“The prevalence of this vice among boys, there is great reason to believe, has very much to do with the great amount of illicit indulgence which exists among young men. The one bears the same relation to the other, in a certain sense, that moderate drinking does to intemperance. It prepares the way, it excites the appetite, it debauches the imagination. There is little doubt that it is often, if not commonly, begun at a period of life when the natural appetite does not, and should not, exist. It is solicited, prematurely developed; it is almost created. On every account, then, this practice in the young demands especial notice. It is the great corrupter of the morals of our youth, as well as a frequent destroyer of their health and constitution. Could it be arrested, the task of preventing the more open form of licentiousness would be comparatively easy; for it creates and establishes, at a very early age, a strong physical propensity, an animal want, of the most imperious nature, which, like the longing of the intemperate man, it is almost beyond human power to overcome. The brute impulse becomes a habit of nearly irresistible force before the reason is instructed as to its injurious influence on the health, or the conscience awakened as to its true character as a sin. “The deleterious, the sometimes appalling consequences of this vice upon the health, the constitution, the mind itself, are some of the common matters of medical observation. The victims of it should know what these consequences are; for to be acquainted with the tremendous evils it entails may assist them in the work of resistance. These consequences are various in degree and in permanency according to the extent to which the indulgence is carried, and also according to the constitution of different individuals. But there is probably no extent which is not in some degree injurious. “Among the effects of this habit, in ordinary cases, we notice an impaired nutrition of the body; a diminution of the rotundity which belongs to childhood and youth; a general lassitude and languor, with weakness of the limbs and back; indisposition and incapacity for study or labor; dulness of apprehension; a deficient power of attention; dizziness; headaches; pains in the sides, back, and limbs; affections of the eyes. In cases of extreme indulgence, these symptoms become more strongly marked, and are followed by others. The emaciation becomes excessive; the bodily powers become more completely prostrated; the memory and the whole mind partake in the ruin; and idiocy or insanity, in their most intractable forms, close the train of evils. It not unfrequently happens that, from the consequences of this vice, when carried to an extreme, not even repentance and reformation liberate the unhappy victim.