There are some husbands who, while shocked at the idea of interfering in any way with the natural course of events, should such be really established, yet consider excessive carnal indulgence necessary for the preservation of their own physical vigor—a most mistaken opinion. There are others who could not be persuaded to resort to direct measures of a preventive character, and yet indulge in excessive sexual intercourse for this very end, on the ground, say they, that prostitutes, in proportion as they are constant in their attention to their vile trade, are usually childless; and this opinion, true to a certain extent, is yet in its effects as prejudicial as the other. The sterility of prostitutes is in great measure owing to disease that has been occasioned by the constant local excitement to which they are exposed; I am not now speaking of lesions of a specific or infectious character, but merely of those diseases which may be occasioned in any wife when treated by her husband as a prostitute. It is well known also that the common woman usually soon breaks down in health, and dies early, not so much from the other forms of debauchery to which she is exposed, as for the reason to which I have now referred. Woe therefore to the man who would thus cause within his own house disease and death. As to the former of the excuses given: we are all of us prone in early life to excess, and especially so during the first years following marriage. As we grow older, we are compelled to live more moderately, and it becomes very necessary for us to apply the brakes when beginning to descend the down grade of life. Often, after a period of abstinence or semi-abstinence, anything like the license of earlier life becomes dangerous, or even fatal; and this it is that explains the rapid decadence so often observed in men who have married late in life, or in widowers, who, after a long period of rest, have taken to themselves a youthful spouse.