In speaking of the adult age, I have pointed out the affections with which it is attended. But the case is worse in old age. All parts of the body have suffered so many attacks, have been so often affected, that hardly one of them can be called sound. Hence every cause of disease is serious and important, the body being as it were ripe for a diseased affection. What ought then to be the influence of the act of venery? Will it not quicken into life, the seeds of disease which are as it were already sown? In fact it often has a violent effect on the system, and sudden death follows exertions which ought not to be made. How many old men have yielded up their existence in the nuptial bed, when their term of life might have been continued, if they had not exhausted their strength in unnatural exertions. We have said that the peculiar state of some functions may render the act of venery more injurious at some periods of life than at others. The functions to which we alluded, were digestion, menstruation, pregnancy, and lactation. Masturbation and coition are often practised after taking food. Sometimes the general excitement attending the labor of digestion extends to the genital organs, and excites to these acts. We cannot say that they are then always injurious: as this would be contradicted by facts; but that they frequently are is supported by the opinions of all authors, who have written on the subject. “Coition after eating,” says Sanctorius, “is injurious,” and he attributes the same effect to thoughts of venery. His commentator Lorry confirms this opinion. The act of venery during digestion, may injure in two modes. First by deranging the digestive system, and by exposing it to the affections which are the usual consequences of such a derangement. To this must be referred most of the derangements usually presented by the digestive organs of onanists, who merely watch their opportunities for self-pollution, without regarding whether digestion is or is not finished. Happily vomiting then sometimes rids the stomach of food which might be badly digested, and thereby cause more disturbance.