Can venereal excesses cause hemorrhoidal affections? For want of facts on this subject, we would remark, that these excesses _may_ contribute to develop these affections, and particularly the exacerbations to which they are subject. This was Montegre’s opinion: he admitted, that the nervous debility which resulted from the abuse of the genital organs, generally favored the occurrence of fluxes, motions which occur most frequently in people subject to hemorrhoids; and also, that in those females who have hemorrhoidal tumors on the rectum or vagina, the abuse of coition may excite inflammation of these tumors. Montegre, however, thinks that excessive continence has a more detrimental effect on those affected with hemorrhoids than the contrary. He thought that the irritation which extreme continence causes in the seminal vesicles and adjacent parts, may excite a hemorrhoidal paroxysm: hence, he regards the act of venery as generally useful to persons affected with hemorrhoids, provided it is confined within certain limits. On this opinion, we would say, that if the irritation of the seminal passages may extend to the adjacent passages, venereal excesses which produce this irritation may also cause inflammation of the hemorrhoidal tumors much more frequently than continence. This is the opinion of Begin, also, who mentions, among the direct causes of hemorrhoids, “excesses in venereal pleasures--excesses which are always attended with a state of orgasm and vascular fulness in the genital system, and in all the parts connected with it; and particularly in the lower region of the rectum, which receives the same vessels in the neck of the bladder, the prostate gland, and the seminal vesicles, in the male, and in the uterus and vagina in the female.” We may believe, from the enervating action of masturbation, that the development of scrofula may be excited or favored in those young patients who are addicted to it. Few proofs of this, however, are found in authors; and it is rare to find records of scrofulous symptoms in the histories of those onanists which have been published. It, however, would be absurd to conclude, from this silence, that the coincidence of these symptoms and the ordinary effects of onanism never occur, or that this habit cannot call into action a disposition to disease. But we must admit, that if masturbation be an active cause of this disease, this fact would have been noted more frequently.