The genital organs may, from too much excitement, lose their sensibility, and waste. The manipulations, which at first were followed with the desired result, become unable to excite the genital sense. They may sometimes cause the erection of the penis, and even excite a painful or inconvenient priapism; but they cannot renew the fountain of enjoyment. The remembrance of past pleasures remains; and the onanist, disturbed by their recollection, torments his blunted organs. Obtaining no satisfaction from the modes formerly employed, he now resorts to others, which are sometimes dreadful. His hand which is now armed with some instrument, no longer confines itself to the surface: the surface no longer feels. He now ventures inside, and shrinks from nothing. This continues until these dangerous resources fail, which happens, because they also lose their effect, or because of the severe accidents with which they are sometimes attended.
The following case from Chopart, on diseases of the urinary passages, shows the almost incredible extent of insensibility which the penis may attain, or of delirium which may affect a man, who, having exhausted his faculties by excesses, still remains a slave to his passions:—
“A shepherd of Languedoc, Gabriel Gallien, about the age of fifteen, became addicted to onanism, and to such a degree, as to practise it seven or eight times in a day. Emission became at last so difficult, that he would strive for an hour, and then discharge only a few drops of blood. At the age of six and twenty, his hand became insufficient: all he could do, was to keep the penis in a continual state of priapism. He then bethought himself of tickling the internal part of his urethra, by means of a bit of wood, six inches long; and he would spend in that occupation several hours, while tending his flocks in the solitude of the mountains. By a continuation of this titillation for sixteen years, the canal of the urethra became hard, callous, and insensible. The piece of wood then became as ineffectual as his hand. At last, after much fruitless effort, G., one day in despair, drew from his pocket a blunt knife, and made an incision into his glands, along the course of the urethra. This operation, which would have been painful to any body else, was, in him, attended with a sensation of pleasure, followed by a copious emission. He had recourse to his new discovery every time his desire returned. When, after an incision into the cavernous bodies, the blood flowed profusely, he stopped the hemorrhage, by applying around the penis a pretty tight ligature. At last, after repeating the same process, perhaps a thousand times, he ended in splitting his penis into two equal parts, from the orifice of the penis to the stratum, very near to the symphisis pubis. When he had got so far, unable to carry his incision any farther, and again reduced to new privations, he had recourse to a piece of wood, shorter than the former: he introduced it into what remained of the urethra, and exciting at pleasure the extremities of the ejaculatory ducts, he provoked easily the discharge of semen. He continued this about ten years. After that long space of time, he one day introduced his bit of wood so carelessly, that it slipped from his fingers, and dropped into the bladder. Excruciating pain and serious symptoms came on. The patient was conveyed to the hospital at Narbonne. The surgeon, surprised at the sight of two penes of ordinary size, both capable of erection, and in that stage diverging on both sides; and seeing, besides, from the scars, and from the callous edges of the divisions, that this conformation was not congenital from his birth; obliged the patient to give him an account of his life, which he did, with the details which have been related. This wretch was cut, as for the stone—recovered of the operation—but died three months after, of an abscess in the right side of the chest; his phthisical state having been evidently brought on by the practice of onanism, carried on nearly forty years.”
Whatever may be the degree of degradation attending onanism, we do not think it possible to adduce a second instance of such a mutilation. Gallien’s unhappy idea of introducing a foreign body into the urethra, has often occurred to others, who had availed themselves, but unsuccessfully, of the ordinary resources of masturbation. These unfortunate people have always been obliged to call in medical advice, either on account of the diseases caused by their dangerous manœuvres, or—much more frequently—by the symptoms to which they fall victims, through their carelessness. In fact, the implements used often escape into the bladder; and then the acute suffering and fear of death oblige them to reveal what they had formerly concealed, and to undergo an operation which is always painful, and which is not exempt from danger.
We will give a few instances of this kind of accident. An innkeeper, near Saumur, was in the habit, like Gallien, of titillating the urethra, by introducing foreign bodies. He used an iron wire, seven or eight inches long, the end of which was crooked like a hook, to obtain, probably, more exquisite pleasure. One day, while indulging in this singular manœuvre, he suddenly felt severe pain. The membraneous portion of the canal was ruptured. The unfortunate man made several attempts to withdraw the wire; but the hook, which had entered the soft parts, rendered it impossible. Overcome by suffering and shame, he wished to get rid of it; and with this view, he rounded the loose part of the wire into the form of a ring, proposing in this manner to pull upon it more firmly. He exercised this force till the ring was nearly broken, but the iron was still in its place. He now expected death; but the suffering was so great, that he was obliged to call a physician; and Dr. Fardeau, of Saumur, visited him.
The penis, and also the skin of the scrotum, was enormously tumefied: all the tissues which are inserted in the penis were also swelled, hot, and painful. The belly began to be puffy, and the urine was suppressed; the face was red, and the eye filmy; the mind began to be affected; the pulse was hard, frequent, and corded. Dr. Fardeau grasped the loose portion of the wire, pulled upon it slightly, and immediately found that the other end was arrested by an immoveable obstacle. He then examined the parts attentively; and found, to his astonishment, that the hook was fixed in the inner edge of the ischiatic tuberosity. An oblong incision was now made over this part, the hook seized, and the wire was withdrawn through the perineum. The patient was relieved, and finally was completely restored. (Lancette Fr., October 13th, 1831.)
Saraillé has reported a similar case. The patient was fifty years old, and called this surgeon the 18th of October, 1813. He stated that a sailing needle, about four inches long, had unfortunately slipped into the urethra; and the point had become fixed upward, near the root of the penis. After suffering for eight days, during which the presence of this body excited frequent erections, Lallemand operated, and extracted it.
Many individuals have been similarly affected. They have all imagined that they could extract the instrument they used, when some unforeseen accident has deprived them of it. A young man, nineteen years old, whose case is mentioned by Louis Senn, made use of the stalk of a plant, which he introduced into the urethra. It broke; and after much suffering, the operation for stone was employed to extract it, and the calculi which had formed around it. A similar circumstance happened to a man, thirty-eight years old, a patient of Rigal’s. This man introduced into his urethra the stalk of a sword lily, (gladiolus communis.) This stalk broke, fell into the bladder, and after two months of pain and danger, the operation for stone was employed to extract it. It was two inches long; and was already covered with a saline concretion, one or two lines thick. Bonnet, formerly surgeon at Hotel Dieu, at Clermont, stated in his lectures, that a vine-dresser used a vine-stalk for this purpose. During an emission of semen, he dropped the stalk, which entered the urethra, and passed into the bladder, where it caused symptoms which required the operation of lithotomy. The foreign body extracted was three inches long, and three lines thick. Would it be believed, that Civiale has extracted from the bladder of a man, by means of lithotrity, a bean, which was introduced eleven months before, and which gave rise to all the symptoms of stone? A volume might be filled with facts of a similar character. Many may be found in the Ephemerides Curiosorum, Memoirs of the Royal Academy of Sciences, those of the Royal Society of Medicine, and of the Academy of Surgery; in the works of Chopart, Deschamps, Lamotte, Tolet, Morgagni, Van Swieten, Morand, Pouteau, &c.
The dangers of these practices are not simply those which are stated in the facts already mentioned; nor are they confined to exhausting the rest of the sensibility preserved in the genital organs: they finally cause chronic diseases of the urethra and bladder. These organs, when constantly irritated by applications which in individuals not entirely exhausted are always painful—these organs inflame; indurations, ulcerations, and strictures, form in the urethra; after which supervene all the symptoms of acute and chronic blenorrhea, detentions of urine, and catarrh of the bladder.
Venereal delirium has led other individuals to use processes no less ridiculous, and equally as dangerous. The penis of those who are thus unfortunate has remained in the places where it has been introduced, with a view to imitate the natural process better. Sabatier has related the case of a young man, who had passed his penis through the handle of a key. The handle had been pushed far towards the pubis, and the penis had swelled so as to conceal it from sight: the swelling was also increased by the efforts of the patient to withdraw it. After oiling the parts well, the handle was slipped down as far as the glans; but here scarifications were required, to diminish the engorgement, before the penis could be liberated. After this, escars sloughed off, which were followed by cicatrices, which rendered the part deformed, although a sound was introduced into the urethra, to prevent this result.