A Treatise on the Crime of Onan / Illustrated with a Variety of Cases, Together with the Method of Cure

—— Propriis extinctum vivere criminibus.
Gall.
By M. TISSOT, M. D.
Author of Advice to the People in general with regard to their Health .
Translated from The Third Edition of the Original.
LONDON, Printed for B. Thomas, in the Strand. MDCCLXVI.


While I was composing in Latin the Original of this small Production, I was sensible of its defects, and, in the Preface to it, made my apology for them. But, after the Performance appeared in print, they struck me much more forcibly; and when I came to examine the French translation of it, which I had been desired to revise, I judged them intolerable.
Besides a number of new observations necessarily to be added, there were faults to be remedied, in the method, and some articles which, being no more than the first outline, insufficient to convey what I had to say, required a fuller extent to be given them.
So many corrections rendered the Work almost a new one, and made it considerably longer. The difficulty of carrying on this undertaking in a living language, and all the disagreeable circumstances that must cleave to it, did not escape me. Nothing could have determined me to engage in it, but the prospect of the utility to mankind of such an undertaking well executed, which is, however, what I dare not boast of. It is only my intention that I can warrant. The crimes of one’s fellow creatures afford but a melancholic object to concern one’s self with: the consideration of them can only afflict and mortify one: a sentiment ballanced by no pleasure but that of hoping to contribute to the diminution of their frequency, and to alleviate the sufferings which are the consequences of them.