Fourthly, He advises restoratives, or analeptics.
Fifthly, The use of the cold-bath.
Sixthly, Not to sleep on one’s back, but on one side, or prone.
All this advice is full of sensible things; but let us examine more distinctly the indication that presents itself. It is to diminish the quantity of the seminal liquid, and to prevent those lascivious dreams. Now generally speaking, the diet and the regimen are much more proper to obtain these ends, than medicines. The fittest aliments are those which are procured from the vegetable kingdom, pulse, herbs, grain, and fruits. Among the meats, those which contain the least substance. In both the one and the other class, the choice should fall on those which have the least acridity. It has been precedently remarked, what an influence this regimen has on the tranquillity of sleep; it cannot be too much recommended to persons afflicted with nocturnal pollutions, to whom that tranquillity is so necessary. They ought especially to renounce suppers, or at least never sup but lightly: this single attention contributes more to operate a cure than all the medicines.
Some years ago I knew a young man, who had almost every night a nocturnal pollution, and who had before had some fits of the night-mare. A barber-surgeon had ordered him to drink every night, at his lying down, some glasses of warm water; which, without diminishing the pollutions, augmented the other complaint. Both these evils then united, and returned every night. The dream of the night-mare was the phantom of a female, which caused at the same time his pollution. Weakened by the double disorder, and by the privation of a tranquil sleep, he was going fast into a consumption. I prescribed his taking nothing for supper but a little bread and some raw fruits, and, as he went to bed, to drink a glass of cold water, with fifteen drops of the anodine mineral liquor of Hoffman. It was not long before he regained his tranquillity of sleep; his two disorders left him intirely, and he soon recovered his strength.
Heavy, indigest meats, game or venison, especially at night, are a perfect poison for this disorder; and, I repeat it, without leaving off suppers, and especially of animal food, all the other remedies can be of no service. Wine, spirituous liquors, coffee, are, in many lights, hurtful. The best drink is that of pure water; or there may, to advantage, in each bottle of it be dissolved a drachm of nitre.
The precept that Coelius gives for avoiding soft beds, is of the greatest importance. There should be no feathers suffered in it: straw is preferable to horse-hair, and I have known some patients receive benefit from covering the mattrass with leather.
The advice against not lying on one’s back, is especially necessary; this posture, in the night, contributing to render the sleep the more agitated, and to heat more the parts of generation.
In short, as habit has, in this case, a very great influence, and that to break it is the capital point, the following observation may furnish a means of succeeding. I owe it to an Italian gentleman, respectable for his virtues, and one of the worthiest characters I ever remember to have known. He consulted me upon a disorder of a very different kind; but in order to give me the clearer notions of his present case, he let me into the history of his health. He had five years before then been troubled with frequent pollutions, which totally exhausted him. Upon this he took, over-night, a firm resolution to wake of himself the first moment that the appearance of a female should strike his imagination; and, before he fell asleep, he took care to dwell fixedly and strongly on this idea. This remedy was attended with the happiest success; the idea of the danger, and his resolution of waking of himself, being closely, over-night, linked with the idea of a woman, reproduced themselves, in the midst of his sleep, at the same time, and jointly with this last: he waked at the time, and this precaution, repeated for some nights, dissipated the disorder.
But I would not have those two last instances inspire too much security: there are cases against which the best remedies must fail; that which Hoffman relates[146] is an example; and it would be right to give before-hand to patients the advice which he gave to his; it is this; that without a long perseverance in the use of proper remedies, there is no efficacy to be hoped for from them; or rather, that in such a case, as that the regimen is the great essential, it is often only by means of a long observance of it, that any perceptible relief can be obtained. If remedies are employed, they ought to be regulated by the same indications as the regimen. It is not long since I knew a copious bleeding carry off this disorder. Nitrous powders, lemonades, acid spirits, almond emulsions, may be of service.