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
5. It is obvious that if the most vital physical force of a boy's life
is being spent through this degrading habit--a habit, be it observed,
of rapid growth, great strength, and difficult to break--he must
develop badly. In thousands of cases the result is seen in a low
stature, contracted chest, weak lungs, and liability to sore throat.
Tendency to cold, indigestion, depression, drowsiness, and idleness,
are results distinctly traceable to this deadly practice. Pallor
of countenance, nervous and rheumatic affections, loss of memory,
epilepsy, paralysis, and insanity find their principal predisposing
cause in the same shameful waste of life. The want of moral force and
strength of mind often observable in youths and young men is largely
induced by this destructive and deadly sin.
6. Large numbers of youths pass from an exhausted boyhood into the
weakness, intermittent fevers, and consumption, which are said to
carry off so many. If the deaths were attributed primarily to loss
of strength occasioned by self-pollution, it would be much nearer the
truth. It is monstrous to suppose that a boy who comes from healthy
parents should decline and die. Without a shade of doubt the chief
cause of decay and death amongst youths and young men, is to be traced
to this baneful habit.
7. It is a well-known fact that any man who desires to excel and
retain his excellence as an accurate shot, an oarsman, a pedestrian,
a pugilist, a first-class cricketer, bicyclist, student, artist,
or literary man, must abstain from self-pollution and fornication.
Thousands of school boys and students lose their positions in the
class, and are plucked at the time of their examination by reason
of failure of memory, through lack of nerve and vital force, caused
mainly by draining the physical frame of the seed which is the vigor
of the life.
8. It is only true to say that thousands of young men in the early
stages of a licentious career would rather lose a right hand than have
their mothers or sisters know what manner of men they are. From the
side of the mothers and sisters it may also be affirmed that, were
they aware of the real character of those brothers and sons, they
would wish that they had never been born.
9. Let it be remembered that sexual desire is not in itself
dishonorable or sinful, any more than hunger, thirst, or any other
lawful and natural desire is. It is the gratification by unlawful
means of this appetite which renders it so corrupting and iniquitous.
10. Leisure means the opportunity to commit sin. Unclean pictures are
sought after and feasted upon, paragraphs relating to cases of
divorce and seduction are eagerly read, papers and books of an
immoral character and tendency greedily devoured, low and disgusting
conversation indulged in and repeated.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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