The Biology, Physiology and Sociology of Reproduction / Also Sexual Hygiene with Special Reference to the Male

by Winfield Scott Hall

If we consider the revolting sequences of syphilis with its train of operations, and progeny of scrofulous children, it would seem to make the natural retribution for illicit intercourse infinitely outweigh any brief pleasures derived from the enjoyment of the stolen fruits.

It hardly seems possible that any young man who knows the whole truth about these venereal diseases and their terrible after-effects could be tempted to indulge in illicit intercourse.

2. MASTURBATION.

The vice of masturbation or self-abuse is very likely to be learned in boyhood, perhaps even by boys of six or eight years of age through their associations with obscene playmates. It not infrequently happens, however, that the habit is learned independent of these evil associations. It has been explained above that secretions frequently accumulate under the prepuce and accumulating there serve as a local irritation, causing itching of the organ. This local irritation leads the boy to attempt to allay the irritation through rubbing. Such manipulation of the organ is very likely to excite it and to lead to the discovery on the part of the boy that such local manipulation may lead to pleasurable sensations of momentary duration. If he has not been instructed by his parents that these organs are sacred to the uses of manhood and that they will be injured if handled during childhood, he is very likely to repeat this act until it becomes a more or less fixed habit.

While it must be admitted that anything short of extreme excess in this habit among little boys will not be permanently injurious if the habit is stopped at puberty, it must be perfectly evident that if a boy enters puberty with this habit, the psychical and physical conditions of puberty are such as to make the habit very difficult to stop. If it is not stopped a serious injury may result. So the necessity hardly need be further urged for explaining to young boys that these organs should not be handled.

After the boy enters puberty, the habit of masturbation either acquired during puberty or carried into that stage from early boyhood, begins to have a distinctly deleterious effect.

Let us now consider just what is the character of this deleterious effect. From what we know of the physiology of the sexual apparatus, it must be evident that a sexual orgasm could be produced during waking hours only through strong stimulation of the activity of the testes, accompanied by liberation of spermatozoa and of the other elements of the vital fluid. Let us not forget in this connection, the statement made above: that the testis produces two forms of secretion, the internal secretion and the external secretion, the internal secretion being absorbed, produces those male characteristics which we group together under virility, while the external secretion is used for procreation. Spermatozoa do not make any part of the internal secretion. One reason for this must be evident, i.e., that being cellular elements, they could not pass through the vessel walls and be absorbed into the blood current, and if they could, by some special adaptation, get into the blood current, there is no conceivable action which they could perform in the body. We must then look upon the internal secretion as composed of the liquid elements of the testicular secretion.

So far as physiologists know at present, the external secretion differs from the internal secretion only in possessing spermatozoa. When we say that the testes form their external secretion under sexual excitement only, we simply mean that they liberate or release spermatozoa under sexual excitement. The spermatozoa must be looked upon as the fertilizing element of the semen, while the liquid portion of the semen probably contains that mysterious element which, absorbed into the body, produces virility and which, passed out with the spermatozoa, may have an important role to perform in the fertilizing function.

If the adolescent young man is leading a continent life, we may assume that from time to time he is subjected to conditions which serve as strong sexual stimuli, arousing in him a definite desire for sexual intercourse; but leading a continent life, he curbs his desire and fixes his thoughts upon other subjects. In this way, though the sexual excitement is brought quickly under abeyance, we can rest assured that a certain number of spermatozoa have been released from the testes; and that the other secretions have been increased in volume. The excitement may be sufficient even to cause an erection, and produce a few drops of the secretion of Cowper's glands. The spermatozoa, together with a small amount of the liquid secretion, will make their way gradually along the vasa deferentia and collect in the ampullæ. The bulk of the liquid secretion, however, will, in the course of the following hours or days, be reabsorbed, thus making for virility. The small advance guard of spermatozoa that may have made their way to the ampullæ will undergo a gradual decrease of their nascent activity, as the days go by. On the occasion of the next nocturnal emission the ampullæ will empty along with the seminal vesicles and these spermatozoa pass out. If they be examined under the microscope as a part of a normal nocturnal emission, they will be found to be almost motionless or very greatly lacking in typical spermatozoon activity.