Part 12

M. ZINDEL published at Basle, about fifteen years ago, a dissertation, in which he has collected together, scattered observations on the diseases produced by too rigid a chastity[138]. And here may be placed what M. DE SAUVAGES says of the dangers of a rigorous chastity to those women with whose constitutions it does not agree; they are so much the more the victims of the warmth of it, the more careful they are to conceal it; they pine, and fall into melancholy, disrelish of life, emaciation, and pollutions. He adds a case, which furnishes perhaps an example of the severest trial to which a conflict of constitution and virtue could expose the party distracted between them: it is that of a young girl, who, devoured with a raging fire, and yet preserving her soul pure, with an astonishing fortitude was subject to pollutions even in those moments in which she was deploring her misfortune at the feet of her confessor, a decrepid, loathsome old man.[139]

“A young girl, who marries an old husband” (said a new married woman to her female friend) “had better throw herself into the river, with a mill-stone about her neck.”

In short, not to mention many others, M. GAUBIUS places excessive continency in the class of causes of diseases. “It is rare, indeed, (he says,) that it produces any evils, and yet it has been known so to do, in some men, born with a warm constitution, and who breed a great deal of the seminal liquid, and in some women[140].” And he proceeds to an enumeration of those disorders. The existence then of them is not to be denied; but the rarity of them may at the same time be affirmed, especially in the present age, which seems to be the age of sensuality: and, in truth, we see every day that gross mistake committed, of attributing indistinctly to this cause, that is to say, to a need of employment for the organs of generation, all the diseases which attack marriageable persons of both sexes, and in advising marriage to them as the only remedy; a remedy often misjudged, often even noxious, because it cannot destroy the complaints which proceed from other causes of disorder, and may add to such evils, those which pregnancy and lying-in commonly produce in persons of a languishing state of health. I return to the subject of pollutions.

I have shown, that the first kind of them, produced by that over-abundance of the seminal liquid, which it lessens by evacuation, is not of itself an evil; but it may become one by recurring too frequently, and at times when the over-abundance no longer exists. I have also already observed, that one evacuation disposed for a second, and so on, so great is the force of habit, which consists in this, that the reiteration of the same motions gives them the greater facility, insomuch that they reproduce themselves on the slightest cause; an observation of great use towards the understanding the animal œconomy, upon which GALEN, and especially M. MATY[141], have said some excellent things; and still it has not been treated of to the bottom. From the habit then there results this inconveniency, that these evacuations become a consequence of it, independently of the want, and when it no longer exists. Then they are extremely pernicious, and have all the dangers of an excessive evacuation procured by other means. SATYRUS surnamed GRAGROPILEX, residing at Thasus, had had, from the age of twenty-five, frequent nocturnal pollutions: nay, sometimes the liquid would come from him in the day time. He died of a consumption in his thirtieth year[142].

M. ZIMMERMAN told me of a man of a remarkably fine genius, to whom pollutions had caused the loss of all the activity of his understanding, and whose body was exactly in that condition described by BOERHAAVE (Section I.) In that Section too may be seen the evils which HOFFMAN observed consequential to pollutions. The most common symptoms, when the disorder has not as yet made any great progress, are, a continual oppression, most considerable in the morning, and acute pains of the loins. Some months ago I was consulted about a laborer in the vines, aged about fifty years, before that time very robust, but whom frequent pollutions had, for three or four months, so prodigiously weakened, that he could not work but a few hours a day. Often he was even totally debarred from it by pains in his loins, which confined him to his bed, and he every day grew leaner. I gave him some advice, of which I could not learn the execution or effect.

I knew a man who had become deaf for some weeks on his neglecting a cold, and who, on his having a nocturnal pollution, was, the next day, much deafer than ordinary, with great restlessness and anxiety; and another, whose weakness was owing to many causes, and who, after a pollution, wakes under the greatest oppression, and with so general a numbness, that he is for an hour like a paralytic, and remains the whole day after under a great dejection.

In this first class may be put the pollutions of those, who, having been accustomed to frequent emissions, suddenly suspend them. Such were those of a woman whom GALEN makes mention; she had been, for some time, in the state of widow-hood, and the retention of the spermatic liquid brought upon her disorders of the _uterus_. In her sleep she had convulsive motions of her loins, arms, and legs, which were accompanied with an abundant emission of a thick matter, with the same sensations as in the act of coition[143]. A female dancer had received accidentally a slight hurt near her left breast; her surgeon prescribed to her rather a strict diet, and especially forbad her those pleasures to which she was pretty much accustomed. The third night of the privation, to which she had submitted without minding the injunctions of diet, she had a pollution, which returning several times the following nights, made her visibly fall away, and caused to her violent pains of the loins. Her wound, however, did not fail of healing, in a great measure, and would have been quite so, if she had been observant of the surgeon’s rules of diet, who, firm in the principles of his art, continued his prohibition of venery, and bled and purged her. Wearied out, at length, and weakened, she left off his remedies, and, resuming her usual course of life, her weakness and her pains quickly went off.

But do not let any one, by any means, from this last mentioned observation, conclude against the utility of the precepts of the most skillful masters in the art of surgery, who, grounding it on other observations, strictly forbid coition to the wounded; there is no practitioner that might not easily have convinced himself how pernicious it must be to them. I shall only adduce one example, in which self-pollution was mortal, and of which G. FABRI de Hilden has preserved to us the history.

COSMUS SLOTAN had amputated the hand of a young man, that was shattered by a gun-shot wound. As he knew him to be of a very hot constitution, he had strictly forbid him any commerce with his wife, whom he likewise apprized of the danger. But when all fear of the worst accidents was dissipated, and the cure was proceeding in a fair way, the patient finding desires come upon him, for which his wife refused to have the complaisance he wanted of her, he, without coition, procured to himself an emission of the _semen_, which was immediately followed by a fever, by a delirium, by convulsions, and other violent symptoms, of which he died in four days time[144].

I knew a young married man, who, having inconsiderately thrown himself out of the seat of a _cabriolet_, (a chaise,) fell on his side; the hind-wheel went over his foot, between the heel and the ancle-bone; there was neither fracture nor luxation, but a considerable contusion: finding himself recovered at the end of five days, he proceeded with his bride as if he had had no such accident. Two hours afterwards his leg swelled, with the most unsufferable torture, and he had a strong fever, which lasted thirty hours.

But return we to the point. It is of great importance early to prevent the progress of habit; and whatever may be the first cause of the pollutions, not to suffer them to grow upon one. When they have been a long while upon one, they are very hard to cure. “There is no disorder (says HOFFMAN) that more torments the patients, nor gives more trouble to physicians, than nocturnal pollutions, when they have lasted a long time, and become habitual, especially if they return every night. The very best remedies are almost always in vain employed; they even often do more harm than good[145].”

All the Physicians who have written on this distemper have asserted, that the cure of it is extremely difficult; and all the Physicians who occasionally have had it under their cure, have themselves found it so; nor is there any room for being surprized at it. Unless one either restore to the organs their strength, and diminish their irritability during the time that passes between two pollutions, which is impossible; or on a sudden prevent the return of lascivious dreams, which it is not easy to do, one may be sure that the pollution will return, and destroy almost all the good that may have been operated by the small quantity of remedy applied since the last: so that from the term of one pollution to that of another, the ground that may have been gained must be infinitely little, and a great number of remedies must be accumulated before any sensible good effect can be obtained.

COELIUS AURELIANUS has collected together the best things that the antients have said on the management in this case.

_First_, He would have the patient avoid, as much as possible, all libidinous ideas.

_Secondly_, That he should lie on a bed of a hard and refreshing matter; that he should apply to his loins a thin plate of lead, and to all the parts which are the seat of the disorder, spunges soaked in water and vinegar, and cooling things, as the _balaustæ_, _acacia_, _hypocist_, the _psillium_.

_Thirdly_, That he should use no diet but of cooling and yet not laxative articles of meat and drink.

_Fourthly_, He advises restoratives, or analeptics.

_Fifthly_, The use of the cold-bath.

_Sixthly_, Not to sleep on one’s back, but on one side, or prone.

All this advice is full of sensible things; but let us examine more distinctly the indication that presents itself. It is to diminish the quantity of the seminal liquid, and to prevent those lascivious dreams. Now generally speaking, the diet and the regimen are much more proper to obtain these ends, than medicines. The fittest aliments are those which are procured from the vegetable kingdom, pulse, herbs, grain, and fruits. Among the meats, those which contain the least substance. In both the one and the other class, the choice should fall on those which have the least acridity. It has been precedently remarked, what an influence this regimen has on the tranquillity of sleep; it cannot be too much recommended to persons afflicted with nocturnal pollutions, to whom that tranquillity is so necessary. They ought especially to renounce suppers, or at least never sup but lightly: this single attention contributes more to operate a cure than all the medicines.

Some years ago I knew a young man, who had almost every night a nocturnal pollution, and who had before had some fits of the _night-mare_. A barber-surgeon had ordered him to drink every night, at his lying down, some glasses of warm water; which, without diminishing the pollutions, augmented the other complaint. Both these evils then united, and returned every night. The dream of the _night-mare_ was the phantom of a female, which caused at the same time his pollution. Weakened by the double disorder, and by the privation of a tranquil sleep, he was going fast into a consumption. I prescribed his taking nothing for supper but a little bread and some raw fruits, and, as he went to bed, to drink a glass of cold water, with fifteen drops of the anodine mineral liquor of HOFFMAN. It was not long before he regained his tranquillity of sleep; his two disorders left him intirely, and he soon recovered his strength.

Heavy, indigest meats, game or venison, especially at night, are a perfect poison for this disorder; and, I repeat it, without leaving off suppers, and especially of animal food, all the other remedies can be of no service. Wine, spirituous liquors, coffee, are, in many lights, hurtful. The best drink is that of pure water; or there may, to advantage, in each bottle of it be dissolved a drachm of nitre.

The precept that COELIUS gives for avoiding soft beds, is of the greatest importance. There should be no feathers suffered in it: straw is preferable to horse-hair, and I have known some patients receive benefit from covering the mattrass with leather.

The advice against not lying on one’s back, is especially necessary; this posture, in the night, contributing to render the sleep the more agitated, and to heat more the parts of generation.

In short, as habit has, in this case, a very great influence, and that to break it is the capital point, the following observation may furnish a means of succeeding. I owe it to an Italian gentleman, respectable for his virtues, and one of the worthiest characters I ever remember to have known. He consulted me upon a disorder of a very different kind; but in order to give me the clearer notions of his present case, he let me into the history of his health. He had five years before then been troubled with frequent pollutions, which totally exhausted him. Upon this he took, over-night, a firm resolution to wake of himself the first moment that the appearance of a female should strike his imagination; and, before he fell asleep, he took care to dwell fixedly and strongly on this idea. This remedy was attended with the happiest success; the idea of the danger, and his resolution of waking of himself, being closely, over-night, linked with the idea of a woman, reproduced themselves, in the midst of his sleep, at the same time, and jointly with this last: he waked at the time, and this precaution, repeated for some nights, dissipated the disorder.

But I would not have those two last instances inspire too much security: there are cases against which the best remedies must fail; that which HOFFMAN relates[146] is an example; and it would be right to give before-hand to patients the advice which he gave to his; it is this; that without a long perseverance in the use of proper remedies, there is no efficacy to be hoped for from them; or rather, that in such a case, as that the regimen is the great essential, it is often only by means of a long observance of it, that any perceptible relief can be obtained. If remedies are employed, they ought to be regulated by the same indications as the regimen. It is not long since I knew a copious bleeding carry off this disorder. Nitrous powders, lemonades, acid spirits, almond emulsions, may be of service.

M. HOFFMAN prescribed for the self-pollutor, who, after having renounced his infamous practices, had fallen under the disorder of nocturnal pollutions, the following powder:

℞. _C. C. pphicè ppati. Ossis sepiæ ana unc. ss. Succini cum instillat. Olei tartar. per deliquium ppat. dr._ ii. _Cascar. dr._ i.

Of which he took one drachm over-night, with black cherry-water; and in the morning the Seltzer waters with milk; his drink, a ptisan of _santal_; the China-root, _cichoreum_, _scorzonera_, and _cinnamon_. With these helps, and a proper diet, the patient got well in a few weeks. M. ZIMMERMAN, by means of the same powder, has cured “very frequent pollutions, attended with the common languor in that case, and which had lasted for several years, in a young man of twenty.” It is not easy to explain how this powder, which is but a simple absorbent, can do any good; but I have seen good effects from camphire.

Another sort of pollutions is such as are incident to Hypochondriacs. The circulation proceeds in them but slowly, especially in the veins of the Hypogastrium, which is specifically the reason why the parts from which those veins bring back the blood are often obstructed; the nerves are easily put into motion; the humors have a character of acridity extremely fit to irritate; their sleep is commonly disturbed with dreams: here you have many causes of pollution, and indeed they are much subject to them. “The imagination (says M. BOERHAAVE) often, during sleep, produces emissions of the seed. The most sedentary of the men of letters, and the splenetic, are liable to this accident; and the efflux of the seed is often so considerable, as to cause them to fall into an atrophy[147].” This disorder has for them so much the more vexatious consequences, for that they never give a loose to any excesses of this kind, without being extremely incommoded, as M. FLEMING has happily expressed it:

_Non Veneri crebro licet unquam impune litare._

For them there is but one method of cure, which is, to attack the principal disorder. The removal of the obstructions is the first thing to be done; after which the cold-bath should be used, and that salutary bark which God preserve to us. Then is truly the case of recourse to those two powerful remedies, with which martials may be allied. If an attention to the choice of aliments is necessary in all cases, it is particularly so in this. The Hypochondriacs, in general, perform their digestions very ill; the ill-digested aliments produce flatulent turgescences, which disturbing the circulation, dispose to pollutions in two ways; first, by obstructing the return of the blood in the veins of the genitals; secondly, by disturbing the tranquillity of sleep, and thereby consequently disposing to dreams. Thence sensibly appears the reason why PYTHAGORAS forbad his disciples the eating flatulent aliments, which he, wisely, considered as detrimental both to the clearness and strength of the intellectual functions, and to corporal chastity. Besides the two reasons which I have given, I might venture to point out a third, which I have strongly had room to suspect in two patients; and that is, the expansion of the air, disengaged from the fluids in the _corpus cavernosum_, which produced an erection, together with the venereal pruriency. It is now well known that all our liquids are impregnated with this fluid, but that so long as they are in perfect health, that fluid is, as it were, imprisoned, and deprived of all elasticity. Great Naturalists have been of opinion, that there were but two ways of restoring to it its elasticity; the one, a considerably greater degree of heat than is observed in the animal body; and the other, putrefaction. But a multitude of observations of disorders produced by the air so dilated, have proved, that, independently of these two causes, there were other alterations in the fluids, which would have the same effect, and these alterations appear the most frequent in Hypochondriacs: so that it is not wonderful that the cavernous parts should be the seat of the expansion of this diseased air: on the contrary, there is no part which appears more likely to be exposed to it; and if attention has not thereto been given before now, it is probably rather for want of observers than of observableness. Observations, however, clearly evince the necessity of avoiding those aliments which, abounding more than others in air, are the more hurtful, both by that which separates from them in the first passages, and by that which they convey into the blood. Who does not know that new beer, which is extremely flatulent, occasions violent erections? Since my last edition of this work, I have seen that M. THIERRY, one of the most learned Physicians, and of the most celebrated practitioners of France, has taken notice of these flatulent erections.

And here may be added, as bearing some affinity to this last kind of pollution, and principally attacking such as are melancholically affected, a disease that might be called a _furor genitalis_. It differs from a Priapism, and from the Satyriasis. I shall describe it by an observation already published in the first Latin edition of this work, and omitted in the French one.

A man about fifty years of age had labored under it for twenty-four years, and in all that long term could not pass twenty-four hours without recourse to women, or to that horrid supplement, self-pollution; and commonly he would reiterate the act several times a day. The seed was thin, acrid, unprolific, and the evacuation very quick. His nerves were excessively weakened: he had violent fits of melancholy, and vapors; his faculties were stupified, his hearing very indifferent or slow, his eyes extremely weak; in short, he died in the most wretched condition. I had never prescribed any thing for him; but he had taken a great number of remedies. Many of them had done him no service; all those that were of a hot nature had been prejudicial to him. Only bark, infused in wine, by order of M. ALBINUS, had relieved him: and the authority of this great Physician is a fresh, and, surely, a respectable testimony, in favor of that remedy.

Among the Consultations of M. HOFFMAN may be seen a case nearly similar to this; the pruriency was almost continual, and body and soul equally enervated[148].

SECTION XII.

_The GLEET, or simple GONORRHŒA._