19 Parise.
It may be questioned, perhaps, whether physiology will sustain to the fullest extent all the statements made in the last quotation; but perhaps physiology does not appreciate so fully as does pathology the worth of the most vital of all fluids, and the fearful results which follow its useless expenditure.
[Continence of Trainers.]—"The moderns who are training are well aware that sexual indulgence wholly unfits them for great feats of strength, and the captain of a boat strictly forbids his crew anything of the sort just previous to a match. Some trainers have gone so far as to assure me that they can discover by a man's style of pulling whether he has committed such a breach of discipline over night, and have not scrupled to attribute the occasional loss of matches to this cause."[20]
20 Acton.
[A Cause of Throat Disease.]—The disease known as "clergyman's sore throat" is believed by many eminent physicians to have its chief origin in excessive venery. It is well known that sexual abuse is a very potent cause of throat diseases. This view is supported by the following from the pen of the learned Dr. X. Bourgeois:—
"We ought not, then, to be surprised that the physiological act, requiring so great an expenditure of vitality, must be injurious in the highest degree, when it is reiterated abusively. To engender is to give a portion of one's life. Does not he who is prodigal of himself precipitate his own ruin? A peculiar character of the diseases which have their origin in venereal excesses and masturbation is chronicity."
"Individual predispositions, acquired or hereditary, engender for each a series of peculiar ills. In some, the debility bears upon the pulmonary organs. Hence results the dry cough, prolonged hoarseness, stitch in the side, spitting of blood, and finally phthisis. How many examples are there of young debauchees who have been devoured by this cruel disease!... It is, of all the grave maladies, the one which venereal abuses provoke the most frequently. Portal, Bayle, Louis, say this distinctly."
[A Cause of Consumption.]—This fatal disease finds a large share of its victims among those addicted to sexual excesses, either of an illicit nature or within the marriage pale, for the physical effects are essentially identical. This cause is especially active and fatal with sedentary persons, but is sufficiently powerful to undermine the constitution under the most favorable circumstances, as the following case illustrates:—
The patient was a young man of twenty-two, large, muscular, and well developed, having uncommonly broad shoulders and a full chest. His occupation had been healthful, that of a laborer. Had had cough for several months, and was spitting blood. Examination of lungs showed that they were hopelessly diseased. There was no trace of consumption in the family, and the only cause to which the disease could be attributed was excessive sexual indulgence, which he confessed to have practiced for several years.
[Effects on Wives.]—If husbands are great sufferers, as we have seen, wives suffer still more terribly, being of feebler constitution, and hence less able to bear the frequent shock which is suffered by the nervous system. Dr. Gardner places this evil prominent among the causes "the result of which we see deplored in the public press of the day, which warns us that the American race is fast dying out, and that its place is being filled by emigrants of different lineage, religion, political ideas, and education."