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
We need not make many remarks on the effects of castration in the male
to show the influence of the testes on the development and vivacity
of lascivious desires. We know that it has been asserted that these
desires may remain after the loss of these organs. In support of this
opinion have been quoted Galen, Juvenal, Brantome and many other
authors, particularly Franck, who states that four eunuchs in a city
had so many intrigues with females, that the police were obliged to
interfere. (_Dict. des Sc. Med._, vol. iv. p. 269.) But these facts
only prove that eunuchs may indulge in pretended coition and that they
preserve some sparks of the fire which is generally seated in the
testicles. Most authors have attributed the action of these organs
in the sense of venery, to the fluid secreted by them, to the semen.
They say that this fluid awakes this sense either by the qualities it
assumes, when accumulating in the testicles or seminal vesicles, or
because it is carried by absorption to all parts of the body. This
opinion is certainly much too positive: but in the present state of
science, can we, as do many authors, assert that it has no foundation?
The qualities of the semen may certainly vary much, as may be proved by
the presence or absence of the spermatic animalculæ. It is entertained
for instance, that these animalculæ do not appear before puberty, and
that they are not to be found in old age, that they disappear during
sickness, and that in many animals, in most birds for instance, they
occur only during the season of mating (_Dumas_, _Dict. class. d’hist.
nat._, _art. generation_.) The venereal sense becomes imperious, when
the individual secretes real semen, and this sense may be felt in
old men, after semen is no longer formed. The fulness of the seminal
vesicles cannot be absolutely necessary for venereal desires, because
these organs do not exist in birds, in many cold-blooded animals and
in some of the mammalia. Are these persons in whom the testicles,
instead of descending into the bursæ as usual about the seventh mouth
of fetal life, remain in the abdomen, are these persons, who are termed
cryptorchides more addicted than others to sensual pleasures? This has
been asserted by many authors, and particularly by Monro and Hunter.
They certainly are not less so. Poliniere has related a case of a
person of this character 17 years old whom he saw at Brest in 1812, and
who indulged most immoderately in venereal pleasures contrary to the
advice of his physicians. Death soon put an end to his career.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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