CLASSIFICATION.--Involuntary seminal losses embrace three conditions, which constitute as many varieties of the affection, and which may exist separately, or pass into one another, or be combined. These varieties are, first, nocturnal losses or pollutions, which occur during sleep, and are generally attended with an erection, erotic dream, and pleasurable sensation; secondly, diurnal pollutions, which take place when the patient is awake, are excited by trivial mechanical or psychical causes, and are associated with imperfect erection and diminished sensation; and, thirdly, spermorrhagia, or spermatorrhoea, in the strict acceptation of that term, which is characterized by a constant escape of a slight amount of seminal fluid, without the orgasm, pleasurable sensation, or impure thoughts, or during micturition and defecation. 1. Nocturnal Pollutions.--By far the most common of the varieties of seminal incontinence is the first, or that in which the emissions occur during sleep under the influence of an erotic dream, and which may, therefore, be regarded as an exaggeration of the normal or physiological condition. In health, provided the subject leads a continent life, the number of emissions varies greatly, and as they are merely reflex signs of distension of the seminal passages, they are not pathological nor are they attended with ill effects. The knowledge of this fact is of great practical importance, as it frequently enables the physician to assure his patient that the emissions are not abnormal, thereby relieving his mind of a great weight. It is, of course, to be remembered that the frequency of nocturnal pollutions depends upon age, climate, habits, temperament, constitution, diet, and predisposition, and that young men who suffered during childhood from nocturnal incontinence of urine are particularly obnoxious to them. Their frequency also varies greatly in the same person, and it is scarcely possible to determine what constitutes the standard {138} of health merely by the intervals of their repetition, since a number which would be normal in one person would be abnormal in another. In men, however, who possess sound nervous systems and who do not trouble themselves with sexual matters an emission every fortnight is a sign of excellent health; and even if they should occur at intervals of several days, they are not inconsistent with temporary good health. The latter statement is well exemplified by a case which came under my observation in 1882. A druggist, twenty-seven years of age, had had for six years from three to live emissions a week, and occasionally two during a single night, attended with erections and voluptuous dreams, without the slightest evidence of impairment of his health. In all such cases, however, as well as in those in which the emissions have occurred at longer intervals for a number of years, it only requires a little longer time for general symptoms to manifest themselves.