Sterility (Inability to have Children).
The foundation of society is a happy family and home life. The foundation of a happy home life is children. No home can be happy without the sunshine of the little ones, who are the dearest gifts of Nature to mankind. No marriage can be happy unless it fulfills its natural mission and reaches its full fruition by perpetuating the race of the parents thru children. The children are the greatest and most powerful incentive and inspiration for a man to work and to strive for a greater success in his chosen line. Children are a life mission and a life interest of a woman; they are the strongest and purest bonds of love between a man and a woman. Gloom and emptiness prevail in a home that is not blessed with children; there is no living interest and no natural attraction in such a home, and a childless couple is doomed to seek outside distractions and interests to fill up the natural void in their existence and to forget their heart-hunger.
No man who looks forward to a happy family life in the future can ignore the question and shirk the responsibility of producing healthy children. And yet so many men, thru light-mindedness or ignorance in younger years, are responsible for the tragedy of a barren home later in life, when it is too late to retrace their steps and to redeem their sins of youth. Public opinion commonly puts the blame on the woman for being childless, and only in exceptional cases considers the possibility of the man being responsible for it. How unjust and how far from the truth! The inability to bear children, medically known as sterility, in a very large number of cases, at least half, is directly or indirectly due to a man’s disease or an inborn defect. Leaving aside a rather small group of cases, where a woman is unable to bear children due to some inborn defect or disease, the largest class of cases of sterility is due to venereal poisons, Gonorrhea, or Syphilis contracted from their husbands. In Gonorrhea, due to chronic inflammation of organs of procreation or mutilating operations—necessary in these cases—no conception is possible. In Syphilis, conception is possible, but a woman is unable to bear living children.
In the cases of direct male sterility, the woman is perfectly healthy, and the fault lies with the man alone. It may be due either to some inborn anatomical defect, or, what is infinitely more common, to some venereal disease. In these cases, the male embryos-spermatozoa are either absent or unable to travel in normal channels and to penetrate in the female organs. This inability may be due to a different cause; the most common cause of all is Gonorrhea, or, more exactly, a gonorrheal epididymitis. As mentioned above, Epididymitis, if uncured, often leaves behind hard nodules which obliterate and obstruct the spermatic channel, partially or completely, thus blocking and preventing spermatozoa from passing from the testicles, where they are produced thru the urethral canal out of the body. A man who has had Epididymitis, with the complete obstruction of the spermatic channel only on one side, may yet have children, but if the obstruction is on both sides, he becomes absolutely sterile.
Another cause of male sterility, tho not as common, are strictures, which, by obstructing and twisting the urethral canal, may divert or weaken ejaculation of spermatozoa in such a way as to make conception impossible. It may happen also that tho all channels for the passage of spermatozoa are free, the spermatozoa themselves, due to a sexual or general exhaustion, are either missing or are of such low vitality as to give no hopes for living or healthy children.
Every man with a history of a venereal disease should have his seminal secretion examined under microscope before his marriage, to test its vitality. The knowledge of these facts and the application of these principles in practical life by the average man could save thousands of happy homes and prevent as many divorces.