A TREATISE ON THE DISEASES PRODUCED BY ONANISM, MASTURBATION, SELF-POLLUTION, AND OTHER EXCESSES. BY L. DESLANDES, M. D., MEMBER OF THE ROYAL ACADEMY OF MEDICINE AT PARIS, AND OTHER LEARNED SOCIETIES. TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH, WITH MANY ADDITIONS. Second Edition. BOSTON: OTIS, BROADERS, AND COMPANY. 1839. Entered, according to an Act of Congress, in the year 1838, by OTIS, BROADERS & COMPANY, In the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of Massachusetts. PREFACE. To those who would complain of the publication of a work upon the delicate subject to which the following pages refer, we would remark, that the evil here depicted, is one of great magnitude. This cause of disease is often entirely overlooked even by medical men, either from false notions of delicacy, or because their attention has not been drawn by fearful experience to cases which are ascribable merely to onanism. The patient is unconscious of his danger, and perseveres in his vicious habit--the physician treats him symptomatically, and death soon closes the scene. “Many a young man,” remarked a physician, who had seen much of disease from this cause, “many a one has come to me, totally unconscious that his criminal act was sapping to the very foundation his health and strength.” To call the attention of medical men to this source of disease, and to point out to such persons not of the profession as may meet with this book, and who indulge in this habit, the fatal precipice to which they wend their way, has been the object of publishing it here. How very many cases of consumption, that disease which annually destroys its thousands, could, if the truth were known, be referred to this cause! How many minds have been ruined by self-indulgence! If any apology were needed for this publication, it may be found in the last annual report of the State Lunatic Asylum of Massachusetts, which states that of the number of insane received at that institution during the last year, no less than THIRTY-TWO lost their senses from this cause. CONTENTS. PART I. EFFECTS OF VENEREAL EXCESSES. CHAPTER 1. DANGER ATTENDING VENEREAL EXCESSES. § 1. Power of the genital organs when at rest. § 2. Power of the genital organs when excited. § 3. Power of the genital organs when in action. CHAPTER 2. CIRCUMSTANCES WHICH RENDER THE ACT OF VENERY MORE OR LESS INJURIOUS TO THE CONSTITUTION AND TO THE HEALTH. § 1. Circumstances connected with the act of venery which render it more or less injurious. § 2. Circumstances foreign to the act of venery which render it more or less injurious. § 3. Influence which the general state of the functions at different AGES and the particular state of some of them at different periods of life, may have on the consequences of the act of venery. CHAPTER 3. SYMPTOMS AND DISEASES RESULTING FROM VENEREAL EXCESSES. § 1. General symptoms of venereal excesses.