vital organs diseased, or, by sympathy, their functions deranged. The mind is continually harassed; the nights are passed in restlessness, the days in languor the powers of nutrition are unable to supply the demands for the support of the body, and the sufferer is reduced to extreme weakness; the heart palpitates with violence, causing anxiety and distress; the action of the small blood-vessels on the surface of the body is impeded, and the skin, especially that of the hands, is cold and clammy, sometimes the entire surface is bedewed with an unwholesome, sour, or offensive-smelling perspiration; the natural play of the lungs is obstructed, and respiration difficult; the stomach is irritable, and digestion imperfect; the eye is weakened, and vision indistinct. The muscular system is not exempt from the prevailing evil; pain is sometimes felt in the extremities, and almost constantly around the loins; trifling exercise causes excessive fatigue, and the unhappy sufferer gradually loses strength, wastes, and sinks.

I would, with all delicacy, intimate that these observations are, unfortunately, applicable to both sexes; and I would rather a woman should in her own words acknowledge that such is the case, than venture to proclaim such an evil on my own authority. Mrs. Gove, an American lady, who practises as a physician! in Boston, U. S., says, in her "Lectures to Ladies on Anatomy and Physiology,"—" About eight years since, my mind was awakened to examine this subject by the perusal of a medical work that described the effects of this vice when practised by females. This was the first intimation I had that the vice existed among our sex. Since that time I have had much evidence that it is fearfully common amongst them.

There is reason to believe that, in nine cases out of ten, those unhappy females who are tenants of houses of ill-fame have been victims of this vice in the first place. Were this the particular vice of the low and vulgar, there might be more excuse for the apathy and false delicacy that pervade the community respecting it. But it invades all ranks. Professed Christians are among its victims. Our boarding and day schools are sources of untold mischief." Mr. Fowler, of Philadelphia, adds: "They may be less infected, yet women, young and modest, are dying by thousands of consumption, of female complaints, of nervous or spinal affections, of general debility, and of other ostensible complaints innumerable, and some of insanity, caused solely by this practice."

THE LOCAL SYMPTOMS, are frequently distressing; the patient at one time is tortured with continual erections, producing that state known as "priapism," which he cannot subdue; there is a constant irritation in the urethra as though the secretion was oozing or trickling along the passage; this produces the most exhausting prostration and fatigue, which may continue for hours, or even days. A dull, heavy, aching pain is felt in the testicles and along the spermatic cord; occasionally extending to the posterior part of the body; the fundament is irritated, causing "tenesmus," with burning heat and itching. When priapism is not present, the penis and testicles hang soft, loose, and flabby, and are constantly bedewed with a clammy disagreeable perspiration,-in fact, they feel as if "in the way"-the irritation or pain is then less severe, but the repeated emissions and oozing, occurring in the day as well as at night, are not less exhausting; the urine passes in a

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smaller stream, without force, and the desire to void it is frequent and urgent, each evacuation of the bowels and bladder being followed by an escape of the seminal fluid.

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Tauvry, a French anatomist, in a work translated into English, and published in London, so long ago as the year 1701, amongst other questions, proposes the following Why a debauchée voids drops of seed when he goes to stool, or makes water?" And he answers as follows-" The seminal vessels are much enlarged by frequent amours (and more so by acts of error), so that, upon the least constriction of the cisterns of the seed, there ensues an involuntary emission. Now when one goes to stool or makes water, the sphincters shorten themselves, and squeeze the parts to which they are knit." And really this explanation, although expressed in somewhat obsolete language, accurately describes the exact condition of the seminal vessels. Moreover, we always find that the discharge is more constant and profuse when the bowels are constipated, for the lower intestine, being then distended by the passing fæces, presses now upon the open mouths of the seminal vessels, and, as Tauvry says, squeezes" the parts and compels an ejection.

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A collection of imperfect semen is frequently to be observed around the lips of the urethra, in appearance and consistence resembling the white of an egg, which is capable of staining the linen; this impure fluid also passes away mixed with the urine, and sometimes deposits a thickened, curdled sediment in the utensil, or floats like a thread in the water.

In a large majority of cases the development of the organs of generation is arrested, and they are considerably shorn of their fair proportions; the penis is diminutive

and shrivelled, the testicles are small and shrunken, and the pubes devoid of that capillary covering with which nature surrounds the parts in health, so that the organs of a man of thirty sometimes appear more like those of a child of ten or twelve years, than of one who ought to be in the hey-day of manhood.

The organ necessarily becomes incapable of adapting itself to those offices for which it is destined, and unfitted for the purposes of procreation; the erectile tissue is debilitated, and even when desire should command its services, disturbed nature withholds ability. Hence incapacity, if not actual impotence, is the invariable

consequence.

THE URINE is, for the most part, scanty, and voided in small quantity at short intervals; it is generally thick and turbid, depositing a sediment of brick-dust colour, or, as sometimes happens, of a flocculent or bran-like character. The examination of this fluid is always of great importance, and by that valuable adjuvant to all scientific research-the microscope-we are enabled to detect the presence of the spermatic secretion, and thus diagnose a cause of ill-health, which without such aid would scarcely be suspected.

In order to detect the presence in the urine of the spermatozoa, or minute animalcules, with which the seminal fluid abounds, it is necessary to examine the last few drops that are voided. A portion of linen that has been soiled by what may be termed, more truthfully than elegantly, "dribbling," when placed under the microscope, will readily shew the presence of the seminal secretion; and we may observe the spermatozoa, when thus magnified, in the form of minute portions of thread, having a small pin-like termination at what may be supposed to be the head. When I have not an oppor

tunity of examining the urine in a recent state, I forward to my patients an absorbent test-paper, which readily retains the secretion to be examined; and I have thus, in innumerable cases, detected their presence, after a lapse of six or eight days since they were emitted.

The symptoms are so varied, so opposite, so anomalous, that it is impossible to enumerate what may not be the result of Spermatorrhoea. I have a just abhorrence of publishing cases in which the individuality of the patient can be even guessed at, but I feel little hesitation in appending the following extracts from letters addressed to me as Editor of the "People's Medical Journal," as I am myself ignorant of the names of the writers. They are selected from some hundred-weight of correspondence, all bearing initials, or fictitious signatures,—they will illustrate the protean manner in which the system is capable of being influenced, and the health and peace infringed on :

[35] "I am 29 years of age, and naturally of a strong constitution; never knew a day's illness until after manhood. At the age of 17, the habit of solitary indulgence was acquired, and continued at intervals for four or five years, without any apparent ill effects. At length what are called 'wet-dreams' came on: a sense and a shame of the sin then followed, and every endeavour has been made since to stop the involuntary evacuations; but in vain. They now occur every three or four days, sometimes daily, and invariably after a long walk, or exciting causes of any kind. Each occurrence is followed by dizziness, swimming of the senses, and a burning headache; occasionally devouring kinds of pains are