Plain Facts for Old and Young

by John Harvey Kellogg

It should be further added that there is evidence that a powerful predisposition to this vice is transmitted to the children of those who have themselves been guilty of it.

[Signs of Self-Abuse.]—The net which this vice weaves around its victims is so strong, and its meshes are so elaborately interwoven with all his thoughts, his habits, and his very being, when it has been long indulged, that it is important to be able to detect it when first acquired, as it may then be much more easily overcome than at any subsequent period. It is often no easy matter to do this, as the victim will resort to all manner of cunning devices to hide his vice, and will not scruple to falsify concerning it, when questioned. To be able to accomplish this successfully, requires a careful study, first, of the signs by which those who indulge in the practice may be known, and, secondly, of the habits of the individuals.

In considering the subject it will be found that there are two classes of signs, as follows:—

1. Those which may arouse suspicion, but any one of which, taken singly, would not be an evidence of the practice.

2. Those which may be regarded as positive. Several suspicious signs together may constitute a positive sign. Under these two heads, we will consider the signs of this vile habit.

It is well to bear in mind the fact that one or two suspicious signs are not evidence of the disease. It is likewise well to remember that the habit may be found where least looked for, and where one would have a right to expect perfect purity. Prejudice must be allowed no voice upon either side. A writer has said that every young person under puberty ought to be suspected of the disease. We can hardly indorse this remark, in full, but it would be at least wise for every guardian of children to criticize most carefully their habits and to quickly detect the first indications of sinful practices. Parents must not think that their children, at least, are too good to engage in such sinful abuses. It is most probable that their children are very like those of their neighbors; and any amount of natural goodness is not a protection against this insidious vice when it presents itself as a harmless pleasure to the unwarned and ignorant child.

[Suspicious Signs.]—The following symptoms, occurring in the mental and physical character and habits of a child or young person, may well give rise to grave suspicions of evil, and should cause parents or guardians to be on the alert to root it out if possible:—

1. [General debility], coming upon a previously healthy child, marked by emaciation, weakness, an unnatural paleness, colorless lips and gums, and the general symptoms of exhaustion, when it cannot be traced to any other legitimate cause, as internal disease, worms, grief, overwork, poor air or poor food, and when it is not speedily removed by change of air or appropriate remedial measures, may safely be attributed to solitary vice, no matter how far above natural suspicion the individual may be. Mistakes will be rare indeed when such a judgment is pronounced under the circumstances named.

2. [Early symptoms of consumption]—or what are supposed to be such—as cough, and decrease in flesh, with short breathing and soreness of the lungs—or muscles of the chest—are not infrequently, solely the result of this vice. That such is the case may be considered pretty surely determined if physical examination of the lungs reveals no organic disease of those organs. But it should be remembered that solitary vice is one of the most frequent causes of early consumption. Several cases which strikingly prove this have fallen under our own observation.