Self Knowledge and Guide to Sex Instruction: Vital Facts of Life for All AgesShannon, Thomas W. (Thomas Washington)
Philosophy
Self Knowledge and Guide to Sex Instruction: Vital Facts of Life for All Ages
Shannon, Thomas W. (Thomas Washington)
Sex; Sexual health
=Two more examples.=--In the town of M----, Illinois, is a young lady of
twenty-six winters unbroken by a joyful spring or summer. The initial of
her life took place during the drunken debauch of her worse than
worthless drunken father. Many times a day and often several times an
hour she has spells. I have witnessed her go through many of them. The
approach of one of these spells would be first noticed by the enlarged
eyes and the exposure of the white of the eye. Then the muscles in the
eye, face, neck and body would contract and pull her face into her lap.
After remaining in that tortuous position for some minutes, the muscles
would relax and she would resume a normal one.
In that same town, just to the right of my tent, lived one of the
wealthiest citizens. Three children had been born into his home. Each
had died of epileptic fits before it was two years old. The family
physician, who had made a life study of heredity, told me that to his
own personal knowledge the initial of each child’s life took place
during or immediately following a drunken debauch of the father.
=A visit to an asylum.=--Not as a means of punishment, but as a means of
enlightenment and conviction, I wish every drinking man and every man
who favors the maintenance of the saloon could spend a few days in the
insane asylums of this country. Let them be taken through the wards of
the feeble-minded and the insane and at the close of the day listen for
one hour to a discussion of the causes of insanity among the inmates. In
this lecture, let them learn that twenty-two out of every one hundred
cases of insanity are due to drunkenness. Let them spend the next day in
the epileptic wards and witness from ten to twenty of those unfortunates
have epileptic fits, which usually last from thirty minutes to one hour.
At the close of this day have them attend a lecture given by an eminent
authority on epilepsy. After such an experience, I will guarantee that
every honest man, when he is convinced that twenty-two per cent. of the
insane and eighty-eight per cent. of the epileptics are the results of
drunkenness, would be converted to the prohibition of the liquor
traffic. You had just as well put the balance of that crowd in a reform
school or in some ward of the asylum without further delay or expense.
They are helpless cases.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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