Plain Facts for Old and Young

by John Harvey Kellogg

Obscene books and papers, lewd pictures, and evil communications are telling causes which will be further noticed elsewhere.

[Senile Sexuality.]—As with childhood, old age is a period in which the reproductive functions are quiescent unless unnaturally stimulated. Sexual life begins with puberty, and, in the female, ends at about the age of forty-five years, the period known as the menopause, or turn of life. At this period, according to the plainest indications of nature, all functional activity should cease. If this law is disregarded, disease, premature decay, possibly local degenerations, will be sure to result. Nature cannot be abused with impunity.

The generative power of the male is retained somewhat longer than that of the female, and by stimulation may be indulged at quite an advanced age, but only at the expense of shortening life, and running the risk of sudden death. Says Parise, "One of the most important pieces of information which a man in years can attain is 'to learn to become old betimes,' if he wishes to attain old age. Cicero, we are told, was asked if he still indulged in the pleasures of love. 'Heaven forbid,' replied he, 'I have forsworn it as I would a savage and a furious master.'"

Some learned physicians place the proper limit of man's functional activity at fifty years, if he would not render himself guilty of shortening his days by sensuality. Other reasons for this course will appear hereafter.

When the passions have been indulged, and their diminishing vigor stimulated, a horrid disease, satyriasis, not infrequently seizes upon the imprudent individual, and drives him to the perpetration of the most loathsome crimes and excesses. Passions cultivated and encouraged by gratification through life will thus sometimes assert a total supremacy in old age.

[Marriage.]—The scope and plan of this work will allow of but the briefest possible consideration of this subject upon which volumes have been written, much to no purpose other than the multiplication of books. We shall devote no space to consideration of the origin of the institution, its expediency, or varied relations, as these topics are foreign to the character of this work.

The primary object of marriage was, undoubtedly, the preservation of the race, though there are other objects which, under special circumstances, may become paramount even to this. These latter we cannot consider, as only the relations of the reproductive functions in marriage come properly within our province.

The first physiological question to be considered is concerning the proper age for marriage.

[Time to Marry.]—Physiology fixes with accuracy the earliest period at which marriage is admissible. This period is that at which the body attains complete development, which is not before twenty in the female, and twenty-four in the male. Even though the growth may be completed before these ages, ossification of the bones is not fully effected, so that development is incomplete.

Among most modern nations, the civil laws fixing the earliest date of marriage seem to have been made without any reference to physiology, or with the mistaken notion that puberty and nubility are identical. It is interesting to note the different ages established by different nations for the entrance of the married state. The degenerating Romans fixed the ages of legal marriage at thirteen for females, and fifteen for males. The Grecian legislator, Lycurgus, placed the ages at seventeen for the female, and thirty-seven for the male. Plato fixed the ages at twenty and thirty years. In Prussia, the respective ages are fifteen and nineteen; in Austria, sixteen and twenty; in France, sixteen and eighteen, respectively.