Plain Facts for Old and Young

by John Harvey Kellogg

There has been much discussion as to which one of these was the cause of the effects observed in these cases. Some have attributed all the evil to one cause, and some to the other. That the loss of semen is not the only cause, nor, perhaps, the chief source of injury, is proved by the fact that most deplorable effects of the vice are seen in children before puberty, and also in females, in whom no seminal discharge nor anything analogous to it occurs. In these cases, it is the nervous shock alone which works the evil.

Again, that the seminal fluid is the most highly vitalized of all the fluids of the body, and that its rapid production is at the expense of a most exhaustive effort on the part of the vital forces, is well attested by all physiologists. It is further believed by some eminent physicians that the seminal fluid is of great use in the body for building up and replenishing certain tissues, especially those of the nerves and brain, being absorbed after secretion. Though this view is not coincided in by all physiologists, it seems to be supported by the following facts:—

1. The composition of the nerves and that of spermatozoa is nearly identical.

2. Men from whom the testes have been removed before puberty, as in the case of eunuchs, are never fully developed as they would otherwise have been.

The nervous shock accompanying the exercise of the sexual organs—either natural or unnatural—is the most profound to which the system is subject. The whole nervous system is called into activity; and the effects are occasionally so strongly felt upon a weakened organism that death results in the very act. The subsequent exhaustion is necessarily proportionate to the excitement.

It need not be surprising, then, that the effects of the frequent operation of two such powerful influences combined should be so terrible as they are found to be.

[General Debility].—Nervous exhaustion and the loss of the vivifying influence of the seminal fluid produce extreme mental and physical debility, which increases as the habit is practiced, and is continued by involuntary emissions after the habit ceases. If the patient's habits are sedentary, and if he had a delicate constitution at the start, his progress toward the grave will be fearfully rapid, especially if the habit were acquired young, as it most frequently is by such boys, they being generally precocious. Extreme emaciation, sallow or blotched skin, sunken eyes, surrounded by a dark or blue color, general weakness, dullness, weak back, stupidity, laziness, or indisposition to activity of any kind, wandering and illy defined pains, obscure and often terrible sensations, pain in back and limbs, sleeplessness, and a train of morbid symptoms too long to mention in detail, attend these sufferers.

[Consumption].—It is well recognized by the medical profession that this vice is one of the most frequent causes of consumption. At least such would seem to be the declaration of experience, and the following statistical fact adds weight to the conclusion:—

"Dr. Smith read a paper before a learned medical association a few years since in which he pointed out the startling fact that in one thousand cases of consumption five hundred and eighteen had suffered from some form of sexual abuse, and more than four hundred had been addicted to masturbation or suffered from nocturnal emissions."[49]

49 Acton.