The private medical friend, or, A warning voice to young men : an essay on the errors of youth and the secret infirmities of the generative organs, resulting from solitary habits, youthful excess, or infection, with practical observations on the premature failiure of sexual power illustrated with many cases in proof of the Author's succesful mode of treatment / by Henry Smith.
- Smith, Henry, active 1982.
- Date:
- 1857
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: The private medical friend, or, A warning voice to young men : an essay on the errors of youth and the secret infirmities of the generative organs, resulting from solitary habits, youthful excess, or infection, with practical observations on the premature failiure of sexual power illustrated with many cases in proof of the Author's succesful mode of treatment / by Henry Smith. Source: Wellcome Collection.
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![shattered; not a muscle or nerve, or sense escapes the con¬ tamination when the practice has been long continued. And imbecility is sure to follow ; for although, when indulged in only at rare intervals, it may not tell its tale so quickly, yet it will cling t% its victim until it has accomplished its work of desolation. The well-known Dr. Kahn, of London, says “It is frequently found even in middle age5 seldom, however, later, not because the practice itself is overcome by the controul exercised over the animal propensities by the moral or intellectual faculties, but because, if the habit has peen persisted in, all virile power has by that time been lost. Lven in middle age this is frequently the case ; where it is not, however, where the power still remains, it is no uncom¬ mon thing for a man to practise this most degrading vice even after he has entered the connubial state, and has become t e ather of children. Indeed, when once commenced it is the most difficult matter possible to discontinue it until the virile power has become completely destroyed. Frequently patients present themselves to me at the age of 30, or from that to 40, who tell me that notwithstanding they are mar- are unabIe £o muster courage enough to break off this habit, and that as no erection occurs, they are quite incapable ot sexual intercourse, and have not cohabited with their wives perhaps for years.” And he narrates the case ot a gentleman who contracted the habit young, and after¬ wards married a most beautiful woman, everything that the most fastidious could desire. He consequently left off this vile practice, but afterwards returned to it, notwith¬ standing the attractions of his wife, and continued to prac¬ tise it almost daily, cohabiting with her once a week or le‘S'?'i0fteri*i 1F°Ur children were horn to him • the first tolerably healthy, the next sickly, the third died of atrophy, or wasting away, from a want of vitality in the1 system, and the fourth lived a perfect walking skeleton When this last was five years of age, the father had for four years been totally unable to hold intercourse with his wife inconsequence of the want of erectile power- but still hi continued to practise this vile habit. At length, observing his wife was becoming very wretched, he judged of the cause” Jas drllven almost to madness. He then resolute]i abandoned the practice for ever 5 and though in a terribl^ emaciated state, by keeping his resolution and adhering; a judicious course of medicines, he was finally ami COm p etely cured and restored to vigour: and has sin™ n Messed with healthy children, * been](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b30473159_0031.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
