Sexual impotence in the male / by William A. Hammond.

  • Hammond, William A. (William Alexander), 1828-1900.
Date:
1883
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Sexual impotence in the male / by William A. Hammond. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

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    have expressed themselves with decision, and the latter gives the case of a man who was excessive in the matter of sexual indulgence, during which he always assumed the erect posture. Since two months, observing that he was injuring himself, he became more moderate, but still continued the same fatiguing posture. As a con- sequence, he was affected with congestion of the spinal cord, with its ordinary concomitants of paralysis of the lower extremities, lumbar pains, etc. Carre * assigns the factor in question as one of the causes of locomotor ataxia, when he says: Excess in venereal indulgence, especially in the ver- tical position, acts in the same manner [causing conges- tion of the cord, as the first step towards locomotor ataxia]. In the horizontal position, on the contrary, the flow of blood is more easy, and the effect less marked. In my own experience I have known, several times, serious results to follow the constant use of the position in question during sexual intercourse. In one of these instances the patient, an elderly gentleman, who had long been addicted to the employment of the erect posture in his amatory indulgences, was, on one oc- casion (and, I may add, the last), seized with a violent tremor in both lower extremities at the occurrence of the orgasm, and this continued, without intermission, for forty-eight hours. At the end of that time he ascer- tained that his lower extremities were semi-paralyzed, * Nouvelles recherches sur l'ataxie locomotrice, etc. Paris, 1865. p. 257.