[871] "I have been guilty, &c., &c., and I suffer, according to my judgment, from the effects of it. (I shall be plain in stating my condition.) What I suffer is this: when I accompany my wife, I cannot perform what nature requires, to my satisfaction; it is in a weak, frigid manner, not having sufficient erection-something like half erection-and sometimes, when I intend to do so, no erection at all. Indeed it is a grief to me to be in such a state. * * * * I have never had any disease, have only been guilty as above stated. I have always been very temperate in eating and drinking; am in good health, and about 45 years of age."

ઃઃ

[59] "I am a young working man, age 22; of a quick, excitable temperament; my hair is of a yellowish grey colour; eyes, hazel; complexion, ruddy; stature, below the average. When about nineteen I fell, through example, into the baneful practice, &c., and continued it during two years and a half, when finding its enormity and direful consequences, I left it off. But I felt its effects. Being hereditarily inclined to asthmatic disease, I soon suffered from cough and expectoration of mucus matter, and also occasional palpitation of the heart, especially when lying down after getting into bed. I was also subject to frequent nocturnal emissions, which occurred every third or fourth night, leaving me in a most weakened condition. My cough is now most troublesome, and I am in a constant state of perspiration, even without any exertion. My heart beats and thumps so, that I am always shaking and trembling.”

[763] "Have the kindness to say whether a case like the following is curable:-Seminal emissions twice and thrice a week; a very tremulous and irritable state

of the nerves; dreadfully depressed spirits; dizziness in the head, with confused ideas, subordinate very often to the unnatural excitement of my amative propensity; looseness of the privates, and all the other concomitants. I am persuaded the country surgeons cannot manage a case like mine. I went to one some time since, and he almost drove me mad. If there is no cure for me, I intend to give up my present occupation of schoolmaster, and go into the neighbourhood of the sea, let my occupation there be what it may; for if my present state of feeling continues, I may become an inmate of a lunatic asylum."

[516] "From my childhood I have been troubled with small thread-worms, which dreadfully irritate the lower intestines. To them I attribute many unpleasant and delicate symptoms: namely, a frequent tingling sensation at the point of the penis, and an oozing of what I suppose to be seminal fluid, which leaves me in a very debilitated state. I have tried many remedies without much success; purging physic always makes me much

ઃઃ

[1051] "I am now about 19 years of age, and have been suffering for some time from great nervousness and debility, caused, I have no doubt, by indulging in a delusive practice which I discovered in an idle moment about six years ago, and have continued to practise till within six months of the present time. There is hardly a symptom described in your book* which I have not felt. You may smile, but a few years ago I used to be considered good-looking, but this dreadful habit has

*The Diseases of Error.

changed my countenance to such a degree, that I hate to see my face in the glass. The least excitement or exertion throws a flush into my face, and causes violent palpitation of the heart; my tongue is furred when I awake in the morning, and my bowels are confined. But what torments me most, is the fear that I have locally injured myself; the left testicle hangs much lower than the other, and the veins are so much enlarged and hardened that they feel like a bunch of wires, or like small quills; they are all detached from the gland, and give me great pain."

[1014] "I am ashamed to address you on a subject

that is as destructive to comfort as it is sinful. I am

now 30 years of age; I was married seven years ago, and had a child by my wife, who died shortly after her confinement, and since that time I have been guilty of that beastly passion I feel a dull pain in my back and right loin; the other symptoms are precisely as stated in your small work :-viz., a dangling of the testicles, and an emission of a sort of imperfect semen every time I go to stool."

THE EFFECTS.

The effects of Spermatorrhoea are those of IRRITABILITY and DEBILITY;-irritability inducing a degree of excitement amounting to fever; debility of the muscular and nervous fibres throughout the entire frame, and even the mind itself, causing atrophy,―innutrition or decay.

MARASMUS, WASTING, DECLINE, or as it is named by old writers, "Tabes Dorsalis," has been known to be an effect of Spermatorrhoea and libidinous indulgence,

from the earliest times, for we find traces of it in the oldest historical records that have reached our own day.

In order that the body should maintain its proper strength and plumpness, it is necessary that there should be eliminated, or manufactured in the system, a sufficient quantity of good, pure blood adequate to the wear of its respective parts; for this wear, as we all know, produces a waste; and hence the emaciation sustained by those who labour under impaired digestion. When to impaired digestion, and the imperfect conversion of the food into nutrifying blood, is added the exhaustion and shock occasioned by repeated seminal discharges, the atrophy goes on with fearful rapidity; the skin becomes dry and wrinkled, the muscles are shrunk and inelastic, and the complexion pale, often squalid. The patient complains of considerable weakness in the back and pain in the loins, and will frequently describe a most distressing sensation of formication, or a feeling like that of ants creeping from the upper part of the body into the spine. There is also a general restlessness, with tickling or other sensations, not pain, in the limbs, accompanied with a perpetual desire of changing the position. The appetite may be good, sometimes voracious, but still the body wastes; the breathing is oppressed, -short-breathed, especially after exercise; the head aches, and, at the back part, feels as though pressed upon by a weight, or as some patients describe it, as though the brain were too large for the skull.

[27] In 1845 I was consulted by the parents of a youth, 17 years of age; he had been educated in a public school, and displayed, until within a few months, considerable aptitude for mathematics and abstruse studies. I was told he had been previously a fresh-coloured,

66

healthy boy, but that latterly he had emaciated,-become gaunt and meagre, although his appetite was SO good;" in fact, he was supposed to be "growing too fast" -"out-growing his strength." He complained of great weakness in all his limbs, and so much pain in his back that he feared to descend from one step to another; he was unable to remain for any time at his studies, and when he left his desk he could not remember what he had been reading; he wandered from place to place, and was 66 fidgetty." The action of the heart was feeble, his pulse quick and small; the lungs healthy, but respiration rapid. At our interview, I never caught his eye,”—he never looked boldly in my face. I felt satisfied I had discovered the true cause of his wasting and debility, and at the time merely prescribed a placebo,requesting he would call upon me alone in a few days. He did so. He was evidently a boy of intelligence, and, as I expected, a boy of candour. I placed in his hands a little book I had written, and pointing to page 6, said, "Does this concern you?" The lad burst into tears"It does, sir."-" Well, my boy," I answered, you are already half-cured; we now know the cause of your suffering, and I see you have sufficient good sense to forsake for ever-mind, for ever-those habits which are killing you." He was under treatment two or three months, and rapidly improved in appearance, strength, and application. He now holds an important office, under government, in one of our colonies.

66

[641] A young man, a merchant's clerk, aged 21, sought my advice. He was tall, spare, and feeble to the last degree; he could scarcely speak louder than a whisper, and the exertion of reciting his troubles fairly exhausted him. He candidly told me the source of his