“The most serious mental effects are produced by masturbation. This vice, commenced at or before the period of puberty, interferes seriously with the development of the brain and the evolution of the mental faculties.
“That spermatorrhœa will produce in one class of cases mental disorders, and not in another, indicates either that some predisposition to these disorders existed, or that the habit of self-pollution was merely an expression of mental alienation (insanity). The images which pervade the minds of boys possessed of the highly-developed nervous organization of masturbators are those of delusional insanity.
“There is, however, a cerebral (brain) phase of spermatorrhœa which may be separated from the two preceding classes. It is characterized by indistinctness of vision, dilatation of the pupil, amblyopia (near-sightedness), diplopia (double sight); diminution in the sensitiveness of the auditory apparatus (deafness); feebleness of voice; mental preoccupation, hebetude of mind, confusion of ideas, and a profound melancholy.
“The termination of such cases is in suicidal monomania, delusional insanity, etc. In that variety of the cerebral form in which a decided predisposition must be admitted to exist, to disorder of the intellectual faculties, there are found various forms of mental alienation. The chronic form is the most common, which corresponds to the melancholia of Pinel, or the lypemania of Esquirol, terminating in dementia. Several of the most characteristic cases which have happened under my observation correspond to the delusional insanity of Bucknill and Tuke.”—[Manual of Psychological Medicine, Phila. ed., p. 103.]
INSANITY FROM SPERMATORRHŒA.
Many writers are disposed to underrate the importance of this tendency in spermatorrhœa. The statistics of any of our large insane asylums will illustrate the influence of masturbation in the production of insanity. Mr. Holmes Coote, in a discussion which followed Dr. Drysdale’s paper on the “Medical Aspects of Prostitution,” read before the Harveian Society of London, remarked that “he still entertained the opinion that there were no worse evils appertaining to human weakness than this. He had opportunities of witnessing the fact that among the young there was no cause of insanity more common than indulging in habits which he would not further particularize, but which were known to result in the most complete bodily and mental prostration.”—[British Medical Journal, Feb. 17, 1866.]
Dr. John P. Gray, the distinguished Superintendent of the State Asylum at Utica, New York (Twenty-Fourth Annual Report, 1867), thus speaks of the influence of masturbation in the production of insanity: “The records of this institution show five hundred and twenty-one cases admitted directly attributable to this vice, and I am well convinced that the number is greatly understated.”
We might add confirmatory testimony from a variety of sources, but the foregoing is sufficient for our purpose.
Our Treatment is Pleasant, Quick and Lasting.
IMPORTANT.—Peculiar, numb, dead, aching, or tingling sensations in the hands, arms, legs or feet, and headache and specks before the eyes on stooping or reading; also sleeplessness, too sound sleep, and apprehensive dreams should be watched for, and the moment they appear danger from Paralysis or Insanity is to be apprehended and proper treatment at once taken. These symptoms may mean nothing in some cases, but they are terrible harbingers of ill in others.