often appear to think that connexion may be repeated just as regularly and almost as often as meals may. Till they are told, the idea never enters their heads that they have been guilty of great and almost criminal excess; nor is this to be wondered at, as such a cause of disease is seldom hinted at by the medical man they consult.

Some years ago a young man called on me, complaining that he was unequal to sexual congress, and was suffering from spermatorrhoea, the result, he said, of self-abuse. He was cauterized, and I lost sight of him until March, 1856, when he returned, complaining that he was scarcely able to move alone. His mind had become enfeebled, there was great pain in the back, and he wished me to repeat the operation.

On cross-examining the patient, I found that he had recovered his powers after previous cauterization, and, strange to say, had been in the habit of indulging in connexion (ever since I had seen him, two years ago) three times a week, without any idea that he was committing an excess, or that his present weakness could depend upon this cause. This is far from being an isolated instance of men who, having been reduced by former excesses, still imagine themselves equal to any excitement, and when their powers are recovered, to any expenditure of vital force. Some go so far as to believe that indulgence may increase these powers, just as gymnastic exercise does the muscles. This is a popular error, and requires correction. Such patients should be told that the shock on the system, each time connexion is indulged in, is very powerful, and that the expenditure of seminal fluid must be particularly injurious to organs already debilitated. It is thus that premature old age and complaints of the generative organs are brought on. A few months later I again saw this young man, and all his symptoms had improved under abstinence, care, and tonics.

Again, in 1856, a gentleman, twenty-three years of age, from the country, married two years, came to me in great alarm, complaining that he was nervous, and unable to manage his affairs. There was pain in his back, the least exertion caused him to perspire, and he had a most careworn countenance. I may further mention that he had been highly scrofulous as a boy. I learnt that he had married a young wife, and fearing that he might be considered a Joseph, as he had never known woman beforehand (although he acknowledged to having been guilty of evil practices at school), he unconsciously fell into excess, and attempted connexion nightly; latterly, erection had been deficient, emission was attended with difficulty, and he felt himself daily less able to discharge what he thought were his family duties. Having procured my book, he came to me for relief, and was extremely surprised that I should consider he had committed excesses, believing that after marriage, intercourse, however often repeated, could not be so termed. The history was given with such a naïf air, that I was obliged to yield

implicit credence to it. The treatment, as he was unable to reside in town, consisted in desiring him to restrain himself. I ordered him phosphorus.

Again, in September, 1861, a stout, florid man, about forty-five years of age, was sent to me by a distinguished provincial practitioner, in consequence of his sexual powers failing him, and one of his testes being smaller than the other. On cross-examination, I found that he had been married some years, and had a family. Connexion had been indulged in very freely, when, about four years ago, a feeling of nervousness gradually came over him, and about the same time his sexual powers gradually became impaired. The real object, it appeared, which he had in coming to me was to obtain some stimulus for his sexual powers, rather than to cure the nervousness and debility under which he was labouring. Indeed, at his request, the efforts of the country practitioner had been made in this direction. Instead of giving remedies to excite, I told him that his convalescence must depend upon strict abstinence and allowing the system to rally, and treated him accordingly.

The lengths to which some married people go is perfectly astonishing. I lately saw a married medical man, who told me that for fourteen years, he believed, he had never allowed a night to pass without having had connexion, and it was only lately, on reading my book, that he had attributed his present ailments to marital excesses. The contrast between such a case as this, where an individual for fourteen years has resisted this drain on the system, and that of a man who is, as many are, prostrated for twenty-four hours by one nocturnal emission, is most striking. This great disparity is further discussed at page 141. All experience, however, shows that, whatever is the condition of the nervous system, as regards sexual indulgences, excesses will sooner or later tell upon any system, and can never be indulged in with impunity. I believe them to be a common and very fruitful cause of ill-health, and hardly yet sufficiently appreciated by the profession.

I will give one more instance. A medical man called on me, saying he found he was suffering from spermatorrhoea. There was general debility, inaptitude to work, disinclination for sexual intercourse, in fact, he thought he was losing his senses. The sight of one eye also was affected. The only way in which he lost semen was, as he thought, by a slight occasional oozing from the penis. I asked him at once if he had ever committed excesses. As a boy, he acknowledged having abused himself, but he married seven years ago, being then a hearty, healthy man, and it was only lately that he had been complaining. In answer to my further inquiry, he stated that since his marriage he had had connexion two or three times a week, and often more than once a night! This one fact, I was obliged to tell him, sufficiently accounted for all his troubles. All his symptoms were similar to those we find in boys who abuse them

selves. It is true that it may take years to reduce some strong, healthy men, just as it may be a long time to prejudicially influence some boys, but the ill effects of excesses are sooner or later sure to follow.

Since my attention has been particularly called to this class of ailments, I feel confident that many of the forms of indigestion, general illhealth, hypochondriasis, &c., depend upon sexual excesses. The directors of hydropathic establishments, it would seem, must have had some such opinions, or they would not have thought it expedient to separate married patients when they are undergoing the water treatment. That this cause of illness is not more widely acknowledged and acted on arises from the natural unwillingness which medical men feel to put such questions to their patients as are necessary to elicit the facts.

I have often been surprised at the immediate and manifest benefit produced in these cases by complete abstinence, together with the simple treatment hereafter detailed under the head of Spermatorrhoea, where other remedies have entirely failed.

It may very naturally be asked what is meant by an excess in sexual indulgence. The simple reply is-the same as in any other indulgence. An excess is what injures health. I have at page 82 stated that, according to my experience, few married men should indulge in connexion oftener than once in seven or perhaps ten days. This, however, is only a guide for strong, healthy men. Generally, I should say that an individual committed an excess when coitus was succeeded by languor, depression of spirits, and malaise. This is the safest definition, for such results will not happen if the male is in good health and indulges his sexual desires moderately.

No invariable law can be laid down in a case where so much must depend upon temperament, age, climate, and other circumstances, as well as the health and strength of both parties. I maintain that the continuance of a high degree of bodily and mental vigour is inconsistent with more than a very moderate indulgence in sexual intercourse, and the still higher principle holds good, that man was not created only to indulge his sexual appetites, and that their indulgence should not be encouraged.

CHAPT. II.-IMPOTENCE.

IMPOTENCE is the term given to all those morbid conditions in man or woman which are opposed to the physiological union of the two sexes, that is to say, coition; or, in less accurate language, it may be said to be, general inability to consummate marriage. STERILITY is the term reserved for all those morbid states which, either in the one or other sex, prevent the reproduction of the species. When, however, the term sterility is mentioned, it more especially applies to the female, and is synonymous with barrenness.

Impotency or Impotence is usually applied to the man. It may be, perhaps, best described under the two divisions

1. Absence of Desire for Connexion-Temporary or false Impotence. 2. Absence or deficiency of Power-Inability to Consummate Marriage-True Impotence.

I.

1. False or Temporary Impotence.

I. ABSENCE OF DESIRE OR INDISPOSITION FOR CONNEXION,
SEXUAL INDIFFERENCE.

We have treated in preceding pages of the evil of any excess in the indulgence of the sex-passion; we now come to the consideration of at least as great an evil, the partial or total absence of the passion itself.

INDISPOSITION FOR CONNEXION AMONG SINGLE MEN.-This condition may arise from a variety of causes. We find, for instance, that some men reach adult age without having experienced any sexual desire at all. That complete sexual quiescence, which we have noticed as being the proper condition of childhood continues, in these cases, during the period of youth, and even into adult age.

So unusual a phenomenon as the entire non-development of the sexual desire must always be rather an alarming and suspicious circumstance; unfortunately, in most cases the medical man is not consulted, as neither the patient nor his friends are aware that there is anything unusual in his condition until it is accidentally discovered. When the surgeon is consulted, however, he will usually find that the individual is fat, without hair on his face, or even down on the pubes; the testes and penis are small, almost rudimentary, like those of a young child,' no sexual desire ever troubles him, and his voice is often weak and almost falsetto in

1 Dr. Davy has given the following post-mortem appearances in a patient who showed (according to the account given by his comrades) an aversion to the sex. "There was little hair on pubes or chin, the partes naturales were all small, the larynx was small, the skin delicate.

"A very minute portion of fluid only could be procured from the vasa deferentia, which under the microscope exhibited numerous small particles and a few larger globules, but no spermatic animalcules. The fluid of the vesicula was also small in quantity and destitute of animalcules; it was of a light-brownish hue, slightly opaque, containing some globules, and did not change the colour of turmeric or of litmus paper. The fluid from their fundus was most gelatinous, and appeared to consist chiefly of mucus. The vesiculæ seminales in this instance and their contents resembled those of such castrated animals as I have hitherto examined." (Edinburgh Medical and Surgical Journal,' vol. L, p. 7.)

quality; in fact, the condition is much the same as that of the castrated individual or eunuch.1

In such a case it is clear that the non-development of the testes has produced this state of eunuchism, as well as most of the peculiar changes which, both in animals and in human beings, attend the condition of castration.

There is another and very different cause which often produces a kind of temporary impotence, that creates much more anxiety than it is worth. The student, during any strenuous and long-continued mental exertion while he is absorbed with his studies, finds all sexual feelings annihilated. Men who are or have recently been reading hard at the universities come to me frequently with complaints of impotency, which I am happy enough to prove to them is only temporary, and to be easily accounted for. It is undoubtedly true that such persons are for the time impotent. Nature has wisely ordained that the testes should not always secrete; whenever the brain is overtaxed, or any great muscular exertion is taken, all sexual desire ceases, but it is quite certain that if the reproductive organs are healthy and have not been abused, sexual feelings and powers will return as soon as the overtaxed brain or muscles are allowed to regain their normal condition.

The undeveloped state of the reproductive system, whether permanent or temporary, usually indicates itself by, among other signs, a marked indifference to manly sports and exercises, and a visible deficiency in virile attributes generally. Other causes, however, besides an undeveloped state of the sexual organs, produce indifference to the opposite sex and deficiency in manly vigour. The most common of such causes is the wretched habit of masturbation, of which we have already treated. A youth who masturbates himself and continues the practice as he grows up to manhood, generally evinces, even after he has arrived at the marriageable age, no disposition towards the other sex. Only his own solitary pleasure can give him any gratification; as far as women are concerned, he is virtually impotent. Lallemand gives the following graphic account of such a person's state of feeling towards the opposite sex:— "Their solitary vice has a tendency to separate those practising it from At first, of course, it is on the sex that their thoughts dwell, and they embellish an ideal being with all the charms of imaginary perfection; the habit, however, which enslaves them little by little, changes and depraves the nature of their ideas, and at last leaves nothing but

women.

1 Pope Clement XIV, in the eighteenth century, abolished castration of youths, which was then practised in Italy for the purpose of retaining the soprano voice. It is well known that the castrated preserve the shrill voice (voix aigue) of infancy, at the same time that the chest becomes fully developed, thus giving volume to the voice. Women were not allowed to sing in the cathedral or church services, hence this horrid mutilation, as it qualified the victims to sing soprano parts.