In 1761 and 1762 I saw two young men both very healthy, very strong, and vigorous, who were attacked, the one on the next morning the other on the next night of their respective weddings, with a violent fever, without any shudder, their pulse quick and hard, lightness of head, many slight convulsive motions, an intolerable restlessness, and the skin very dry. The second was extremely thirsty, and made water with great difficulty. I imagined, at first, that an excess of wine might have some share in these accidents, but I was fully convinced to the contrary, at least by the second. They were both of them cured in about two days time, a circumstance, which, joined to the epoch of their disorder, and to its symptoms, leaves no doubt about the cause of it. Careful observations and sad experience have taught me, that acute disorders were always very dangerous in persons accustomed to self-pollution; their progress is commonly irregular, their symptoms unaccountable, their periods interverted. The constitution affords no resources; Art is obliged to do every thing, and as it never procures perfect _Crises_, when, after a great deal of pains, the disease is got under, the patient remains rather in a state of languor than of recovery, which exacts a continuation of the most assiduous care, to hinder him from falling into some chronical disorder. I find that FONSECA has already stated this danger. “Many young persons (says he) and those very robust ones, are either attacked, after excesses with women, on the same night, with an acute fever that kills them, or fall into grievous disorders, of which they find it a difficult matter to be cured; for when the body is weakened by venereal excesses, if it should be attacked with an acute distemper, there is no remedy[50].” A young lad, not quite sixteen, had abandoned himself to self-pollution, with such a rage, that, at length, instead of seed, he only brought blood, of which the emission was soon followed by excessive pains, and by an inflammation of all the organs of generation. Happening to be in the country, I was consulted. I ordered extremely emollient cataplasms, which produced the effect I expected from them: but I have since learnt, that he died soon after of the small-pox; and do not in the least doubt of the hurt he did his constitution by the fury of that infamous practice, having much contributed to render that distemper mortal. What a warning should not this be to young people! All those who have sometimes occasion to have the venereal disorder under their cure, know that it frequently becomes mortal, in such as have had their constitution impaired or worn out by frequency of debauchery. I have seen the most deplorable objects in that way. SECTION V. _Consequences of self-pollution to the female sex._