M. Hoffman prescribed for the self-pollutor, who, after having renounced his infamous practices, had fallen under the disorder of nocturnal pollutions, the following powder:
℞. C. C. pphicè ppati. Ossis sepiæ ana unc. ss. Succini cum instillat. Olei tartar. per deliquium ppat. dr. ii. Cascar. dr. i.
Of which he took one drachm over-night, with black cherry-water; and in the morning the Seltzer waters with milk; his drink, a ptisan of santal; the China-root, cichoreum, scorzonera, and cinnamon. With these helps, and a proper diet, the patient got well in a few weeks. M. Zimmerman, by means of the same powder, has cured “very frequent pollutions, attended with the common languor in that case, and which had lasted for several years, in a young man of twenty.” It is not easy to explain how this powder, which is but a simple absorbent, can do any good; but I have seen good effects from camphire.
Another sort of pollutions is such as are incident to Hypochondriacs. The circulation proceeds in them but slowly, especially in the veins of the Hypogastrium, which is specifically the reason why the parts from which those veins bring back the blood are often obstructed; the nerves are easily put into motion; the humors have a character of acridity extremely fit to irritate; their sleep is commonly disturbed with dreams: here you have many causes of pollution, and indeed they are much subject to them. “The imagination (says M. Boerhaave) often, during sleep, produces emissions of the seed. The most sedentary of the men of letters, and the splenetic, are liable to this accident; and the efflux of the seed is often so considerable, as to cause them to fall into an atrophy[147].” This disorder has for them so much the more vexatious consequences, for that they never give a loose to any excesses of this kind, without being extremely incommoded, as M. Fleming has happily expressed it:
Non Veneri crebro licet unquam impune litare.
For them there is but one method of cure, which is, to attack the principal disorder. The removal of the obstructions is the first thing to be done; after which the cold-bath should be used, and that salutary bark which God preserve to us. Then is truly the case of recourse to those two powerful remedies, with which martials may be allied. If an attention to the choice of aliments is necessary in all cases, it is particularly so in this. The Hypochondriacs, in general, perform their digestions very ill; the ill-digested aliments produce flatulent turgescences, which disturbing the circulation, dispose to pollutions in two ways; first, by obstructing the return of the blood in the veins of the genitals; secondly, by disturbing the tranquillity of sleep, and thereby consequently disposing to dreams. Thence sensibly appears the reason why Pythagoras forbad his disciples the eating flatulent aliments, which he, wisely, considered as detrimental both to the clearness and strength of the intellectual functions, and to corporal chastity. Besides the two reasons which I have given, I might venture to point out a third, which I have strongly had room to suspect in two patients; and that is, the expansion of the air, disengaged from the fluids in the corpus cavernosum, which produced an erection, together with the venereal pruriency. It is now well known that all our liquids are impregnated with this fluid, but that so long as they are in perfect health, that fluid is, as it were, imprisoned, and deprived of all elasticity. Great Naturalists have been of opinion, that there were but two ways of restoring to it its elasticity; the one, a considerably greater degree of heat than is observed in the animal body; and the other, putrefaction. But a multitude of observations of disorders produced by the air so dilated, have proved, that, independently of these two causes, there were other alterations in the fluids, which would have the same effect, and these alterations appear the most frequent in Hypochondriacs: so that it is not wonderful that the cavernous parts should be the seat of the expansion of this diseased air: on the contrary, there is no part which appears more likely to be exposed to it; and if attention has not thereto been given before now, it is probably rather for want of observers than of observableness. Observations, however, clearly evince the necessity of avoiding those aliments which, abounding more than others in air, are the more hurtful, both by that which separates from them in the first passages, and by that which they convey into the blood. Who does not know that new beer, which is extremely flatulent, occasions violent erections? Since my last edition of this work, I have seen that M. Thierry, one of the most learned Physicians, and of the most celebrated practitioners of France, has taken notice of these flatulent erections.
And here may be added, as bearing some affinity to this last kind of pollution, and principally attacking such as are melancholically affected, a disease that might be called a furor genitalis. It differs from a Priapism, and from the Satyriasis. I shall describe it by an observation already published in the first Latin edition of this work, and omitted in the French one.
A man about fifty years of age had labored under it for twenty-four years, and in all that long term could not pass twenty-four hours without recourse to women, or to that horrid supplement, self-pollution; and commonly he would reiterate the act several times a day. The seed was thin, acrid, unprolific, and the evacuation very quick. His nerves were excessively weakened: he had violent fits of melancholy, and vapors; his faculties were stupified, his hearing very indifferent or slow, his eyes extremely weak; in short, he died in the most wretched condition. I had never prescribed any thing for him; but he had taken a great number of remedies. Many of them had done him no service; all those that were of a hot nature had been prejudicial to him. Only bark, infused in wine, by order of M. Albinus, had relieved him: and the authority of this great Physician is a fresh, and, surely, a respectable testimony, in favor of that remedy.
Among the Consultations of M. Hoffman may be seen a case nearly similar to this; the pruriency was almost continual, and body and soul equally enervated[148].