[This is the title of a valuable little volume from the pen of E. P. MILLER, M. D., Physician of the Hygienic Institute, 13 and 15 Laight street, New York City, from which we take the following important extracts.--ED.]
Derangements observable in mankind
"Everywhere we see deformity and disease. In almost every land, 'the pestilence walketh in darkness, and destruction wasteth at noonday.' Our cities are studded with asylums and infirmaries for the sick, the lame, the halt, and the blind. In every household there are evidences of suffering and sorrow; we can not walk abroad but the heart is pained at the sight of the pale cheek, the sunken eye, the deformed body, the tottering gait, the enfeebled and exhausted men, women, and children, of this enlightened age; yes, enlightened in all things save in regard to the noblest work of God, mankind.
"The cities of the dead outnumber far the cities of the living; emblems of mourning and sadness are met on every hand; death is constantly claiming its victims amongst the young and the middle-aged as well as the old. Babes die by thousands before they are born, and one fifth of those born alive are laid away in their tiny graves before they reach the age of seven." Abuse of the sexual function a prime cause of derangements
"From the blood the elements of a new life are formed; and it has been ascertained that the material--called semen--which goes to generate a new being, is so refined, so intensified in its vitalizing power, that 'one ounce of it is equal to forty ounces of blood in any other part of the body.' Then, too, the nervous force expended is amazing; for 'in the sexual organs we find a union of the three great systems of nerves--the vegetative, or nerves of organic life; the emotional, or nerves of animal life; and the intellectual, or nerves of spiritual life; for the last two sacral nerves, which to to supply the generative organs, have their ganglia within the dura matter of the spinal cord; thus differing from the other spinal nerves, and resembling the nerves which originate in the brain, and are connected with the mind.'
"Is it any wonder, then, considering this concentration of blood and nerve, that the orgasm experienced in the indulgence of the sexual passion induced in many persons an exhaustion of every faculty of body and mind? Is it possible that this orgasm should constantly or even frequently occur without producing a degree of prostration that must sooner or later make sad inroads upon even the strongest constitution?
"The loss of semen is very exhausting, yet the expenditure of nerve force is quite as great a source of evil in the abuse of the sexual function; for until puberty, males have no semen to lose, and females have none at any age. It is, therefore, in the nervous orgasm that the greatest evil lies. When this is prematurely experienced, although imperfect, it gives a shock to the whole system; and when often repeated, the nervous power is completely drained away. 'All the vitality of the system goes to supply the immature but already exhausted organs of sexuality, both in body and in brain. The manufactory of the mind is robbed, and the victim loses sense and memory; the digestive apparatus is robbed, and dyspepsia and decay follow,' accompanied by the many nervous diseases with which we are only too familiar.
"The loss of vital power by means of this drain renders man less able to resist the effects of change of climate and of malarial poisons and miasms. It impoverishes the blood, and induces consumption, dyspepsia, nervous diseases, and mental derangements, with the long train of sequences which follow in their wake."
"And this loss affects not only the loser, but all who come after him; for the weakened and diluted semen can never impart life-force to a new being which it does not itself possess; from healthy blood is formed healthy tissue, full of force and power; healthy semen, that will impart a strong and vigorous life to offspring; while from impoverished and impure blood are supplied the elements of disease; and the child begotten from such blood must of necessity be born with a constitution wanting in vitality, weakened in those very parts upon whose strength and vigor depends the vital stamina; and he either dies young, or falls early into the degrading habits he has inherited, and becomes a victim of the vices of his progenitors."
Self-abuse
"Self-abuse is, probably, the most flagrant violation of the sexual law; the grossest abuse of the sexual function; and it is a practice fraught with the most disastrous consequences to the health, happiness, and even life of the race. It is an evil even more damning than any other to which mankind is subject! Language supplies to words sufficiently strong to express the horrors which result from it! And surely if the evil one, in tempting our first parents, had foreseen that this practice would have been the result of the passions he aroused, he must have been more than satisfied with his ignoble work.
"Self-abuse is practiced in almost every country, and by persons of all ages and both sexes. Many children are born with this propensity, and the habit is commenced in infancy, or in early childhood, by handling the genital organs; the friction and irritation giving rise to a peculiar kind of excitement which they are unable to resist. The habit formed at this early age is usually kept up till after puberty, if the system does not earlier succumb to its ill effects. The little, puny, sickly, dwarfed, and diminutive menand- women-looking children that we sometimes see are many of them examples of this habit.
"Others who have escaped the vice at so early an age are often initiated into the practice of self-pollution at the age of eight or ten by their playmates, their school-fellows, or by hired servants; and all this without a thought of evil on the part of the little masturbators."
"Those who have neither inherited the vice nor learned it from others, often commence the habit of self-abuse about the age of puberty when the development of the sexual organs and the establishment of the sexual function produce a peculiar uneasiness of the parts, to allay which, this habit is at first almost unconsciously fallen into.
"Of course, the excitement and irritation, instead of being allayed, are by this means increased, and the momentary pleasure experienced induces a repetition of the act, till by-and-by the habit becomes fully established. This goes on voluntarily for from three to ten years, till those who practice it learn from some source that this habit must, sooner or later, lead them to misery and, perhaps, destruction; but by this time the organs have become so weakened, and the system so impoverished, that, although the habit may be abandoned, in nine cases out of ten the loss will be continued in the form of involuntary nocturnal and, perhaps, diurnal emissions."
Mr. O. S. Fowler says: 'I have known boys not yet four years old both practice self-abuse and indulge with the opposite sex; and have known hundreds ruined by it before they entered their teens.' 'I have been consulted in cases almost without number by those on the brink of ruin who sought relief from the consequences of this vice. I know it by its infallible signs, and go where I will, in the busy street, in the lecture-room, in the family, they throng me like leaves in autumn.' "Dr. Woodward says: 'I have never conversed with a lad twelve years of age who did not know all about the practice, and understand the language used to describe it.'
"William C. Woodbridge says: 'This solitary, but fatal, vice is spreading desolation throughout our schools and families, unnoticed and unknown.'
"E. M. R. Wells, a teacher in Boston, says: 'Thousands of pureminded and amiable boys and young men are undermining their physical constitutions, and prospectively corrupting their souls,by a pleasurable, and to many of them innocent, gratification.'
"Dr. Alcott says: 'There is not a town in New England whose bills of mortality from year to year are not greatly increased by this fearful and wide-wasting scourge.'
"Dr. Snow, of Boston, says: 'Self-pollution is undoubtedly one of the most common causes of ill health that can be found among the young men of this country. I am satisfied the practice is almost universal. Boys commence it at an early age; and the habit once formed like that of intemperance, becomes almost unconquerable. In boarding-schools and colleges it obtains almost without exception.' "
When a primary law of the human system is violated, the most disastrous consequences must follow. There is no law of the animal economy that is violated with so great risk to life and happiness as the sexual law; no function, the abuse of which is followed by such deleterious results as the sexual function.
"The evils which result from self-abuse do not come upon the victim all at once; they creep in so slowly, so unconsciously, that they are often scarcely perceived until he is upon the verge of ruin. Multitudes of unpleasant feelings arise, which are attributed to a variety of causes, but they are seldom traced to their true source.
"Truly, if there is a wretched being upon earth, it is the person who has habitually practiced self-abuse, even for a few years. It brings disaster and ruin upon every part of the system. It drains away the life-power, the vitality, the proper elements of health and strength, and destroys the ability to grow and develop, and increase in beauty and vigor. It takes away the materials that are needed to produce a noble, high-toned, healthy and happy human being. It crushes out the image of God, and stamps in its place that of the destroyer. It withdraws such an amount of life-force from the blood that every organ and tissue of the body is left so enfeebled and debilitated as to become an easy prey to disease. Self-abuse opens the door for consumption, dyspepsia, nervous debility, apoplexy, epilepsy, paralyses, insanity, and almost every disease from which humanity suffers.
"It weakens and deranges the stomach, the liver, the kidneys, the bowels, the muscles, the bones, the nerves, the brain, and all the various organs of the body."
"The inordinate craving for spirituous liquors and tobacco, which is to-day so almost universal, is due, in a great measure, to the lack of vital force in the system, resulting from sexual abuses."
"Stimulants and narcotics fail most signally to satisfy the terrible craving; for self-abuse enkindles a flame which cannot be extinguished! It opens the flood-gates of the passions, and ingulfs all that is pure and true! It makes a hell where Christ says 'the kingdom of Heaven is'! Ask him whose life-force has been exhausted in this direction, and he will tell you . . . that his thoughts are a consuming fire! his hopes and aspirations blasted as by the lightning's shock! his mind shattered and vapid, his whole life a constant burden, and his every duty an irksome task! He will tell you that his waking hours are filled with anguish, and his sleep disturbed by cursed and depraving dreams. Self-abuse is a sure road to the grave, which is often longed for as a haven of rest from the uncontrollable and never-ending sufferings of its victim.
"This picture, full of horrors as it is, is not overdrawn; in truth 'the half hath not been told;' nor would volumes contain all that might be said, all that should be said, upon this terrible and revolting evil. Truly, 'there is no more degrading bondage than the bondage of one's own lusts.' "
Influence upon the mind
"The dependence of mind upon organic conditions, upon celldevelopment of the brain--as stated in a previous chapter--is such that the effects of self-abuse are quite as apparent upon the mind as upon the body; and derangements here are often the first intimation received by friends that something is wrong in the beloved one.
"The sufferer from this vice becomes listless, inattentive, indifferent. There is an inability to concentrate the mind, or apply it with any degree of vigor; want of interest in friends; loss of selfcontrol; failure of memory, and difficulty of conducting conversation. The reasoning is disconnected, and oftentimes the mental powers entirely fail; the victim becomes diffident, bashful, and ashamed, and seldom looks people in the face. His love of books is lost, history becomes a blank, the glowing pages of romance charm no more, the poet's spell hath lost its power, music's witchery is dead, the beauties of art are passed unheeded by, the loveliest landscape is but an arid desert, and nature's most sublime endeavors fail to arouse the soul of him who has long been contaminated by this loathsome vice."
Effects of self-abuse upon children
"The habit of self-abuse is practiced amongst girls, as well as boys. Previous to the age of puberty, the effects are very similar in both sexes, momentary excitement, followed by depression of spirits, and irritability, induced by the exhaustion of the nervous system.
"After having indulged in this habit for a time, the child loses its bright and happy look; it becomes pale with as greenish tint, the eyes are sunken, and surrounded by dark rings; the vermillion of the lips is faded, the lips are attenuated, the muscles soft and flabby, and both in form and feature the child has the appearance of being old and worn out.
"Gradually, so gradually that the parents do not notice it the mind becomes dull, the power of comprehension is diminished, the child sits listless, seemingly absorbed in thought, and is startled whenever suddenly addressed; all its motions are slow and heavy; it seeks solitude, that its vicious propensities may be indulged; it is obstinate, peevish, and irritable; shuns the plays it formerly loved, and becomes morose and taciturn. And these conditions may continue to the end of life, even though the habit had long been abandoned."
"How different is the picture presented by the boy who has kept his sexual function unimpaired. His body is firm, vigorous, and elastic; his countenance rosy and healthy, his complexion bright and clear; his manners frank and candid; his spirits buoyant; his memory quick and ready; every function of his body is properly performed; he has that firmness of will and purpose which give him a happy self-control; he has no cause for shame; and, as he feels his stature increase and intellect expand, his whole life is a joy, and his heart a fount of thanksgiving to the great Creator that he is permitted to exist."
Effects upon women
"Females, although they do not lose semen, induce by this habit a discharge from the vagina which proves a terrible drain upon the system. This discharge, called 'leucorrhea,' or 'whites,' is often the beginning of the most dreadful and fatal diseases. It is the precursor of congestion, inflammation, ulceration, tumors, and cancers of the womb. It is very frequently induced by other means aside from selfabuse; for it follows in the train of all sexual abuses, and is often present as the result of inherited weaknesses. It is exceedingly debilitating, and, sad as it is, it is nevertheless true that our American women as a class are almost universally afflicted with this exhausting loss.
"The best blood of woman, as well as man, goes to the generative organs for the purpose of forming the new being; and, if it is lost by this constant drain from a million women, who can estimate how much lower we stand in consequence of this, both as regards physical and mental conditions, than we might have done had the life-forces of our progenitors been preserved intact?"
Spermatorrhea
"If every boy in the land, who is just beginning the practice of self-abuse, could be made fully to understand that this habit would soon produce such a weakness and irritation of the genital organs that they would act involuntarily upon the least excitement, or even when they were asleep, and they could not stop or control this by any effort of the will; and that these involuntary discharges would finally exhaust their vitality, stunt their growth, destroy digestion so that the constant, natural waste of the system could not be repaired, root out their manhood, render them incapable of taking pleasure in any thing in this life, and, in short, crush them physically, mentally, morally, and spiritually, both for time and for eternity, it seems to me that it would be an argument so forcible that they would at once abandon the vicious practice; and, instead of one child contaminating a whole street, or school, or village, as is often the case, they would become pure themselves, and warn others of the fatal dangers arising from this vile and sinful habit."
Predisposing and exciting causes of self-abuse
"The father was, perhaps, born with strong sexual passions which have never been controlled, and the mother may have inherited similar conditions. They have married without any appreciation of what true marriage is, and too often solely, or principally, for the gratification of the animal passions; for lust, and not for love. The child is begotten in mere passion! The father transmits his propensities to indulgence, along with the excitement of irritation of the sexual organs arising from those propensities; and not only this, but the sexual passion is indulged during pregnancy, which causes the mother to transmit doubly of the direful ill to the offspring within her womb, while at the same time the nervous force expended detracts just so much from the rights of the child to inherit a strong, well-balanced, and healthy organization.
"Every orgasm expends of the mother's vitality a portion that should go to nourish and develop her babe. Very much of the weakness and lassitude experienced during pregnancy is due to the exhaustion consequent upon the sexual embrace, and the forming child must suffer from its effects; for the mother cannot impart what she does not herself possess, health and strength, with elasticity of mind and earnestness of purpose."
"The manner in which children are reared and educated has also much to do in developing an irritability of the sexual organs, and is a predisposing cause of self-abuse; the food and drink, habits of cleanliness, or its opposite--dress, associations, etc., all have their influence upon the child, and tend either to develop or overcome the inherited tendencies of the sexual organization.
"Feeding children upon pork, gravies, eggs, pastry made of lard, salt meats, with mustard and pepper, rich pies and cakes, spices, cloves, and other excitants; candies and sweetmeats, vinegar, pickles, tea and coffee, and every thing of this description, eaten at all hours of day and late at night, tend to fire the blood, derange the functions of the system, excite the nerves and bring on a precocious development of the sexual passion.
"The skin, too, with its millions of little sewers, by which God intended the purification of the system to be carried on, must be kept clean, or the impurities are dammed back, and the internal organs become deranged in consequence; and, wherever a predisposition to excitability of the sexual organs exists, those organs must suffer and become more irritable still, from habits of uncleanliness. Weakness of the sexual organs is often induced and increased by the inattention of mothers and nurses with regard to changing the clothing of infants; they are allowed to go wet and soiled, thus irritating and chafing the tender parts, until this becomes a strong excitant to self-abuse.
"Sleeping on feather-beds and feather-pillows, in close, unventilated rooms, is another cause of weakness, and therefore aids in inducing this vile practice. Children are often initiated into the habit of self-abuse by sleeping with libidinous servants; and many a man and woman might say, as a patient writes to me: 'I curse the time when I slept with a servant of impure mind, who led me to habits of vice from which I have suffered ever since.' Little babes acquire the habit of masturbation from nursery-maids, who frequently play with the genital organs to keep the child quiet.
"Confining children in-doors; compelling them to sit on hard benches, with their toes scarcely reaching the floor, in ill-ventilated school-rooms; low, vulgar stories upon subjects relating to the sexual function, which many young men and boys, yes, and old men too! are so fond of relating to excite the imagination and arouse the curiosity of all who listen to them; giving children false impressions as to how they were born--and this is as often done by parents as by others--and of the nature and use of the sexual function; reading low novels and obscene stories; looking at obscene pictures--all tend to excite the imagination, and arouse and pervert the sexual instinct."
"Talking to children about 'sweethearts' and 'lovers' is a fruitful cause of premature excitement of the sexual system, and often leads to self-abuse, as well as to promiscuous sexual indulgence. I am often horror-stricken at the lightness and levity with which these seeds of damnation are sown in the minds of children. Parents and others who sow such seed may thank themselves for the fruit thereof.
Matrimonial excesses
"Very much of the nervousness and hysteria so common among women, arises from abuses of the sexual function: in single life it is often the result of excitement of the sexual organs, induced by reading 'love-sick' novels, and cherishing lascivious thoughts, while in married life it is from the overtaxation of the nervous system by marital excesses.
"I know the heart-history of many noble, high-toned women, whose whole being revolts at the use to which they are put! Yet their ideas of domestic peace are so exalted that, loyal and true, they submit themselves a constant sacrifice, and, by the mere force of will, keep alive the fire of love within their tortured souls; living martyrs are they, daily enduring a fiercer ordeal than any to which the Christian martyrs were subjected. Many of these husbands are all the wife could ask, except in this one thing, and never dream but that they love those whom they have promised to'honor and cherish;' but it is a love so full of selfishness that it ceases to be true."
"Our graveyards, could they speak, would send forth a sad and sickening wail from the young wives and mothers who have been placed there, the victims of matrimonial abuse of the sexual function. Our Greenwoods, our Auburns, and our Laurel Hills, are dotted with graves of young and middle-aged women, whose lives have been offered up as a sacrifice to the lustful passions of their husbands. And not always are these husbands ignorant of the result they are hastening; yet they will not pause in their guilty work, but deliberately and often furiously commit the murder for which, were justice meted out to them, they would 'hang by the neck till they were dead,' instead of being permitted to live and woo a second, a third, and sometimes even a fourth, victim to their base desires."
"The human race are wondering and mourning over the 'mysterious dispensations of Providence' in permitting so much disease, and removing from earth so many of the middle-aged and the young; and we are exhorted to consider this a lesson God is teaching to prepare for death. The facts are these: people destroy their own lives, and the lives of their children, by their own sexual abuses, and God suffers them to die, because they have so often and so grossly violated the laws he has ordained, that they are not fit to live!"
"The foundation of this whole scheme of abuse of the sexual function is laid in the marriage-bed. Children who early fall into the habit of self-abuse, and young men and women who become libertines and prostitutes, are often not so much to blame as are the parents who, by their excesses in married life, entailed upon them a depraved organization."
Abortion
"Few are aware of the fearful extent to which this nefarious business, this worse than develish practice, is carried on in all classes of society! Many a woman determines that she will not become a mother, and subjects herself to the vilest treatment, committing the basest crime to carry out her purpose. And many a man, who has 'as many children as he can support.' instead of restraining his passions, aids in the destruction of the babes he has begotten.
"The sin lies at the door of both parents in equal measure; for the father, although he may not always aid in the murder, is always accessory to it, in that he induces, and sometimes even forces upon the mother the condition which he knows will lead to the commission of this crime.
"But the effort to destroy the child is many times unsuccessful, and the little one is born with murder in his heart, stamped there by the murderous intentions of his own mother. And what wonder that these inborn passions should lead him to the lowest depths of degradation both as regards the body and the soul! Many a child lives to mature years, dwarfed and deformed in body, and irritable and imbecile in mind, a disgrace to himself and to the race, who might have been a model of beauty and strength, both physically and mentally, but for the attempts of his parents to destroy his life before he was born.
"And besides all this, the consequences of such a practice are most disastrous both upon the physical and moral nature of those whose souls are stained with this terrible sin. The general health of the mother is often ruined, and the generative organs seriously injured. No system can endure the shock produced by this unnatural crime without being more or less impaired, while many a woman meets death as a penalty for her sin; others live, but are never again in a condition to conceive, and often suffer constantly in consequence of their fiendish endeavors; while others still are enabled to bear children, but with such anguish as no tongue may tell, and the child thus born is frequently a curse to himself and all with whom he is connected."