The thoughtful and inquiring young man will naturally wish to know at this point if this lesson from the beast of the field can be applied in all its details to the human subject; if man, without any artificial or unnatural means would develop a full and complete virility; if like the horse, he can maintain a strict continence for months or even years without suffering any abatement of virility and of physical powers in general. The unequivocal answer of the medical profession to these questions would be in the affirmative. An exact parallel to the gelding referred to above can be found in the eunuch of the Orient. If the human male is castrated before puberty he develops into a being as different from a virile man as the gelding is different from the stallion;--a being whose physique resembles in many respects that of a woman, and whose temperament manifests qualities of cringing servility and lack of initiative. The external secretion of the testes differs from the internal secretion in containing spermatozoa; it may be that there are other differences. It is, however, generally believed that one or more of the substances found in the external secretion appear in the internal secretion. If this is true, it must be evident that excessive sexual indulgence or masturbation can draw away from the system this precious vital substance that is necessary to produce or maintain the virility. It cannot be assumed that the condition of virility once attained will necessarily always continue--it must be maintained. To be maintained, this vital substance produced by the testes must be continuously absorbed into the blood. When once the man or boy understands this, it must be evident to him that he has, to a certain extent, the making or marring of his own virility; that it is not simply an inexhaustible endowment of nature; but, like such a natural resource as a forest or a coal mine, may be exhausted and will be exhausted if not husbanded carefully. It is a well known fact in the medical profession that the ovaries of the female exert upon her development an influence analogous to that which the testes exert on the development of the male. For that reason, a surgeon should, under no condition, remove both ovaries (sexual glands) unless they are diseased in such a way as to necessitate their complete removal in order to save the life of the individual. If a woman of twenty-five were to suffer the loss of both ovaries, she would go very early into a condition of senile decay. If a female before puberty is deprived of both ovaries, it leads her to develop masculine physical characteristics and her temperament is wholly lacking in those characteristics which, summed up, might, for the want of a better term, be called FEMININITY. CHAPTER IV. SEXUAL HYGIENE OF THE ADOLESCENT MALE. SEXUAL HYGIENE OF THE ADOLESCENT MALE.