The surgical diseases of the genito-urinary organs including syphilis / by E.L. Keyes ; a revision of Van Buren and Keye's text-book upon the same subjects.

  • Edward Lawrence Keyes
Date:
1888
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The surgical diseases of the genito-urinary organs including syphilis / by E.L. Keyes ; a revision of Van Buren and Keye's text-book upon the same subjects. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    64/744 (page 44)
    (1) Urine, to be non-irritating, must be normal, faintly acid or neutral, free from sharp crystals, and not too concentrated. Hence measures tending to bring the fluid to this state are hygienic. These measures include general hygiene of the skin, stomach, muscles, lungs, etc., but also in many cases (especially where the subject is of gouty habit) certain dietetic precautions. The latter consist in the avoid- ance of all alcoholic fluids, especially sweet fermented wines and malt liquors. New ale is particularly harmful. All of these substances tend to create sharp crystals of uric acid in the urine, as well as to concentrate and acidify it. From this cause alone inflammation of the urethra may spring. Lemon-juice is also somewhat irritating to the urethra, as are, to a mild degree, all the condiments, salt, pepper, mus- tard, and, it is said, asparagus. In inflamed states of the canal, gen- eral hygiene prescribes rest. (2) The quieting of sexual excitability is an object not less im- portant, but by far more difficult to accomplish. No part of the body can be in perfect health unless its function is being regularly and satis- factorily performed. This is seen in stomach, brain, muscle, excretory duct. For example, when all the urine escapes from the urethra, through a large fistula in the perinseum, the fore part of the canal contracts and becomes hyperaesthetic. The urethra, however, only performs the function of a sexual canal at longer or shorter intervals. If there were no erotic fancies, the ure- thra would never be called upon to participate in the sexual function, and the latter would have no influence over its health or disease. In the eunuch the hygiene of the urethra undoubtedly does not include the sexual problem. If, then, the individual be absolutely pure in thought, word, and deed ; if he never has or has had an erotic fancy, direct or remote, then his urethra would be a urinary canal, anc] its hygiene would be simple. But absolute purity is not a common attribute of man, as any one who has the honesty to accept facts must allow, and the rule that every male adult has more or less strong sexual longings and necessities must be admitted. Hence is established the rule, borne out daily and hourly by an intelligent study of the parts concerned, both in health and dis- ease, that the urethra is not in the best conditions for health unless the sexual needs are attended to. There is no possible means of accom- plishing this result except marriage. Fornication is always irregular, unnatural, often excessive, and therefore is harmful and worse than nothing, looked at from a merely worldly point of view. Masturbation is degrading, and bears upon the whole well-being of the individual by ruining his morale. Nature’s safety-valve, involuntary ejaculation during sleep, is inefficient. Marriage alone allows healthy, natural, unstimulated sexual relations, and alone accomplishes the first neces- sity of urethral hygiene—namely, sexual quietude. Hence the value