Sexual congress may, under favorable circumstances, when indulged in to great excess, become a cause of such organic changes in the nerve-centers as are followed by spermal losses. A few such cases have come under my observation, that were of an unmistakable character. The report of one case, which is a typical one, will suffice.
Case.—Chas. B., a rather gentlemanly fellow, consulted me for spermatorrhœa, with the following history: When he was a small boy, some twelve years of age, a servant girl was his room-mate, with other small children; his parents thinking him too small to interfere with the servant girl, and did not change his room until a year or more after she taught him the significance of his erect genital organ, by coaxing him to an attitude favorable to her own gratification. Thus she cultivated her new-found pleasure, as he grew up and developed. After his room was changed, he found no impediment to nightly visits to the servant’s bed. He was soon able to comply with all demands, and nightly they indulged in sexual congress to satiety, and grew up together. She, being much older than he and knowing all the probabilities, exercised her vigilance and precaution, and all went well until he was twenty-two years of age; when he found that, upon leaving home and undergoing a few weeks’ deprivation from sexual contact, an involuntary discharge of semen occurred two or three times per week, in his sleep, accompanied by a lascivious dream. The constant and profuse discharge of semen and prostatic fluid had passed from his glans penis, for which he had often sought advice in vain. These cases are not very uncommon, although many a young man has passed through similar experiences with unimpaired virile powers. I opine that, if a young man passes to the age of twenty without much sexual excitement, he will not be likely to suffer with any form of sexual weakness; but if he has the predisposition spoken of elsewhere, he will not be likely to pass to the age of eighteen without being fully aware of his sexual instinct, and the pleasure that may be derived from sexual indulgence or masturbation.
The great author, Lallemand, has given as causes a list of organic troubles, a great portion of which are, instead of causes, produced by the genital irritation and spermatorrhœa. He overlooks the general phenomena which point directly to neurine pathology. As causes, Lallemand gives, among various organic troubles, prolonged erections, excited by erotic ideas or lascivious publications; the use of diuretics, of ergot, of cantharides, etc.; the abuse of alcoholic drinks, coffee and tea; constipation; ascarides in the rectum; hemorrhoids, fissures of the anus; heating and irritation of the anal and perineal regions by habitual sitting, or prolonged horseback riding.
Notwithstanding the eminent authority, it must appear quite impossible for any of the above conditions to cause spermatorrhœa as a disease. The few seminal emissions that may occur from such causes are in isolated cases, and of short duration. Even when spermal losses have seemed to arise from such causes, I should think grave reasons present for the suspicion of self-pollution or sexual excess. The simple denial would not be reason to attribute so permanent a disease to such trivial causes.
It cannot be disputed with tangible evidence, that Lallemand’s causes may develop a morbid sexual instinct, by reflex excitation, and act as a predisposition by exciting sexual desire and self-pollution, and thereby spermatorrhœa; but the innate condition must be present also in every case.
While it is well known that various morbid anatomical changes are found in the genital organs, on careful dissection, yet scarce any can be said to act as a cause, but rather as a result of long debauch by pollution and venereal diseases; and as commonly, such changes have been found in the genito-urinary organs, when spermatorrhœa never had been suspected.
Roberts Bartholow, in opposition to the views of Lallemand as to causes, says:
“To place this question beyond controversy, I have lately made a most careful dissection of the sexual apparatus of a young man, dead of double pneumonia, who was known to have practiced masturbation in an extreme degree for many years. Besides a catarrhal condition of the mucous membrane of the seminal and prostatic ducts and of the vesiculæ seminales, there were literally no lesions of these organs. I therefore reject this position of Lallemand as untenable, and as leading to improper methods of treatment.”
I can but conclude the cause of spermatorrhœa with one definite remark: That the frequently repeated sexual orgasm, continued for a long time, causing to be evolved so rapidly the great amount of nerve-force which must each time be lost forever, must be the only direct cause of that obscure neurosis upon which spermatorrhœa invariably depends.