“This change requires all the energy of the system, greatly increased as it is at this period of life, which if undisturbed will bring about a vigorous and healthy condition of both the mental and physical powers.
“If masturbation be commenced at this period, it cannot fail to interrupt essentially this important process; and if continued, will inevitably impress imbecility on the constitution, not less apparent in the body than the mind, preventing, as it will not fail to do, the full development of the powers of both.
“The individual becomes feeble, is unable to labor with accustomed vigor, or to apply his mind to study; his step is tardy and weak, he is dull, irresolute, engages in his sports with less energy than usual, and avoids social intercourse; when at rest he instinctively assumes a lolling or recumbent posture, and if at labor or at his games takes every opportunity to lie down or sit in a bent and curved position. The cause of these infirmities is often unknown to the subject of them, and more generally to the friends; and to labor, or study, or growth, is attributed all the evils which arise from the practice of this secret vice, which if persisted in will hardly fail to result in irremediable disease or hopeless idiocy. The natural consequence of indulgence in this, as in most other vices, is an increased propensity to them. This is particularly true of masturbation. In my intercourse with this unfortunate class of individuals, I have found a large proportion of them wholly ignorant of the causes of their complaints, and if not too far gone the abandonment of the habit has, after awhile, removed all the symptoms and resulted in confirmed health.
“One young man, now under my care, was first arrested in his career by reading the chapters on the subject in the Young Man’s Guide. For many months, he has totally abstained from the practice, and yet he is feeble, depressed, irresolute, and unable to fix his attention to any subject, or to pursue any active employment. But he is steadily convalescing, and will doubtless recover.
“If the symptoms above enumerated do not lead in any way to a discontinuance of the habit, other symptoms more formidable, and more difficult of cure, will present themselves. The back becomes lame and weak, the limbs tremble, the digestion is disturbed, and costiveness or diarrhœa, or an alternation of them, take place. The head becomes painful—the heart palpitates—the respiration is easily hurried—the mind is depressed and gloomy—the temper becomes irritable—the sleep disturbed, and is attended by lascivious dreams, and not unfrequently nocturnal pollutions. With these symptoms the pulse becomes small, the extremities cold and damp; the countenance is downcast, the eye without natural lustre; shamefacedness is apparent, as if the unfortunate victim was conscious of his degraded condition.
“The stomach often rejects food, and is affected with acidity, and loathing; the nervous system becomes highly irritable; neuralgia, tabes dorsalis, pulmonary consumption, or fatal marasmus, terminate the suffering, or else insanity and deplorable idiocy are the fatal result. Long before such an event, the mind is enfeebled, the memory impaired, and the power of fixing the attention wholly lost. These are symptoms which should awaken our attention to the danger of the case, and which should induce us to sound the alarm, and if possible arrest the victim from the inevitable consequences of persisting in the habit.
“In females, leucorrhœa is often induced by masturbation, and I doubt not incontinence of urine, stranguary, prolapsus uteri, disease of the clitoris, and many other diseases, both local and general, which have been attributed to other causes.
“It is often difficult to obtain information on the subject of masturbation. Where it is suspected by the physician, the friends are wholly ignorant on the subject, and the individual, suffering, is not ready to acknowledge a practice which he is conscious is filthy in the extreme, although he may have had no suspicions of its deleterious influence upon his health.
“It is not sufficient that we know the consequences of masturbation, for these are often irremediable disease; we ought to know the symptoms of its commencement, of the incipient stages of those diseases which result from it, as well as the influence which the moderate practice of it will have upon the physical and mental stamina of the man—for it is not too much to say that the practice cannot be followed by either sex, even in a moderate way, without injury, especially by the young.
“Nature designs that this drain upon the system should be reserved to mature age, and even then that it be made but sparingly. Sturdy manhood, in all its vigor, loses its energy and bends under the too frequent expenditure of this important secretion; and no age or condition will protect a man from the danger of unlimited indulgence, legally and naturally exercised.