Sailors also often abandon themselves during their long voyages to this vice. Many adults, and particularly females, seek in solitary indulgence a compensation for the restraints imposed on them by laws and customs. Even animals indulge. Montegre has published some interesting details on this subject. (_Dict. des Sc. Med._, _art. Continence_.) We have said that onanism is performed so easily that it is much more to be feared than sexual intercourse. If then the physician has to choose between the two, he ought not to hesitate. In human things we cannot always choose between an injury and a benefit. Sometimes the selection is between a greater and a lesser evil. We may then without detriment to physical and moral laws, counsel the young man who indulges in onanism, to gratify his feelings in a less dangerous manner. This also was Rousseau’s opinion. He says, in his Emile, “If a tyrant must conquer you, I would prefer to yield you to that from which you can be released most easily: and you can be weaned from females more readily than from yourself.” The physician in these cases should recommend marriage. This advice, too, is sanctioned by experience. Many young men after indulging in sexual intercourse, have commenced onanism; despising the latter, after exercising the former. “We have known a father,” say Fournier and Begin, “who finding his son disobeyed his advice, married him, and with success.” The same remedy has often been tried, and with good effect. A single coition has often sufficed to appease excessive ardor in females, and we could state several cases of nymphomania which have been thus immediately cured. Pregnancy also has been followed by the same results: this fact was known to the ancients and is mentioned in a work ascribed to Hippocrates. Panarolus, Matthew de Grado, and others, have related cases of females affected with nymphomania, who are never calm except during pregnancy. The following fact, observed by Esquirol, shows the influence of coition and pregnancy on the genital system. “A strong and healthy girl, of good family, nineteen years old, became affected with hysteria, with violent and almost constant convulsions. After a long and ineffectual course of medical treatment, this young woman disappeared from her father’s house, and all inquiries for her were in vain. After a few months, Esquirol, passing in the evening through a noted and dissipated quarter of Paris, was stopped by a female, whom he recognised to be his patient. On inquiring what she was doing, she answered, “Getting well.” For eighteen months this girl was a prostitute of the lowest order. She miscarried twice, and finally returned to her father’s house perfectly well. This woman is now married, a mother, and extremely circumspect in her conduct.” (_Dict. des Sc. Med._, _art. Continence_.) § 2. SECOND INDICATION. TO RESIST THE DESIRE OF ONANISM.