Searchlights on Health: The Science of EugenicsJefferis, B. G. (Benjamin Grant)
Philosophy
Searchlights on Health: The Science of Eugenics
Jefferis, B. G. (Benjamin Grant)
Eugenics; Hygiene; Marriage; Medicine, Popular; Sexual ethics
9. EARLY MARRIAGES.--There can be no doubt that early marriages are
bad for both parties. For children of such a marriage always lack
vitality. The ancient Germans did not marry until the twenty-fourth
or twenty-fifth year, previous to which they observed the most rigid
chastity, and in consequence they acquired a size and strength that
excited the astonishment of Europe. The present incomparable vigor of
that race, both physically and mentally, is due in a great measure to
their long established aversion to marrying young. The results of too
early marriages are in brief, stunted growth and impaired strength
on the part of the male; delicate if not utterly bad health in the
female; the premature old age or death of one or both, and a puny,
sickly offspring.
10. SIGNS OF EXCESSES.--Dr. Dio Lewis says: "Some of the most common
effects of sexual excess are backache, lassitude, giddiness, dimness
of sight, noises in the ears, numbness of the fingers, and paralysis.
The drain is universal, but the more sensitive organs and tissues
suffer most. So the nervous system gives way and continues the
principal sufferer throughout. A large part of the premature loss of
sight and hearing, dizziness, numbness and pricking in the hands
and feet, and other kindred developments, are justly chargeable to
unbridled venery. Not unfrequently you see men whose head or back or
nerve testifies of such reckless expenditure."
11. NON-COMPLETED INTERCOURSE.--Withdrawal before the emission occurs
is injurious to both parties. The soiling of the conjugal bed by the
shameful manoeuvres is to be deplored.
12. THE EXTENT OF THE PRACTICE.--One cannot tell to what extent this
vice is practiced, except by observing its consequences, even among
people who fear to commit the slightest sin, to such a degree is the
public conscience perverted upon this point. Still, many husbands know
that nature often renders nugatory the most subtle calculations, and
reconquers the rights which they have striven to frustrate. No matter;
they persevere none the less, and by the force of habit they poison
the most blissful moments of life, with no surety of averting the
result that they fear. So who knows if the too often feeble and
weakened infants are not the fruit of these in themselves incomplete
procreations, and disturbed by preoccupations foreign to the natural
act.
13. HEALTH OF WOMEN.--Furthermore, the moral relations existing between
the married couple undergo unfortunate changes; this affection,
founded upon reciprocal esteem, is little by little effaced by the
repetition of an act which pollutes the marriage bed. If the good
harmony of families and the reciprocal relations are seriously menaced
by the invasion of these detestable practices, the health of women, as
we have already intimated, is fearfully injured.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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