These diseases are worthy of serious consideration, as they are very widespread and are the cause of many unhappy homes, of untold family tragedies, and of much individual and moral suffering. These diseases do not cause physical pains, neither are they dangerous to life, but men afflicted with them feel so miserable, suffer such agonies of moral anguish, are so depressed in spirit and so despaired of life that they would prefer any acute pain or welcome any operation to relieve their misery.
Impotence.
Impotence, as mentioned above, is an inability to perform a normal sexual intercourse. The indispensable physical condition for a normal sexual intercourse is an erect position (erection of the penis) and a normal period of time before a seminal ejaculation takes place; hence Impotentia can be manifested either by partial or total power of erection, or premature ejaculation, or both. According to various causes leading to loss of erective power, three various kinds of Impotence should be considered—psychic, irritable, and paralytic.
Psychic impotence is a very peculiar condition strikingly illustrating a powerful influence of the mind over bodily functions. It usually attacks young men in perfect health who are of a worrying and brooding disposition, particularly so over sexual matters. They may have on their conscience the guilt of having indulged in masturbation years ago, or they may have had a gonorrheal infection some time before. As a result of this brooding over the sins of their youth, they work themselves into a suggestion that they have ruined their system and have lost their sexual power, and such is the power of self-suggestion that in spite of perfect health and the absence of any abnormal condition, all attempts at normal intercourse end in dismal failure, which in the case of newly-married people is naturally a very grave and distressing occurrence. Ordinarily these cases get well after a certain period of time under the influence and care of a physician without any local treatment, but under general tonic regime. The main danger of these cases is that this class of cases fall particularly easy prey to medical quack healers, who exploit the ignorant and terror-stricken victims to the limit of their ability to pay, by intensifying their fear and curing them from non-existing terrible diseases.
Irritative Impotence.
The second type of Impotence, irritative, is the most frequent of all. In this condition the power of erection may or may not be affected, but the main distressing feature is a premature ejaculation of seminal fluid, which may take place even before a man approaches the woman. This condition is caused by over-stimulation and over-irritation of the sexual nervous apparatus, and is mostly the result either of an old habit of masturbation (self-abuse) or a chronic inflammation in the deep urethra left after previous Gonorrhea. This class of patients is also suffering from frequent night emissions and general nervosity. They constitute the most pitiful and miserable group of all venereal cases. Weak and haggard-looking from loss of seminal fluid, broken in spirit as well as in body, they are haunted by a feeling of despair and utter annihilation; they are full of disgust with themselves, and are frequently incapable of pursuing their occupation. This class of men, as all the Impotentia cases, also fall easy prey to medical quacks, as they are often ashamed to go to a regular practitioner and family physician, and prefer to go to a stranger. Fortunately these cases are not difficult to cure, though it takes usually several months to effect a permanent cure. The treatment will vary according to the cause producing this hyperirritability of the nervous apparatus. It may require treatment of the deep urethra, prostate gland, or general tonic regime.
Spermatorrhea (Involuntary Loss of Seminal Fluid).
A common and one of the most distressing features of irritative impotence is Spermatorrhea, i. e., an involuntary loss of the seminal fluid, outside of night emissions. These seminal losses occur either as periodical oozing of a few drops at the end of urination and defecation, or as continual oozing as a result of muscular weakness and insufficient contraction of prostatic ducts. This continually oozing fluid is usually prostatic secretion, and is due to the existing chronic prostatitis. The cure of this condition is effected thru the treatment of the prostate gland.
Urorrhea (Wetness from Dribbling and Oozing of Clear Watery Discharge).
It should be mentioned here that there is another condition resembling very much the above-described Spermatorrhea, a condition that scares the patients very much, who think they are suffering from seminal losses. This condition, Urorrhea, is very harmless, as the secretion oozing in these cases is plain water and mucus, due to excessive blood congestion in time of sexual excitement. But the difference between these two fluids and two conditions can be established only by a physician on microscopical examination, and should not be left to the judgment of the patient himself.