted, will find that they prescribe nothing laxative. ACTUARIUS
directs “things that strengthen without heating[157].” ARETÆUS, who,
in consideration of the urgency of the danger, recommends an immediate
recourse to remedies, prescribes none but strengtheners, abstinence from
the pleasures of love, and the cold-bath[158].
CELSUS, of whose works both of them have availed themselves, orders
frictions, and especially _baths extremely cold_, (_natationesque quam
frigidissimas_;) he would have nothing eaten or drank but what is cold;
that all aliments should be avoided which may engender crudities, wind,
and augment the acridity of the seed. FERNELIUS orders nutritious
aliments, and restorative electuaries[159].
If the promise of LANGIUS, who said “he would venture to swear for the
efficacy of purgatives and a diet in the cure of this disorder,” be at
all true, it cannot, probably, be relied on, but in that case alone,
where the disorder is produced by a bad diet, which should have given
birth to obstructions in the _hypogastrium_, and made all the humors
degenerate, without the solids having as yet received any considerable
damage; and this case it is that he must only have had in view; for if
the solids had received any material prejudice, the purgatives must
necessarily be aided by corroboratives. Such was the _gonorrhœa_ that
REGIS observed, and of which CRAANEN has preserved to us the particulars.
“A man (says he) of a pituitous constitution, having for along time used
himself to a humid diet, was attacked with the running of a watery,
crude, viscous humor, which came away without perceptible sensation. He
was wasting away, his eyes grew hollow, and he felt a daily decay of
his strength. REGIS began with him by evacuating with purgatives those
pituitous humor.” After which he gave him corroboratives, analeptics, and
desiccative aliments; and if that should not be sufficient, he advised
him a caustic for each leg[160].
But this method of purgatives can never be proper, when this disorder
is the consequence of venereal excesses, and is owing, as SENNERTUS
observes, “to that weakness which the _vesiculæ seminales_ have
contracted by the over-frequent vicissitudes of repletion and inanition.”
A particularisation of some cases will afford a clearer notion of the
true method of cure.
TIMÆUS furnishes us with one, which cannot be better placed than here.
“A young man, (says he,) a student of the Law, of a sanguine
constitution, used to pollute himself manually twice or thrice a day,
and sometimes oftener: he fell into a _gonorrhœa_, accompanied with a
weakness of the whole body. I looked on the _gonorrhœa_ as a consequence
of a relaxation occasioned in the seminal vessels, and on his weakness as
owing to his frequent effusions of seed, which had dissipated the natural
heat, gathered crudities, damaged the nervous system, stupified the soul,
and weakened the whole body.”
[He prescribed for him strengthening cordial wine, with the astringents
and aromatics infused in a strong-bodied red wine, an electuary of the
same nature, and an ointment composed of _oil of roses_, _mastic_,
_nitre_, _bol. armen. terra sigillata_, _balaustæ_, and _white-wax_.]
“The patient was in about a month’s time cured of this shameful disorder;
and I advised him to abstain in future from this infamous practice
of debauchery, and to remember the threat from the Most High, of an
exclusion of the effeminate from the kingdom of Heaven,” 1 COR. vi.[161].
M. ZIMMERMAN writes me as follows: “One of the best Physicians that we
have in Switzerland, M. WEPFER, whose authority cannot be of too great
weight, avers his having cured a continual flux of seed, the consequence
of self-pollution, with the help of the _Tinctur. Mart. Ludovici_. M.
WESLIN of Zurzach has, on his own experience, confirmed to me the same
thing. As for me (adds my friend) I cannot say that I have seen such good
effects from it.”
The Professor M. STEHELIN mentions a man of letters, who was afflicted
with an involuntary efflux of seed, without any ideas of venery, and
who was cured by the use of wine with the martials and the bark. The
remedies, and among others the waters of Swalbach, the embrocating
with cold water the _pubis_ and the _perinæum_, had not the same
success with a young man, who had brought upon himself this disorder by
self-pollution. He adds, that M. DE BONGARS, a celebrated Practitioner
of Physic at Maseck, had cured two persons attacked with a debility of
the _vesiculæ seminales_, by making them take, three times a day, eight
or ten drops of SYDENHAM’s _liquid laudanum_, in a glass of Pontac
wine, and by a decoction of _sarsaparilla_. M. STEHELIN remarks, that
though the opium is contrary to the indications, it has been advised
by ETMULLERUS _against too quick an ejaculation, where owing to an
over-spirituousness in the seed_. Be it here allowed me to add, that
on attentively examining the advice of this famous practitioner, and
on comparing the nature of the disorder, in certain cases, with the
effects of opium, it is not difficult to conceive, that this remedy may
sometimes be useful, but not in the case for which he prescribes it. He
distinguishes, with a great deal of accuracy, the different kinds of
runnings, he assigns the causes and the curative method of each kind, and
then passing on to the ejaculation which comes just on the beginning of
an erection, too quick (_nimis citam_,) he lays down two causes for it;
first, the relaxation of the _vesiculæ seminales_; secondly, too boiling,
too spirituous, too redundant a seminal liquid; and in this case it is
that he orders opium[162]. But on what foundation? Opium, the quality of
which, as a provocative to venery, stands so well demonstrated, a quality
which ETMULLERUS himself points out, both in his small treatise on this
medicine, and in this very place where he gives this advice, cannot but
augment the cause of the disorder, and consequently thereby aggravate
its symptoms. But the cases in which it may be of service, are, on the
contrary, where the humors are crude, thin, aqueous, and the nerves, at
the same time, of an excessive mobility. It is then known to be a remedy
for these different accidents, that it suspends the irritability, and
that it stops all the evacuations except perspiration. It cannot then
be too often inculcated, that the greatest attention must be had not to
prescribe opium, or opiates, but where they are proper, otherwise they
are capable of doing great mischief. M. TRALLES, in his excellent work,
furnishes us with an observation, and the like is to be met with in other
authors, which ought to oblige us to use a great deal of circumspection
as to that medicine.
“A man (says he) who from his youth upwards had had a strong passion for
self-pollutions, which had rendered him extremely weak, never took opium,
either to moderate a cough, or a diarrhœa, or with any other intention,
without having, in the night, and to his great detriment, lascivious
dreams, accompanied with a spermatic emission[163].”
Here may I have leave to state a reflexion which presents itself
naturally? It is this: the error of ETMULLERUS evidently proves:
_First_, How great an influence an exact theory has over practice, which,
without its help, cannot be but often false and erroneous.
_Secondly_, How great an advantage must a man, furnished with such a
theory, united with practice, have over one, who has no guide but a few
observations, or who delivers himself wholly up to a systematical theory?
_Thirdly_, How much may not the reading of even the best practical
authors, but who were destitute of that exact theory which is due to our
times, deceive such as, on the reading of them, can only have an implicit
faith in them, and who are ignorant of those principles which ought to
serve for a touch-stone, to discern, in physic, what is the good ore, or
the base alloy?
I shall conclude with two cases which fell under my observation; a
greater number would be superfluous.
A young man of twenty years old, who had had the misfortune of being
addicted to self-pollution, had been, for two months, attacked with a
continual mucous running, and now and then with nocturnal pollutions,
attended with considerable wastings of his strength; he had frequent and
violent pains of the stomach, he felt his breast extremely weak, and was
apt to sweat much: I ordered him the following electuary:
℞. _Condit. rosar. rubr. unc._ iii. _Condit. anthos. Cort.
Peruv. ana unc._ i. _Mastic. dr._ ii. _Cath. dr._ i. _Olei
cinnam. gutt._ iii. _Sirup. Cort. aur. q.s.f. electuar. solid._
Of this he took a quarter of an ounce twice a day. In three weeks time he
found himself recovered in all respects; and the running, or gleet, no
longer incommoded him, unless after the nocturnal pollutions, which were
become less frequent; a continuation of the same remedies for fifteen
days more completely restored him.
Two married persons, foreigners, whom I never knew, were attacked almost
at the same time, with a running, accompanied with weakness, and with
pains along the spine of the back. They were very sure there was no
venereal taint in the case, and could impute their disorder to nothing
but conjugal excesses. The running was much the most considerable in the
husband. They had tried various remedies, and all without any effect,
and among others some mercurial pills, which had increased the running.
At length they had me consulted. I prescribed for them the cold-bath,
wine medicated with the bark, steel, and flowers of red roses. They took
regularly my prescription: it was the summer of 1758, when the rains
rendered the use of bathing in the river very difficult: the wife bathed
only once or twice, the husband a dozen of times. At five weeks end,
they sent me word that they were almost totally restored: I advised them
to continue the method till the cure should be completed, which it soon
was.
These happy successes cannot, however, serve for a general foundation of
a favorable prognostic: this disorder is often extremely rebellious, and
even sometimes incurable. Of this I will give but one example, but it is
a demonstrative one.
One of the greatest Practitioners that we have now in Europe, and who has
enriched the medical art with works, all of them excellent, is actually
himself afflicted with a _simple gonorrhœa_, of fifteen years standing,
which not all his skill, nor that of some other Physicians, whom he has
consulted, have been able to dissipate. This sad and vexatious disorder
wastes him away, little by little, and gives room to fear the loss of him
long before the term to which it were to be wished he should arrive, and
to which he might attain in the ordinary course of nature.
It would be needless for me to launch into a farther extension: I have
aimed at omitting nothing that might open the eyes of youth on the
horrors of the precipice they are preparing for themselves. I have done
my best to point out the most proper means of remedying the evils they
will have brought on themselves: I conclude with a repetition of what
I have already said in the course of this work, that some happy cures
ought not to serve for an encouragement of fallacious hopes; those who
are even the most happily cured, find it a hard matter to recover their
pristine vigor, nor can preserve a transitory health but by dint of a
constant attention to regularity, and to the keeping measures with their
constitution; the number of those who never emerge out of a state of
languor, is tenfold to that of those who are cured; and some examples
of persons, who either had not been more than slightly affected, or in
whom a more than ordinary vigorous constitution might occasion the easier
recovery, ought not to be considered as constituting a general rule,
——_Non bene ripæ_
_Creditur: ipse aries etiam nunc vellera siccat._
_The_ END.
FOOTNOTES
[1] MONTESQUIEU, _Persian Lett._ 49.
[2] The title of the Original French is ONANISME, which is changed in
this translation, to avoid the mistake of the one work for the other.
[3] BOERHAAVE _Prælectiones ad Inst._ §. 658. 1. 5. p. 444. Edit. Goett.
[4] _De Morbis_, Lib. ii. cap. 49. Foes. 479.
[5] _De glandulis._ Foes. p. 273.
[6] _De re medica_, Lib. i. cap. 9 & 11.
[7] _De signis et causis dict. morb._ Lib. ii. cap. 5.
[8] L. i. c. 7. p. 34. Edit. BOERHAAVE.
[9] Comm. tert. in Lib. iii. Hipp. _De morb. vulg._ Oper. Omn. tom. iii.
p. 583.
[10] _Historia mundi_, Lib. vii. cap. 53. p. 124.
[11] _Tetrab._ Serm. iii. cap. 34.
[12] _Medic. Static._ Sect. 6. Aphor. 15. 19. 21. 23 & 24.
[13] _Commentar. de sanitate tuenda_, p. m. 37.
[14] _Obs. Medic._ L. iii. c. 24.
[15] ZIPÆUS, _Fundam. Med._ Part. ii. Art. 6.
[16] _Instit. Medic._ Part. ii. cap. 28.
[17] _Praxis Chirurgic._ Decur. i. Obs. 4.
[18] Decur. ii. Ann. 5. Append. Obs. 88. p. 56.
[19] SCHELAMMER _Ars medendi univers._ Lib. ii. Sect. ii. Cap. iv. §. 23.
[20] _Consult. Cent._ 2 & 3. Cas. 102. T. iii. p. 293.
[21] Same place, Cas. 103.
[22] Same place.
[23] _De morbis ex nimia venere_, § 18. Oper. Omn. Suppl. sec. Pars prim.
p. 496.
[24] _Institut._ § 77. Translated into French by M. D. L. M.
[25] _Comment._ on the foregoing quotation, T. vii. p. 214.
[26] _Institut. physiol._ § 870. 872.
[27] _De insensib. perspir._ cap. ult.
[28] APHOR. 586. T. ii. p. 46.
[29] _De morb. anim. ab infirm. medull. cer._ p. 37.
[30] Opera Omnia, fol. T. iii. p. 295.
[31] Lewis’s _Tab. Dorf._ p. 12.
[32] Lewis’s _Tab. Dors._ p. 16.
[33] _Immoderata seminis profusio, non solum utilissimi humoris jactura,
sed ipso etiam motu convulsivo, quo emittitur, frequentius repetito,
imprimis lædit. Etenim summam voluptatem universalis excipit virium
resolutio, quæ crebro ferri nequit, quin enervet. Colatoria autem
corporis quo magis emulgentur, eo plus humorum aliunde ad se trahunt,
succisque sic ad genitalia derivatis reliquæ partes depauperantur. Inde
ex nimia venere, lassitudo, debilitas, immobilitas, incessus delumbis,
encephali dolores, convulsiones sensuum omnium, maxime visus, hebetatio,
cæcitas, fatuitas, circulatio febrilis, exsiccatio, macies, tabes &
pulmonica & dorsalis, effeminatio. Augentur hæc mala, atque insanabilia
fiunt, ob perpetuum in venerem pruritum, quem mens non minus quam corpus
tandem contrahit, quoque efficitur ut & dormientes obscæna phantasmata
exerceant, & in tentiginem pronæ partes quavis occasione impetum
concipiant, onerique & stimulo sit quamlibet exigua reparati spermatis
copia, levissimo conatu, & vel sine hoc, de relaxatis loculis relapsura.
Quo circa liquet quare adolescentiæ florem adeo pessundet iste excessus._
INSTITUTIONES PATHOLOGIÆ Medicin. Auctore H.D. GAUBIO, Leyden, 1758.
[34] _Consult. Med._ T. ii. p. 16.
[35] Dated the 15th September, 1755.
[36] Decur. ii. ann. 4. Obs. 166. p. 327.
[37] SCHENCKIUS, L. i. Obs. 2. 36.
[38] §. 1077. T. iii. p. 429.
[39] _Quæst. med._ An Epilepsiæ Merc. util.
[40] _De locis affectis_, L. v. c. 6.
[41] _Observationes medicæ_ (_oppido raræ_,) Obs. 18.
[42] §. 1075. T. iii. p. 412.
[43] _De morb. nerv._, p. 462.
[44] _Nosologia methodica, seu classes morborum_, t. 5.
[45] Ad. §. 658. n. f. c. 5. p. 446.
[46] _Epidem._ L. iii. sect. 3. æg. 16. FOES. p. 1117.
[47] _De morb. ex nim. ven._ § 20, 21.
[48] NIC. CHESNEAU _Observ. medic._ lib. v. Obs. 36, 37.
[49] _Nosol._ T. ii, p. 262.
[50] _De sanitate tuenda_, p. 110.
[51] _Aphor._ sect. 6. 46.
[52] _De ætate conjugio opportuna_, Sect. 10. Suppl. 2do. p. 340. The
whole Dissertation deserves perusal, though it might have been better
written.
[53] JUVEN. Sat. vi. ver. 321.
[54] _De genitura_, Foes. p. 231.
[55] _De spermate_, L. i. C. i. T. viii. p. 135.
[56] _De semine_, L. i. C. xxv. T. i. p. 1281.
[57] Cas. 102. p. 193.
[58] _De perspiratione insensibili_, Cap. xvii. § 5. pag. 219. In 1720,
the Dr. D. A. JACQUES maintained, at Paris, a thesis on this question,
“_An humorum præstantior semen_?” and, according to custom, defended the
affirmative.
[59] I adopt, or appear to adopt here, the common system of the absorbent
power of the ordinary veins. In Mr. HUNTER’S system, who will have it
that the absorption is only made by the lymphatic vein, the parts of
generation are equally proper for a very considerable absorption, since
they abound in vessels of that kind.
[60] _De semine_, L. i. C. xxxiv. T. i. p. 1279.
[61] HALL. _Prim. lin. phys._ §. 790. Besides which there may be
consulted upon this head, WHARTON _De glandulis_; RUSSEL _De œconomia
natur. in glandul. morb._ p. 92. SCHMEIDER _De regressuseminis ad massam
sanguineam._ _Supplement aux actes des Sçavans de Lipsie_, T. v. p. 552.
and a croud of other physiological authors.
[62] Such as are curious to see an excellent work upon these imperfect
men, will find their account in perusing a treatise of WITHOF _De
castratis_.
[63] FEL. PLATERI _Obs._ lib. i. _Suffocatio ex congressu_, p. 174.
[64] _Epidem._ L. iii. æg. 17. FOES. p. 1117.
[65] _Encycl. med._ L. ii. c. 6. p. 347.
[66] _Neuropathia_, L. i. ver. 375.
[67] Sect. 6. Aph. 10.
[68] _De motu animali_, L. ii. cap. xii. Prop. 170.
[69] _Traité du Cœur_, L. iv. cap. xii. §. 3. p. 539.
[70] Aphor. 4. p. 6.
[71] _De morbis a nim. ven._ sect. 17.
[72] Abstract from LYNCH’S _Guide to health_, p. 306.
[73] Q. SERENUS SAMN.
[74] _In tentigine ardentissima juvenum inest quid grati in ore
ventriculi; in concubitum si ruunt salacissimi, et ultra vires tendant
opus, tunc in ore ventriculi manet illud ingratissimum, amarumque quod
exprimere nequeunt: pœnas et luunt, et pœnitentia dolent: hinc macies,
marasmus, &c._ G. R. DE PAYVA _De affectu atrabiliario, mirachiali, etc._
p. 17.
[75] _De morbis chronicis_, L. ii. c. 6. “Stomachus delectationis
tristitiæque princeps est.”
[76] _De morb. nerv._ p. 454.
[77] Ibid. p. 807.
[78] _De perspiratione_, Cap. xvii. § 8-12. and _Aph._
[79] _The works of the late CLIFTON WINTRINGHAM_, T. ii. p. 85, &c.
[80] _Comment. in lib. de Diæta_, p. 228.
[81] REGNIER, Sat. v. The sense of which is nearly as follows:
_Not by intrinsic merit things are tried,_
_But humor, character, their worth decide;_
_Man judging as he’s, at the time, inclin’d,_
_So versatile, so weak’s the human mind._
[82] LUCRETIUS _De natura rerum._
[83] _De Aere, Locis, et Aquis._ FOES. p. 293.
[84] Sect. 6. Aphor. 35.
[85] _De natura pueri_, Text. 22. FOES. p. 242.
[86] Translated from the French. There may also be seen an excellent
passage on the force and dangers of voluptuous habits, in a new Treatise
of M. PUJATTI, Professor at Padua, long of great reputation for his
admirable work _De victu febricitantium_, p. 63.
[87] See GAUBII _Institutiones pathologicæ_, §. 529.
[88] P. 126.
[89] _Excerptum totius Italicæ et Helveticæ Literaturæ, pro anno 1759._
T. i. p. 93.
[90] _On EXPERIENCE._ In German, by M. ZIMMERMAN, vol. ii. p. 400. I
take this fragment from those which his friendship has engaged him to
translate in my favor. Almost all the other will serve to adorn a work of
which I am preparing the publication, which will soon follow this.
[91] The demonstration of this truth may be seen in the part I am quoting
of M. SENAC’s treatise _On the Heart_, L. iii. §. 7., a work that seemed
to have left nothing more to be wished for upon that subject, if its
illustrious author had not, in his promise of a second edition, given us
to understand, that he could yet render it more perfect. A great man may
surpass himself, and see a point of perfection, which others do not so
much as imagine.
[92] _Lessons on his Institutes_, Sect. 776.
[93] _De ratione victus in morbis acutis._ FOES. p. 405, 406.
[94] _De morb. a nimia venere_, §. 24, & 26.
[95] _Instit. de med._ T. vii. p. 215.
[96] This symptom is very frequent among persons who have exhausted
themselves by venery, and contributes to prolong or maintain that
exhaustion. The smallest temptation produces a beginning of erection,
which is followed by an efflux of the seed.
[97] The one selected here is the seventh. This thesis, so worthy of
perusal, is to be found, together with a great number of other small
excellent works, which are to be come at no where else but in that
fine collection of practical _theses_, which M. HALLER (who desires
and promotes the advancement of medical knowledge, with as much zeal
as discernment) has taken the pains to publish, under this title:
_Disputationes ad morborum historiam & curationem facientes_. Lausanne,
1758. The name of the author is a sufficient attestation of the merit of
the work, which bids fair to become one of the foundations of a library
of practical study. The piece, which I am here quoting, is, STEPHANI
WEZPREMI _Observationes Medicæ_, Trajecti, 1756. See T. vi. p. 804.
[98] As he does not particularise the species, it can be no other than
the _lamium album_, white archangel, or the _lamium maculatum_.
[99] _A practical essay on the Tabes dorsalis_, _etc._ the fourth
edition, p. 20 and 25.
[100] Sect. 10. p. 27. also ROBINS _on Consumptions_, p. 98.
[101] Ibid. p. 26 and 28.
[102] _Medic. annuus_, T. ii. p. 216.
[103] _De perspir. insensib._ p. 504.
[104] _De curat. acutorum_, L. ii. c. iii. p. 103.
[105] Sect. 6. Aphor. 22.
[106] P. 27.
[107] ΓΑΛΑΚΤΟΛΟΓΙΑΣ. _Tentamen_, &c. Basle, 1707.
[108] Ibid. Sect. 32.
[109] _De Diæta acuta._ L. iii. c. 12. FOES. 368.
[110] M. THIERRY, anonymous author of _La Medecine Experimentale_. When
an author publishes so valuable a work, he ought not to wish or imagine
that he can long remain unknown, nor fear the being discovered. The
moment that we shall have all that work compleat, it will furnish a
considerable epoch in the history of physic.
[111] _Tabes Dorsalis_, Sect. 9.
[112] Sect. ix.
[113] _Epidem._ L. vi. §. 4. Aphor. 14. FOES. 1180.
[114] _Observat. et Curat._ L. i. Obs. 10. T. i. p. 122.
[115] _On sea voyages_, p. 117.
[116] _A Letter shewing what is the proper preparation of persons for
inoculation._ Sect. iv.
[117] _Traité de Cœur._ L. iv. c. 1. § 2. T. ii. p. 263.
[118] Sect. 484.
[119] _Recueil periodique d’Observations de Médecine_, T. vi. p. 195. In
the second volume of which same work may be seen the description of a
disorder produced by the same cause, which deserves attention.
[120] _ΨΥΧΡΟΔΥΣΙΑ, or the History of Cold Bathing_, p. 254, 281.
[121] Sect. x.
[122]
℞. _Myrrh. eclect. unc. S. Gum. Galb. extr. trifol. Terr.
Japon. a̅a̅ dr._ ii. _Sin. cort. aur. q. s. f. pil. gr._ iii.
To be taken an hour before breakfast, dinner, and supper, with three
ounces of the following draught:
℞. _Cort. Peruv._ ℥ii. _Cort. rad. capp._ ℥i. _Cinnam. acut._
ʒii. _Lim. Mart. in nodul. lax._ ℥ß. _S. cum aq. font._ lib. ii
ß. _l. a, f. decoct._
[123] This passage is taken from a Dissertation of this learned
Physician, _On the foundations of health_. See the _Danish Mercury for
July 1758_. p. 95.
[124] _De puerorum institutione_, Cap. x.
[125] _Supplement à l’Ouvrage de Penelope_, Chap. i. p. 35. “_Amabilis
ille Dux se posuerat extra matrimonium; ego illum reposui intra._”
[126] _Medical Observations and Enquiries_, T. i. p. 36.
[127] _In febre ex venere cavendum a venæ sectione._ Syntagma, L. i. tit.
2. c. 1.
[128] _On Sea voyages_, p. 119.
[129] _De perspiratione insens._ p. 514, 515.
[130] _Quod animi mores temperamenta sequentur._ C. 9. CHARTERIUS, T. v.
p. 457.
[131] See ROUSSEAU’S _Emilius_, English Translation, Vol. ii. p. 188, &
seq. Vol. iii. p. 155, &c.
[132] _De diut. morb._ 1. i. proem. p. 27.
[133] _De locis affectis_, L. vi. c. 5. CHARTER. T. vii. p. 519.
[134] _Prax. admirand._ L. i. Obs. 85.
[135] _Prax. admirand._ L. i. Obs. 109, 110.
[136] _An ex negato veneris usu morbi_, 1722.
[137] PENELOPE, ch. 8. _Des qualités necessaires aux medecins._
[138] NICOLAUS ZINDELIUS _De morbis ex castitate nimia oriundis._ Basle,
1745.
[139] _Nosolog. medic._ T. iv. p. 344.
[140] _Institutiones Pathologicæ_, §. 563.
[141] GALENUS, Libr. _De consuetudinibus_, CHARTER. T. vi. p. 541.
M. MATY, _Dissertatio de consuetudinis efficacia in corpus humanum_,
Leyd. 1740. M. PUJATI has also given us some very good reflexions on
this matter, in his Treatise _De la Diéte des Fievreux_, p. 57, &c.
Metaphysicians, who appear to have the best handled this point, are Mr.
LOCKE, _Essays_, L. ii. c. 32, M. de CONDILLAC, _Traité des animaux_, p.
2. c. 2. and 9. and the anonymous author _des Elemens de Physiologie_, c.
61, 62, 63, 64. I know a man that, having been waked, above twenty years
before, at one after midnight, by an alarm of fire, has since that time
constantly waked of himself precisely at that hour.
[142] _Epidem._ L. vi. §. 8. n. 52. FOESUL. 1201.
[143] _De semine_, Lib. ii. cap. 1. CHARTER. T. iii p. 213.
[144] _Obs. Chirurg._ Cent. i. Obs. 22.
[145] Cons. 102.
[146] Cas. 102.
[147] _Institut._ §. 776.
[148] _Consult._ Cent. 2 & 3. Op. T. iii. p. 214.
[149] _Epid._ L. vi. § 3. No. 13. FOES. 1173.
[150] Ibid. LA METTRIE, T. vii. p. 214.
[151] _De Medicina_, Lib. iv. cap. 21.
[152] _Medicus, sive de methodo medendi_, L. i. c. 22.
[153] _Praxis medica_, L. iii. Part. ix. Sect. 2. c. 4.
[154] _De morb. nervor._ p. 717. This Work, gathered from his Lessons,
from 1730 to 1745, and in that posterior by some years to the Lessons
collected by M. DE HALLER, proves that BOERHAAVE had changed his opinion
as to the possibility of a purely seminal _gonorrhœa_; and it is well
known, that that great man was always ready to renounce his former ideas
to adopt new ones, the instant he was convinced of their being the
justest.
[155] G. L. KOEMPF _De morbis ex atrophia_, Basle, 1756.
[156] _Historia plantarum_, &c. p. 51.
[157] L. iv. c. 8.
[158] P. 231.
[159] Oper. Omn. p. 544.
[160] See J. J. MANGETI _Bibliotheca medico-practica_, T. ii. p. 625.
[161] Ibid. 624.
[162] _Colleg. pract. special._ C. ii. T. i. p. 459.
[163] _Usus Opii salubris et noxius_, p. 131.
Transcriber’s Note
Old spelling is preserved as printed. The following changes were made to
the text to correct probable errors.
Page vii, “nccessary” changed to “necessary” (the precautions
they should judge necessary)
Page 13, “michievous” changed to “mischievous” (ignorant of the
mischievous consequences)
Page 15, “succceded” changed to “succeeded” (that pleasure is
immediately succeeded)
Page 18, “red” changed to “read” (when I read this observation)
Page 68, “suffises” changed to “suffices” (suffices for the
expulsion)
Page 76, “fell” changed to “feel” (they feel, in the same
place, an extremely disgustful sensation)
Page 109, “the the” changed to “the” (a moderate exercise of
the body)
Page 118, “anænia” changed to “anæmia” (anæmia, or deficiency
of blood)
Page 119, “a a” changed to “a” (in every dish of which is to be
put a tea-spoonful)
Page 148, “to oacid” changed to “too acid” (a wine neither too
heady nor too acid)
Page 164, “stong” changed to “strong” (rigid fibres, and a
strong circulation)
Page 218, “doubful” changed to “doubtful” (among the number of
doubtful things)
End of Project Gutenberg's A Treatise on the Crime of Onan, by M. Tissot