In 1753 I restored, perfectly, a foreigner, who had so exhausted himself with a woman of the town, that he was grown incapable of any act of virility; his stomach was also extremely weakened, and the want of nutrition and sleep had quite emaciated him. At six in the morning he took six ounces of the bark-decoction, to which he added a spoonfull of Canary-wine: an hour afterwards he took ten ounces of goats milk, fresh drawn, with a little sugar, and an ounce of orange-flower-water. He dined on a cold roast fowl, with a glass of excellent Burgundy, diluted with an equal part of water. At six in the evening he took a second dose of the bark; at half an hour after six he went into the cold bath, in which he staid ten minutes, and immediately on coming out of it, went to bed. At eight in the evening he took again the same quantity of milk, and got up from nine till ten. Such was the effect of these remedies, that at the end of eight days, on seeing me come into his room, he cried out to me, in a transport of joy, that he had recovered the external sign of virility, if I may make use of M. Buffon’s expression. In a month, he had almost intirely retrieved his original vigor.
Some absorbent powders; some spoonfulls of mint-water, often the addition of only a little sugar; some pills of the extract of the bark with mastic, which is itself an useful remedy in this case, may also contribute to prevent the disagreement of the milk. To the mastic, or to the gum-dragon, might be substituted that gum newly introduced in some parts of England, under the name of Gumm. rubrum Gambiense, upon which there may be seen a small dissertation in that excellent collection published by the new Society of Physicians formed at London[126]. It strengthens, it sweetens: which are the two great indications in the diseases of which I am treating.
However, if with all the care that may be taken, it should be found impossible to bear the milk, I should advise trying butter-milk. I prescribed it with success for a young man, in whom certain symptoms of vergency to the hypochondriac disorder deterred me from a recourse to milk itself. The bilious drink the butter-milk with pleasure, and are always the better for it; and indeed it ought always to be preferred to milk, where there is a great deal of heat, a feverishness, an eresipelatous disposition; but it is especially of very great service when the venereal excesses produce an acute fever, such as was that of which Raphael died. Notwithstanding the weakness in these erotic fevers, the tonics would be hurtful; bleeding is dangerous: the famous Johnston, who died Baron of Ziebendorff, above fourscore years ago, positively forbad it in this case[127]. Too cooling a method of cure does not succeed, as the observation of M. Vandermonde proves, and as I have myself seen; but the butter-milk is of service, provided it is not too unctuous. It calms, it dilutes, it sweetens, it assuages the thirst, it refreshes, and at the same time nourishes and strengthens, which is of great importance in this case; one symptom of which is, that strength melts away in it with an inconceivable quickness. M. Gilchrist, who does not lay any great stress on milk in a hectic, commends greatly the use of butter-milk in that very disorder[128].
Since my last edition of this work, published about four years ago, (it being now 1764,) I have been consulted by several persons in a state of enervity or debility. Some have been intirely cured. Many have received considerable relief; others none at all. When the disease is got to a certain head, the most that can be hoped for is, that the remedies will stop the progress of the disorder. Of the successes of some of my patients I have remained unacquainted.
In almost all my treatment of these cases, milk has been the principal aliment; while the bark, martials, chalybeate waters, and the cold bath have been the remedies. Some patients I put intirely into a milk diet; others only took it once or twice a day.
The patient of whom I particularised the case in the fifth Section, where I promised an account of my method of management of his disorder, lived for three months upon nothing but milk, upon bread well-baked, upon one or two quite new laid eggs, a day, and fair water, just drawn from the fountain. His milk he took four times a day, twice warm from the cow without bread, twice warmed on the fire with some bread. The remedies were an electuary composed of bark, of conserve of orange-peel, and syrup of mint. His breast was covered with an aromatic strengthening plaister. His whole body was every morning rubbed down with flannel. He took as much exercise as he could bear, both on horseback and foot, and especially he kept much in the open air. His weakness, and his complaints of his breast, hindered me from advising him the cold bath at that epoch. The success, however, of the remedies was such, that his strength returned to him, and his stomach was restored. In a month’s time he was able to walk a league on foot. His vomitings ceased intirely; the pains of his breast were considerably diminished, and for these three years last past he continues in a very tolerable state of health. Little by little he returned to his usual aliments, having taken a distaste to milk.
The parts of generation are always those that recover their vigor the slowest. Often too they never regain it, even though the rest of the body appear to have recovered its natural strength. In this case, it may be literally prophesied, that the part which has sinned, will be the part that shall die.
I have always found more facility in curing those who, in the age of maturity, had exhausted themselves by excesses, in a short time, than those who, in a longer space of it, had enervated themselves by pollutions, more rarely practised, but which having been begun in their tenderest youth, had hindered their growth, and had never allowed them to come to all their natural strength. The first may be considered as having had a violent illness, which has consumed all their strength, but whose organs having acquired all their perfection, however they may have much suffered, yet, the cessation of the cause of their illness, time, a good regimen, and proper remedies, may restore them. Whereas the others, having never let their constitution come to good, how should they be restored to what they never had? How could they expect that art should operate in the age of maturity, what they have hindered nature from operating in the tender season of youth and of puberty? Common sense must tell one how chimerical such a hope must be; and, indeed, my observations every day prove to me, that young persons, who have delivered themselves up to this pollution, in their childhood, in their earliest youth, and in the epoch of the unfolding of puberty, an epoch which is a crisis of Nature, for which its whole strength is necessary to her; daily observation, I say, proves to me, that such young persons must never expect to be vigorous and robust: they may think themselves very well off, if they can compass the enjoying a moderate state of health, exempt from great disorders or great pains.
Those who trust to a tardy repentance, having delayed it to an age, in which the machine may preserve itself, when it is in good order, but is not to be repaired without great difficulty, ought not either to have great hopes. After forty it is rare to grow young again.