A Treatise on the Crime of Onan: Illustrated with a Variety of Cases, Together with the Method of CureTissot, S. A. D. (Samuel Auguste David)
Science
A Treatise on the Crime of Onan: Illustrated with a Variety of Cases, Together with the Method of Cure
Tissot, S. A. D. (Samuel Auguste David)
Masturbation -- Early works to 1800; Sexual ethics -- Early works to 1800
The dangers of the genuine running are very considerable. In the
beginning of the first Section, _On the Symptoms_, the description by
ARETÆUS has been quoted. “How (says he, in the same place) can one avoid
the being weakened, when that which is so essential to the vital forces
is continually slipping away, in waste. It is in the seminal liquid alone
that eminently resides the strength of man.”
CELSUS, who lived before the times of ARETÆUS, says positively, “That
the running of the seed without venereal sensation, brings on a
consumption[151].”
JOHN, son of ZACHARIAS, more commonly known by the name of ACTUARIUS,
in a work which he composed for the service of the Ambassador whom the
Emperor of Constantinople was sending to the North, is, upon this point,
of the same opinion with the authors I have already quoted. “If (says he)
the running of the seed, which proceeds without erection, and without
sensation, sails for any time, it produces necessarily a consumption and
death; for the most balsamic part of the humors and the animal spirits
are thereby dissipated and lost[152].”
Some of the most modern authors agree also, on this head, with the
antients. “The whole body (says SENNERTUS) becomes emaciated, and
especially the back; the patients grow weaker and weaker; they languish;
they have pains in the loins; they turn hollow-eyed[153].”
BOERHAAVE ranks this _gonorrhœa_ among the causes of the palsy; and it
may be remarked, that he admits in this place a _gonorrhœa_ of pure
seed. “The palsy (says he) which comes from a _gonorrhœa_, is incurable,
because the body is exhausted[154].”
On this matter there may also, in an excellent dissertation of M. KOEMPF,
be found some interesting observations[155].
This disorder may draw its origin from many remote causes. The proximate
cause is always unitedly constituted of a defectiveness or depravity in
the liquids, of which the running consists, they being too thin, and
often too acrid; and of a great relaxation of the parts. The defect in
the liquids denotes a want of elaboration, which is owing to a general
weakness; this requires tonic remedies, which the weakness of the organs
also indicates; the coincident circumstances determine the choice
of them. It would be out of place to enter here on all the relative
particulars, and upon which there may be found instructive lights in
many medical writers, and especially in SENNERTUS, author of the best
compendium of practical physic that we have.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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