Works on phrenology, physiology, etc / edited by J. Barker.

  • Fowler, O. S. (Orson Squire), 1809-1887
Date:
1850
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Works on phrenology, physiology, etc / edited by J. Barker. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    to mature age, and even then that it be made but sparingly. Sturdy manhood, in all its vigour, loses its energy and bends under the too frequent expenditure of this important secretion; and no age or con- dition will protect a man from the danger of unlimited indulgence, though legally and naturally exercised. 4In the young, however, its influence is much more seriously felt; and even those who have indulged so cautiously as not to break down the health or the mind, cannot know how much their physical energy, mental vigour, and moral purity, have been affected by the indul- gence. 4 No cause is more influential in producing insanity. The records of the institutions give an appalling catalogue of cases attributed to it.’ A doctor in Brooklyn thus writes to the author of 4 Facts, &c., to Young Men.’ Brooklyn, Deo. 19, 1840. * In my own practice, I think I have seen the following results of masturbation*—involuntary emissions, prostration of strength, paralysis of the limbs, hysteria, epilepsy, strange nervous affections, dyspepsia, hypochondria, spinal disease, pain and weakness in the back and limbs, costiveness—and, in fine, the long and dismal array of gastric, enteric, nervous and spinal affections, that are so complicated and difficult to manage.’ Dr. J. A. Brown, of Providence, writes to the same author as fol- lows :— ‘ That it is an evil of vast magnitude, no physician who has been in the habit of tracing effects to causes, can for a moment doubt. I, sir, could tell of hundreds who labour under incurable maladies, produced by this practice ; and I do not believe that I have a better faculty for obtaining such information than many others, who are, and will be, dumb on this subject.’ Another physician writes that 4 seven-eighths of all the bodily ills and diseases of the people, are caused, or greatly aggravated, by self-abuse, or excessive legal indulgence.’ Nor is this all, nor the worst. The loss of this secretion is the loss of vitality itself. We saw, in Love and Parentage, that it embodied the very quintessence of parentage, in order thereby to impart this quintes- sence of parents to offspring. To dwell on this point, however impor- tant, is unnecessary, because so evident. Now it is a well known prin- ciple of jdiysiology, that when any organ is especially over-taxed, it robs the other parts of the system of vitality to supply its own tax- ation. Thus, overloading the stomach causes mental lassitude and muscular debility, because the stomach withdraws energy from the brain, the muscles, and wherever it can find it, to enable it to discharge its burden. Now overtax this secretion, and it withdraws energy from all the other parts to re-supply the draft. Doing this frequently, di- verts the energies permanently from the other organs to this. As those wno get into the habit of being bled frequently, soon get full of blood, jecause they over-tax the blood manufacturing energies by this drain, so that an undue amount of vitality goes to blood ; so the frequent- withdrawal of this condensed vital secretion, causes a drain from all the o ler pans and organs to re-supply it, and thus frequent indulgence causes the very life’s blood to run out thereat. Well has Wisdom ’ . i notj i STIlENGTH unt0 women? And he who does, must expect to be weak every where else. IT INFLAMES THE WHOLE SYSTEM. this dram^of vital;!^ .esPecia% to growing youth, consequent on uuent on pvcpwiv y’ / iat always and necessarily conse- quent on excessive indulgence in all its forms, is much more prolific of * Self-abuse.