A Treatise on the Diseases Produced By Onanism, Masturbation, Self-Pollution, and Other Excesses.Deslandes, L. (Léopold)
Science
A Treatise on the Diseases Produced By Onanism, Masturbation, Self-Pollution, and Other Excesses.
Deslandes, L. (Léopold)
Masturbation
Do not these facts show that the spinal marrow has a marked influence
on the genital organs. We have already mentioned the opinion of Sainte
Marie, who regards involuntary pollutions as sometimes the cause and
sometimes the result of affections of the spinal marrow. May not an
original or accidental state of this organ be, in some subjects,
the indirect cause of venereal excesses? Remark the influence of a
recumbent position, in producing voluptuous dreams and emissions of
semen. Does not this singular effect depend on the heat of the spinal
marrow caused by this position? This is possible, particularly if you
consider the advantages derived in involuntary pollution, priapism,
and satyriasis, from douches of cold water along the vertebral
column, particularly on the lumbar and sacral regions, and also from
the application of ice to these parts. Sainte Marie has sometimes
arrested the spasm of the genital organs by frictions on the sacrum
with bladders full of ice. We think, then, there are cases where these
remedies may be used successfully to combat the habit of masturbation.
Narcotic frictions and endermic applications may be made along the
vertebral column, as we have said, when speaking of the cerebellum. In
vigorous patients, leeches and cups may be applied to the loins. We
will not allude here to the remedy recommended by many old authors, of
a sheet of lead to the kidneys, for this cannot produce the refrigerant
effect expected from it.
The organic conditions of venereal desire are confined neither to the
cerebellum nor spinal marrow: they may exist, also, in all parts of the
genital system, as we shall demonstrate.
A considerable part of this system is formed of a tissue termed the
_erectile_, on account of its power of swelling, hardening, and
becoming erected. It constitutes the whole of the cavernous bodies--the
glans, which is the loose extremity of these bodies--the spongy part of
the urethra--the clitoris--and a considerable portion of the vulva and
vagina. The part taken by this tissue in the work of generation, would
indicate that it is affected in amatory desires, and that its state
must exercise some influence upon them; which is demonstrated by the
facts we shall mention.
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