Part 13

“The _Gonorrhœa_ (says GALEN, who knew none but the simple one) is a running of the seed without erection.” Many authors, in all ages, make mention of it, and MOSES, the most antient of all. In the observations of HIPPOCRATES may be seen the example of a Mountaineer, whose disorder seems to have been a marasmus, and who had an involuntary evacuation of the urine and seminal liquid[149]. M. BOERHAAVE seems, however, as to the seminal efflux, to have set down this disorder among the number of doubtful things. “You may (says he) read in books of physic, that the seed has sometimes run, without its being perceived or felt. But this disorder must be extremely rare, as I know of no instance in the which the seed has come out without some degree of titillation: or else it was not the true seminal liquid separated in the testicles, and amassed in the seminal vesicules, though I have seen the liquid of the _prostatæ_ flow forth[150].” This authority is, doubtless, very respectable; but besides that M. BOERHAAVE does not decisively pronounce on this point, he has against him all the Physicians; and, not to go out of his own school, one of his most illustrious disciples, GAUBIUS, admits the evacuation of the seed without sensation. My own observations leave me no room to doubt of the existence of both the one and the other disorder. I have seen men who, after a virulent _gonorrhœa_, after excesses of venery, or self-pollutions, had a constant running at the yard, but which did not render them incapable of erection and ejaculation; they even complained, that a single ejaculation weakened them more than a running of some weeks; which is an evident proof that the liquid of these two evacuations was not the same; and that that which comes by a _gonorrhœa_ flows only from the _prostatæ_, from some other glands about the urethra, from the follicular cellules distributed over its whole length, or, in short, from the dilated exhaling vessels. I have seen other men, who, like the first, had a continual running, but a running which weakened them much more, and which rendered them incapable of all venereal pruriency, of all erection, and, from that very circumstance, of all ejaculation, though the testicles had no appearance of any disqualification for their functions. It seems to me demonstrated, that, in these last, the true testicular semen came away without sensation. Those then who know the structure of the parts of generation, will easily bring themselves to believe, that the first case must be much more frequent than the last; but of the last they will also readily conceive the possibility of existence. The authors of the greatest exactness have called that the true _gonorrhœa_, in which they apprehended that the matter of the running was the genuine semen; the other they termed the _spurious_ or _catarrhal gonorrhœa_.

The dangers of the genuine running are very considerable. In the beginning of the first Section, _On the Symptoms_, the description by ARETÆUS has been quoted. “How (says he, in the same place) can one avoid the being weakened, when that which is so essential to the vital forces is continually slipping away, in waste. It is in the seminal liquid alone that eminently resides the strength of man.”

CELSUS, who lived before the times of ARETÆUS, says positively, “That the running of the seed without venereal sensation, brings on a consumption[151].”

JOHN, son of ZACHARIAS, more commonly known by the name of ACTUARIUS, in a work which he composed for the service of the Ambassador whom the Emperor of Constantinople was sending to the North, is, upon this point, of the same opinion with the authors I have already quoted. “If (says he) the running of the seed, which proceeds without erection, and without sensation, sails for any time, it produces necessarily a consumption and death; for the most balsamic part of the humors and the animal spirits are thereby dissipated and lost[152].”

Some of the most modern authors agree also, on this head, with the antients. “The whole body (says SENNERTUS) becomes emaciated, and especially the back; the patients grow weaker and weaker; they languish; they have pains in the loins; they turn hollow-eyed[153].”

BOERHAAVE ranks this _gonorrhœa_ among the causes of the palsy; and it may be remarked, that he admits in this place a _gonorrhœa_ of pure seed. “The palsy (says he) which comes from a _gonorrhœa_, is incurable, because the body is exhausted[154].”

On this matter there may also, in an excellent dissertation of M. KOEMPF, be found some interesting observations[155].

This disorder may draw its origin from many remote causes. The proximate cause is always unitedly constituted of a defectiveness or depravity in the liquids, of which the running consists, they being too thin, and often too acrid; and of a great relaxation of the parts. The defect in the liquids denotes a want of elaboration, which is owing to a general weakness; this requires tonic remedies, which the weakness of the organs also indicates; the coincident circumstances determine the choice of them. It would be out of place to enter here on all the relative particulars, and upon which there may be found instructive lights in many medical writers, and especially in SENNERTUS, author of the best compendium of practical physic that we have.

The same remedies as are pointed out in the course of this work, against the other consequences of pollution, are applicable in this case; the cold-bath, the bark, martials, and corroboratives. BOERHAAVE says, that the _hepatica_ (liverwort) produces excellent effects (_egregios sane præstat usus_) in the inveterate _gonorrhœa_, where it depends on the relaxation of the organs[156]. Sometimes, to direct the tendency which habit gives to humors towards the same part, it may not be amiss to begin by some laxatives: there are even some great Physicians, who have attributed to them an almost specific efficacy against this disorder; experience yet more than reason has proved to me the contrary. Those who will give themselves the trouble of reading the authors whom I have above quoted, will find that they prescribe nothing laxative. ACTUARIUS directs “things that strengthen without heating[157].” ARETÆUS, who, in consideration of the urgency of the danger, recommends an immediate recourse to remedies, prescribes none but strengtheners, abstinence from the pleasures of love, and the cold-bath[158].

CELSUS, of whose works both of them have availed themselves, orders frictions, and especially _baths extremely cold_, (_natationesque quam frigidissimas_;) he would have nothing eaten or drank but what is cold; that all aliments should be avoided which may engender crudities, wind, and augment the acridity of the seed. FERNELIUS orders nutritious aliments, and restorative electuaries[159].

If the promise of LANGIUS, who said “he would venture to swear for the efficacy of purgatives and a diet in the cure of this disorder,” be at all true, it cannot, probably, be relied on, but in that case alone, where the disorder is produced by a bad diet, which should have given birth to obstructions in the _hypogastrium_, and made all the humors degenerate, without the solids having as yet received any considerable damage; and this case it is that he must only have had in view; for if the solids had received any material prejudice, the purgatives must necessarily be aided by corroboratives. Such was the _gonorrhœa_ that REGIS observed, and of which CRAANEN has preserved to us the particulars.

“A man (says he) of a pituitous constitution, having for along time used himself to a humid diet, was attacked with the running of a watery, crude, viscous humor, which came away without perceptible sensation. He was wasting away, his eyes grew hollow, and he felt a daily decay of his strength. REGIS began with him by evacuating with purgatives those pituitous humor.” After which he gave him corroboratives, analeptics, and desiccative aliments; and if that should not be sufficient, he advised him a caustic for each leg[160].

But this method of purgatives can never be proper, when this disorder is the consequence of venereal excesses, and is owing, as SENNERTUS observes, “to that weakness which the _vesiculæ seminales_ have contracted by the over-frequent vicissitudes of repletion and inanition.”

A particularisation of some cases will afford a clearer notion of the true method of cure.

TIMÆUS furnishes us with one, which cannot be better placed than here.

“A young man, (says he,) a student of the Law, of a sanguine constitution, used to pollute himself manually twice or thrice a day, and sometimes oftener: he fell into a _gonorrhœa_, accompanied with a weakness of the whole body. I looked on the _gonorrhœa_ as a consequence of a relaxation occasioned in the seminal vessels, and on his weakness as owing to his frequent effusions of seed, which had dissipated the natural heat, gathered crudities, damaged the nervous system, stupified the soul, and weakened the whole body.”

[He prescribed for him strengthening cordial wine, with the astringents and aromatics infused in a strong-bodied red wine, an electuary of the same nature, and an ointment composed of _oil of roses_, _mastic_, _nitre_, _bol. armen. terra sigillata_, _balaustæ_, and _white-wax_.]

“The patient was in about a month’s time cured of this shameful disorder; and I advised him to abstain in future from this infamous practice of debauchery, and to remember the threat from the Most High, of an exclusion of the effeminate from the kingdom of Heaven,” 1 COR. vi.[161].

M. ZIMMERMAN writes me as follows: “One of the best Physicians that we have in Switzerland, M. WEPFER, whose authority cannot be of too great weight, avers his having cured a continual flux of seed, the consequence of self-pollution, with the help of the _Tinctur. Mart. Ludovici_. M. WESLIN of Zurzach has, on his own experience, confirmed to me the same thing. As for me (adds my friend) I cannot say that I have seen such good effects from it.”

The Professor M. STEHELIN mentions a man of letters, who was afflicted with an involuntary efflux of seed, without any ideas of venery, and who was cured by the use of wine with the martials and the bark. The remedies, and among others the waters of Swalbach, the embrocating with cold water the _pubis_ and the _perinæum_, had not the same success with a young man, who had brought upon himself this disorder by self-pollution. He adds, that M. DE BONGARS, a celebrated Practitioner of Physic at Maseck, had cured two persons attacked with a debility of the _vesiculæ seminales_, by making them take, three times a day, eight or ten drops of SYDENHAM’s _liquid laudanum_, in a glass of Pontac wine, and by a decoction of _sarsaparilla_. M. STEHELIN remarks, that though the opium is contrary to the indications, it has been advised by ETMULLERUS _against too quick an ejaculation, where owing to an over-spirituousness in the seed_. Be it here allowed me to add, that on attentively examining the advice of this famous practitioner, and on comparing the nature of the disorder, in certain cases, with the effects of opium, it is not difficult to conceive, that this remedy may sometimes be useful, but not in the case for which he prescribes it. He distinguishes, with a great deal of accuracy, the different kinds of runnings, he assigns the causes and the curative method of each kind, and then passing on to the ejaculation which comes just on the beginning of an erection, too quick (_nimis citam_,) he lays down two causes for it; first, the relaxation of the _vesiculæ seminales_; secondly, too boiling, too spirituous, too redundant a seminal liquid; and in this case it is that he orders opium[162]. But on what foundation? Opium, the quality of which, as a provocative to venery, stands so well demonstrated, a quality which ETMULLERUS himself points out, both in his small treatise on this medicine, and in this very place where he gives this advice, cannot but augment the cause of the disorder, and consequently thereby aggravate its symptoms. But the cases in which it may be of service, are, on the contrary, where the humors are crude, thin, aqueous, and the nerves, at the same time, of an excessive mobility. It is then known to be a remedy for these different accidents, that it suspends the irritability, and that it stops all the evacuations except perspiration. It cannot then be too often inculcated, that the greatest attention must be had not to prescribe opium, or opiates, but where they are proper, otherwise they are capable of doing great mischief. M. TRALLES, in his excellent work, furnishes us with an observation, and the like is to be met with in other authors, which ought to oblige us to use a great deal of circumspection as to that medicine.

“A man (says he) who from his youth upwards had had a strong passion for self-pollutions, which had rendered him extremely weak, never took opium, either to moderate a cough, or a diarrhœa, or with any other intention, without having, in the night, and to his great detriment, lascivious dreams, accompanied with a spermatic emission[163].”

Here may I have leave to state a reflexion which presents itself naturally? It is this: the error of ETMULLERUS evidently proves:

_First_, How great an influence an exact theory has over practice, which, without its help, cannot be but often false and erroneous.

_Secondly_, How great an advantage must a man, furnished with such a theory, united with practice, have over one, who has no guide but a few observations, or who delivers himself wholly up to a systematical theory?

_Thirdly_, How much may not the reading of even the best practical authors, but who were destitute of that exact theory which is due to our times, deceive such as, on the reading of them, can only have an implicit faith in them, and who are ignorant of those principles which ought to serve for a touch-stone, to discern, in physic, what is the good ore, or the base alloy?

I shall conclude with two cases which fell under my observation; a greater number would be superfluous.

A young man of twenty years old, who had had the misfortune of being addicted to self-pollution, had been, for two months, attacked with a continual mucous running, and now and then with nocturnal pollutions, attended with considerable wastings of his strength; he had frequent and violent pains of the stomach, he felt his breast extremely weak, and was apt to sweat much: I ordered him the following electuary:

℞. _Condit. rosar. rubr. unc._ iii. _Condit. anthos. Cort. Peruv. ana unc._ i. _Mastic. dr._ ii. _Cath. dr._ i. _Olei cinnam. gutt._ iii. _Sirup. Cort. aur. q.s.f. electuar. solid._

Of this he took a quarter of an ounce twice a day. In three weeks time he found himself recovered in all respects; and the running, or gleet, no longer incommoded him, unless after the nocturnal pollutions, which were become less frequent; a continuation of the same remedies for fifteen days more completely restored him.

Two married persons, foreigners, whom I never knew, were attacked almost at the same time, with a running, accompanied with weakness, and with pains along the spine of the back. They were very sure there was no venereal taint in the case, and could impute their disorder to nothing but conjugal excesses. The running was much the most considerable in the husband. They had tried various remedies, and all without any effect, and among others some mercurial pills, which had increased the running. At length they had me consulted. I prescribed for them the cold-bath, wine medicated with the bark, steel, and flowers of red roses. They took regularly my prescription: it was the summer of 1758, when the rains rendered the use of bathing in the river very difficult: the wife bathed only once or twice, the husband a dozen of times. At five weeks end, they sent me word that they were almost totally restored: I advised them to continue the method till the cure should be completed, which it soon was.

These happy successes cannot, however, serve for a general foundation of a favorable prognostic: this disorder is often extremely rebellious, and even sometimes incurable. Of this I will give but one example, but it is a demonstrative one.

One of the greatest Practitioners that we have now in Europe, and who has enriched the medical art with works, all of them excellent, is actually himself afflicted with a _simple gonorrhœa_, of fifteen years standing, which not all his skill, nor that of some other Physicians, whom he has consulted, have been able to dissipate. This sad and vexatious disorder wastes him away, little by little, and gives room to fear the loss of him long before the term to which it were to be wished he should arrive, and to which he might attain in the ordinary course of nature.

It would be needless for me to launch into a farther extension: I have aimed at omitting nothing that might open the eyes of youth on the horrors of the precipice they are preparing for themselves. I have done my best to point out the most proper means of remedying the evils they will have brought on themselves: I conclude with a repetition of what I have already said in the course of this work, that some happy cures ought not to serve for an encouragement of fallacious hopes; those who are even the most happily cured, find it a hard matter to recover their pristine vigor, nor can preserve a transitory health but by dint of a constant attention to regularity, and to the keeping measures with their constitution; the number of those who never emerge out of a state of languor, is tenfold to that of those who are cured; and some examples of persons, who either had not been more than slightly affected, or in whom a more than ordinary vigorous constitution might occasion the easier recovery, ought not to be considered as constituting a general rule,

——_Non bene ripæ_ _Creditur: ipse aries etiam nunc vellera siccat._

_The_ END.

FOOTNOTES

[1] MONTESQUIEU, _Persian Lett._ 49.

[2] The title of the Original French is ONANISME, which is changed in this translation, to avoid the mistake of the one work for the other.

[3] BOERHAAVE _Prælectiones ad Inst._ §. 658. 1. 5. p. 444. Edit. Goett.

[4] _De Morbis_, Lib. ii. cap. 49. Foes. 479.

[5] _De glandulis._ Foes. p. 273.

[6] _De re medica_, Lib. i. cap. 9 & 11.

[7] _De signis et causis dict. morb._ Lib. ii. cap. 5.

[8] L. i. c. 7. p. 34. Edit. BOERHAAVE.

[9] Comm. tert. in Lib. iii. Hipp. _De morb. vulg._ Oper. Omn. tom. iii. p. 583.

[10] _Historia mundi_, Lib. vii. cap. 53. p. 124.

[11] _Tetrab._ Serm. iii. cap. 34.

[12] _Medic. Static._ Sect. 6. Aphor. 15. 19. 21. 23 & 24.

[13] _Commentar. de sanitate tuenda_, p. m. 37.

[14] _Obs. Medic._ L. iii. c. 24.

[15] ZIPÆUS, _Fundam. Med._ Part. ii. Art. 6.

[16] _Instit. Medic._ Part. ii. cap. 28.

[17] _Praxis Chirurgic._ Decur. i. Obs. 4.

[18] Decur. ii. Ann. 5. Append. Obs. 88. p. 56.

[19] SCHELAMMER _Ars medendi univers._ Lib. ii. Sect. ii. Cap. iv. §. 23.

[20] _Consult. Cent._ 2 & 3. Cas. 102. T. iii. p. 293.

[21] Same place, Cas. 103.

[22] Same place.

[23] _De morbis ex nimia venere_, § 18. Oper. Omn. Suppl. sec. Pars prim. p. 496.

[24] _Institut._ § 77. Translated into French by M. D. L. M.

[25] _Comment._ on the foregoing quotation, T. vii. p. 214.

[26] _Institut. physiol._ § 870. 872.

[27] _De insensib. perspir._ cap. ult.

[28] APHOR. 586. T. ii. p. 46.

[29] _De morb. anim. ab infirm. medull. cer._ p. 37.

[30] Opera Omnia, fol. T. iii. p. 295.

[31] Lewis’s _Tab. Dorf._ p. 12.

[32] Lewis’s _Tab. Dors._ p. 16.

[33] _Immoderata seminis profusio, non solum utilissimi humoris jactura, sed ipso etiam motu convulsivo, quo emittitur, frequentius repetito, imprimis lædit. Etenim summam voluptatem universalis excipit virium resolutio, quæ crebro ferri nequit, quin enervet. Colatoria autem corporis quo magis emulgentur, eo plus humorum aliunde ad se trahunt, succisque sic ad genitalia derivatis reliquæ partes depauperantur. Inde ex nimia venere, lassitudo, debilitas, immobilitas, incessus delumbis, encephali dolores, convulsiones sensuum omnium, maxime visus, hebetatio, cæcitas, fatuitas, circulatio febrilis, exsiccatio, macies, tabes & pulmonica & dorsalis, effeminatio. Augentur hæc mala, atque insanabilia fiunt, ob perpetuum in venerem pruritum, quem mens non minus quam corpus tandem contrahit, quoque efficitur ut & dormientes obscæna phantasmata exerceant, & in tentiginem pronæ partes quavis occasione impetum concipiant, onerique & stimulo sit quamlibet exigua reparati spermatis copia, levissimo conatu, & vel sine hoc, de relaxatis loculis relapsura. Quo circa liquet quare adolescentiæ florem adeo pessundet iste excessus._

INSTITUTIONES PATHOLOGIÆ Medicin. Auctore H.D. GAUBIO, Leyden, 1758.

[34] _Consult. Med._ T. ii. p. 16.

[35] Dated the 15th September, 1755.

[36] Decur. ii. ann. 4. Obs. 166. p. 327.

[37] SCHENCKIUS, L. i. Obs. 2. 36.

[38] §. 1077. T. iii. p. 429.

[39] _Quæst. med._ An Epilepsiæ Merc. util.

[40] _De locis affectis_, L. v. c. 6.

[41] _Observationes medicæ_ (_oppido raræ_,) Obs. 18.

[42] §. 1075. T. iii. p. 412.

[43] _De morb. nerv._, p. 462.

[44] _Nosologia methodica, seu classes morborum_, t. 5.

[45] Ad. §. 658. n. f. c. 5. p. 446.

[46] _Epidem._ L. iii. sect. 3. æg. 16. FOES. p. 1117.

[47] _De morb. ex nim. ven._ § 20, 21.

[48] NIC. CHESNEAU _Observ. medic._ lib. v. Obs. 36, 37.

[49] _Nosol._ T. ii, p. 262.

[50] _De sanitate tuenda_, p. 110.

[51] _Aphor._ sect. 6. 46.

[52] _De ætate conjugio opportuna_, Sect. 10. Suppl. 2do. p. 340. The whole Dissertation deserves perusal, though it might have been better written.

[53] JUVEN. Sat. vi. ver. 321.

[54] _De genitura_, Foes. p. 231.

[55] _De spermate_, L. i. C. i. T. viii. p. 135.

[56] _De semine_, L. i. C. xxv. T. i. p. 1281.

[57] Cas. 102. p. 193.

[58] _De perspiratione insensibili_, Cap. xvii. § 5. pag. 219. In 1720, the Dr. D. A. JACQUES maintained, at Paris, a thesis on this question, “_An humorum præstantior semen_?” and, according to custom, defended the affirmative.

[59] I adopt, or appear to adopt here, the common system of the absorbent power of the ordinary veins. In Mr. HUNTER’S system, who will have it that the absorption is only made by the lymphatic vein, the parts of generation are equally proper for a very considerable absorption, since they abound in vessels of that kind.

[60] _De semine_, L. i. C. xxxiv. T. i. p. 1279.

[61] HALL. _Prim. lin. phys._ §. 790. Besides which there may be consulted upon this head, WHARTON _De glandulis_; RUSSEL _De œconomia natur. in glandul. morb._ p. 92. SCHMEIDER _De regressuseminis ad massam sanguineam._ _Supplement aux actes des Sçavans de Lipsie_, T. v. p. 552. and a croud of other physiological authors.

[62] Such as are curious to see an excellent work upon these imperfect men, will find their account in perusing a treatise of WITHOF _De castratis_.

[63] FEL. PLATERI _Obs._ lib. i. _Suffocatio ex congressu_, p. 174.

[64] _Epidem._ L. iii. æg. 17. FOES. p. 1117.

[65] _Encycl. med._ L. ii. c. 6. p. 347.

[66] _Neuropathia_, L. i. ver. 375.

[67] Sect. 6. Aph. 10.

[68] _De motu animali_, L. ii. cap. xii. Prop. 170.

[69] _Traité du Cœur_, L. iv. cap. xii. §. 3. p. 539.

[70] Aphor. 4. p. 6.

[71] _De morbis a nim. ven._ sect. 17.

[72] Abstract from LYNCH’S _Guide to health_, p. 306.

[73] Q. SERENUS SAMN.

[74] _In tentigine ardentissima juvenum inest quid grati in ore ventriculi; in concubitum si ruunt salacissimi, et ultra vires tendant opus, tunc in ore ventriculi manet illud ingratissimum, amarumque quod exprimere nequeunt: pœnas et luunt, et pœnitentia dolent: hinc macies, marasmus, &c._ G. R. DE PAYVA _De affectu atrabiliario, mirachiali, etc._ p. 17.

[75] _De morbis chronicis_, L. ii. c. 6. “Stomachus delectationis tristitiæque princeps est.”

[76] _De morb. nerv._ p. 454.

[77] Ibid. p. 807.