Incidents—Observation—Historical Data, and Sexual Hygiene.—Nature furnishes us a vast field for speculation and inquiry, when even confined within the domain of certainties; and there is an occult line beyond which everything is speculative and imaginary; but there are facts enough in common view to enlighten the seeker after knowledge by simply collecting commonplace occurrences and gleaning therefrom their rich lessons. Observation, by association and comparison, and correct judgment will teach us many things not in the least hypothetical—facts.

To comprehend the obscure relations of the sexual function and the varieties of morbid changes, we must first systematically inquire into a few of nature’s designs, and ascertain thereby the true purpose of the sexual organs.

What purpose? is the first point at issue in any observation, and must be answered by the physiologist and Physician in this investigation, as he only has the results of abuse, or wrong application, to investigate and correct.

The production of healthy offspring must be nature’s only design for the sexual organs. How to accomplish this end, is the great question of scientific observers.

It seems quite axiomatic to remark, that maturity and perfect development only can assure perfect reproduction of the species. Again, that pleasure should always attend the act of copulation, otherwise the pain of parturition and the care of rearing the young would always militate against the perpetuation of the race.

With the normal condition of the sexual organs and functions the physician has comparatively little to do; but with their abuses he has all to do. To comprehend the abnormal, he must be familiar with the normal condition of structure and function. Masturbation is a small part of the indiscretions and evils of the sexual; and the lesions growing out of such evils are too numerous to mention. There is no doubt venereal diseases grew out of the evils of repetition of sexual congress, with certain unknown violations of nature’s laws, by depraved human beings.

I am credibly informed of an occasion: “A prostitute received the embraces of eleven men in immediate succession: the ninth and eleventh took gonorrhoea, and again gave it; but the prostitute remained free from the disease until two months after, when she took the disease from one to whom she had given it, on the above-mentioned occasion, after which she spread it through a small town in which she lived and also in which she was in the habit of plying her vocation. She was free from disease before this occasion.”

It is no more doubted that a male will contract a purulent urethritis from contact with a woman during her menstrual crisis, or if she be afflicted with an infective leucorrhoea; but such a discharge in the male is not generally contagious, and he may indulge freely without giving the disease.

Uncleanliness may be considered a common cause of sexual disease in both sexes.Masturbation, after the age of maturity is no more injurious, aside from the degradation it leads to, than the same number of contacts in the natural manner; but in the youth the undeveloped organs suffer, as well as the nerve-centers which supply these organs with nervous energy. The youth is inclined to indulge the habit after once initiated, greatly to the detriment of the spinal cord, and through this to the general nervous system. He is inclined to practice the deplorable vice oftener than he could find opportunity to gratify his passion in the natural way. As a rule, to the indiscretions of youth is confined the permanent injury to the nervous system. It is at an early age, when so much injury is done, that the very common practice occurs at schools, when boys club together in squads and go behind embankments of stone-wall, or creek-banks; or a boy isolates himself, as it were, to “shell out a grist by hand.” With such ample opportunities, and with the habit fully established, the acts are repeated with such frequency that exhaustion of the nervous power must often attend this wonderful deviation from nature’s designs.

With all this supposed nervous weakness, I do not incline to the opinion that more injury is done to the sexual organs by this practice, in and of itself, than is accomplished through the impressions wrought upon the brain from reading spermatorrhoea literature of advertising, “private-disease” specialists. I am satisfied that I have seen bad cases recover by putting their minds at ease. The carefully worded little books, that are sent broadcast to drive in those who have been indiscreet, are money-making dodges, and are of great injury to the confiding and simple.

When the injury has become very extensive and the condition of habit very depraved, a young man becomes so attached to his lothly vice that he will refuse the natural way of gratifying the erotic desire. He is not in the least influenced by one of the opposite sex, and prefers his own company, or isolation.

It is not the mule only that suffers from masturbation, but girls as well, though not so commonly, suffer from this peculiar sexual neurasthenia and hysteria growing out of sexual abuse. Our opportunities for discovering the extent of such practices in the unmarried female are very limited; consequently, we remain in ignorance to a great degree.

The married woman furnishes the physician the majority of the practice in this class of cases, as she also suffers from a mismanagement of the sexual congress; and it is only to the married woman that the practical physician will need to devote extensive attention, and only through her, in this sphere, can much information be obtained.

In the prostitute, sexual contacts are too promiscuous, and she is too unreliable, to afford any very trustworthy information, further than may be judged by the aspect of one who has followed the business for a decade. It is little to know that her life, as a rule, is short and her social redemption next to impossible, and her entailed ills irremediable. When the habit of self-pollution is once established by a girl, it is worse than in the male; as a female is not so likely to yield to any sort of a vice as a male, and she will carry it to a greater extreme. Modesty and fear of giving offence will always impede the advancement of knowledge in regard to the sexual functions in the so-called chaste and unmarried.

The married female’s sexual life and acts are often brought to the knowledge of her physician. I have often been asked the question, why so many married women become invalids from uterine and ovarian diseases? Not referring to child-bearing, abortions, and many indirect causes of disease which are numerous, but not enough to furnish an etiology for the long category of nervous ailments with which the medical man has to contend, my answer is, sexual abuse; a misunderstanding of the sexual functions; a non-adaptation of two individuals joined in marriage. It is not so commonly excessive venery; or too often repeated coition; but unrequited passion. Man is too likely to forget his duty to his wife and look first to his own gratification. Any sexual embrace not attended with sexual orgasm, is very detrimental and causes disease. With the brutal man and phlegmatic woman this condition is quite likely to occur, and more especially if the man has been a masturbator. Where the latter condition has caused a partial impotency, the sexual orgasm very commonly occurs before or immediately after the intromission of the penis, in which condition beatitude is impossible, and the physician is most likely to be consulted by one of the parties.

It will not improve our knowledge to be too modest on this question. As medical men we have the diseases of the sexual organs and their sequelÆ to treat, and we must discuss the causes. My suggestion, that a couple should be matched, sexually, seems not out of place; and if this condition is not present at first, it must be obtained by adaptation. My observation has been supplied with a number of instances of once faithful wives, who had forsaken their husbands for this seeming little discrepancy or neglect, and associated themselves happily with more adaptable mates.

These singular facts confront us, and as teachers and scientific men we may, when consulted, if familiar with the causes, suggest remedies. I have many times corrected this discrepancy in domestic felicity by a little careful instruction, and thereby prevented the impending dissolution of the marriage relation.

This might well be termed matrimonial hygiene.

Such grave facts are brought to the knowledge of the family physician, and he has but to listen to find out all: he has only a few questions to put, and the case is before him. No indecency to be indulged in: such cases must be conducted with the strictest sense of honor and decorum, or the bond of confidence and trust will be immediately forfeited.

Continence, while in itself not an abuse, in any manner, of the sexual organs, yet is a fruitful source of disease. The erotic male may contract troublesome disease, both local and general, by too close proximity with a voluptuous female; and why not as much a cause of disease in the female? It is the condition so commonly caused by the affectionate and chaste embraces of parties “engaged to be married.” When this condition exists the marriage ceremony had better be consummated as soon as possible, or injury may come to both parties.

The case of a young married couple, lately under observation, is instructive. The wife was stricken with paralysis, from which she was eight months in recovering. During her illness she became much reduced in flesh and will. She recovered in flesh, but remained very neurasthenic for many months. I made use of all methods of treatment by drugs and electricity. I could detect no organic trouble. When interrogating the husband, I ascertained that they had, through fear of doing injury to the wife, remained continent, and, being too modest, had not consulted the family physician on this very delicate subject. I immediately advised sexual congress freely, and the neurasthenia gradually disappeared. She has since remained in perfect health. She was afflicted, as she supposed, with all manner of diseases. She was often too feeble to walk, and required assistance or a cane, to walk across the room. She was irritable and fretful, often crying, and no reason could be given for any trouble, as she was provided with everything asked for. It may seem a venturesome advice to render, yet I can but urge the natural use of the sexual organs when there is a strong erotic excitement, following a long period of continence, when this desire is not a morbid one; which is likely to be the case only in the depraved, after long abuses.

Were it not for mistakes so commonly made by individuals in selecting such imperfect and inadaptable mates, the very poetical words of the old maids and bachelors, “single blessedness,” might better read, “single cursedness.” With the chances as they now are, it is an important question, whether it is more advisable for a maiden lady to marry or to remain continent and pine.

A loathsome abuse of the sexual organs, not usually recognized by the fastidious, exists, in which one of the individuals, taking a part in this abnormal sexual act, uses the mouth as a vagina. Some of these benighted creatures are males, others females. Houses of prostitution of the present day are so accommodating to their patrons that they keep females who serve degraded males in this manner. I am credibly informed that they prefer this method; that the erotic desire has been transferred from the genitals to the tongue. Any person who may be inclined to exercise a doubt, may easily convince himself of its truthfulness by visiting one of the many low-down “houses of ill fame” in any one of our large cities.

From The Laws of Life we extract the language of a clergyman:

Sodomy, or sexual contact of a human being with an animal, is an ancient practice and but little indulged in at the present day; as our laws are very rigid against such degraded and inhuman treatment of animals. There has been a civilizing influence, since human beings have organized societies for the “Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.” But it will nevertheless be remarked, that this elevating tendency came about entirely through the respect for animals, and not for human beings. Were it not for love of animal property and legal watch-care over our animals, and plenty of opportunity to gratify the sexual desire in other ways, the habits of the people would be no better than in ancient times, when sodomy so extensively prevailed. This beastiality may have been a cause of venereal disease—syphilis—which can be traced back to ancient times, without a doubt.

In addition to such abuses, there were worships quite as degrading. Phallus was a figure of the virile member, which was carried about at the festival of Bacchus as a symbol of the generative powers of nature. The Athenians, who refused to show proper respect to Phallus, were punished by Bacchus with a severe disease of the penis. Such may be concluded from the “History of the Phallus in Greece.” Priapus is now supposed to have been a venereal specialist, differing in no respect from such modern specialists, to whom, it is said, votive offerings were donated, and his great skill caused him to be worshipped and deified; hence the term priapismus, which is commonly applied to morbid erections, so frequently occurring in gonorrhoea and paralysis of the insane, and which is also applied to the active stage of the condition otherwise known as satyriasis.