Consumption, or phthisis tubercularis, is, in fact, one of the diseases caused most frequently by onanism. The act of venery--that power which has so much influence on the internal life of the tissues, and on the respiratory organs, and which, to use Rullier’s expression, seems to agitate the lungs--is commenced in most onanists exactly at that age when the chest enlarges in every direction, and which phthisis seems to prefer. “How many young persons,” says Portal, in his work on phthisis pulmonalis, “have been victims to their unhappy passion? Physicians find those every day, who remain imbecile, or who are so enervated, physically and morally, that they barely drag along a miserable existence: others die with marasmus; and many with phthisis pulmonalis.” In another work, the same author relates the case of a young person, seventeen years old, who was addicted to masturbation, and who fell a victim to this disease. This young person, who had became much deformed, was affected with raising of blood, and soon died of phthisis. “It results from numerous well ascertained facts,” say Fournier and Begin, “that those persons who indulge in onanism are generally remarkable for the imperfect development of their thorax, and for the promptitude with which the least exercise renders respiration difficult and hurried. Almost all these individuals contract chronic catarrhs, or more serious affections of the pulmonary organs; and finally perish, in a complete state of phthisis.” Broussais, also, places among the causes of phthisis pulmonalis, “erotic spasms, no matter in what manner they are excited.”