Part 32

The habit burns up good health, good resolutions, good manners, good memories, good faculties, and often honesty and truthfulness as well.

Cases of epilepsy, insanity and death are frequently reported as the result of smoking cigarettes, while such physicians as Dr. Lewis Sayre, Dr. Hammond, and Sir Morell Mackenzie of England, name heart trouble, blindness, cancer and other diseases as occasioned by it.

Leading physicians of America unanimously condemn {450} cigarette smoking as "one of the vilest and most destructive evils that ever befell the youth of any country," declaring that "its direct tendency is a deterioration of the race."

Look at the pale, wilted complexion of a boy who indulges in excessive cigarette smoking. It takes no physician to diagnose his case, and death will surely mark for his own every boy and young man who will follow up the habit. It is no longer a matter of guess. It is a scientific fact which the microscope in every case verifies.

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The Dangerous Vices.

Few persons are aware of the extent to which masturbation or self-pollution is practiced by the young of both sexes in civilized society.

SYMPTOMS.

The hollow, sunken eye, the blanched cheek, the withered hands, and emaciated frame, and the listless life, have other sources than the ordinary illnesses of all large communities.

When a child, after having given proofs of memory and intelligence, experiences daily more and more difficulty in retaining and understanding what is taught him, it is not only from unwillingness and idleness, as is commonly supposed, but from a disease eating out life itself, brought on by a self-abuse of the private organs. Besides the slow and progressive derangement of his or her health, the diminished energy of application, the languid movement, the stooping gait, the desertion of social games, the solitary walk, late rising, livid and sunken eye, and many other symptoms, will fix the attention of every intelligent and competent guardian of youth that something is wrong.

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MARRIED PEOPLE.

Nor are many persons sufficiently aware of the ruinous extent to which the amative propensity is indulged by married persons. The matrimonial ceremony does, indeed, sanctify the act of sexual intercourse, but it can by no means atone for nor obviate the consequences of its abuse. Excessive indulgence in the married relation is, perhaps, as much owing to the force of habit, as to the force of the sexual appetite.

EXTREME YOUTH.

More lamentable still is the effect of inordinate sexual excitement of the young and unmarried. It is not very uncommon to find a confirmed onanist, or, rather, masturbator, who has not yet arrived at the period of puberty. Many cases are related in which young boys and girls, from eight to ten years of age, were taught the method of self-pollution by their older playmates, and had made serious encroachments on the fund of constitutional vitality even before any considerable degree of sexual appetite was developed.

FORCE OF HABIT.

Here, again, the fault was not in the power of passion, but in the force of habit. Parents and guardians of youth can not be too mindful of the character and habits of those with whom they allow young persons and children under their charge to associate intimately, and especially careful should they be with whom they allow them to sleep.

SIN OF IGNORANCE.

It is customary to designate self-pollution as among the "vices." I think misfortune is the more appropriate term. It is true, that in the physiological sense, it is one of the very worst "transgressions of the law." But in the moral sense it is generally the sin of ignorance in the commencement, and in the end the passive submission to a morbid and almost resistless impulse.

QUACKS.

The time has come when the rising generation must be thoroughly instructed in this matter. That quack specific "ignorance" has been experimented with quite too long already. The true method of insuring all persons, young or old, against the abuses of any part, organ, function, or faculty of the wondrous machinery of life, is to teach them its use. "Train a child in the way it should go" or be sure it {454} will, amid the ten thousand surrounding temptations, find out a way in which it should not go. Keeping a child in ignorant innocence is, I aver, no part of the "training" which has been taught by a wiser than Solomon. Boys and girls do know, will know, and must know, that between them are important anatomical differences and interesting physiological relations. Teach them, I repeat, their use, or expect their abuse. Hardly a young person in the world would ever become addicted to self-pollution if he or she understood clearly the consequences; if he or she knew at the outset that the practice was directly destroying the bodily stamina, vitiating the moral tone, and enfeebling the intellect. No one would pursue the disgusting habit if he or she was fully aware that it was blasting all prospects of health and happiness in the approaching period of manhood and womanhood.

GENERAL SYMPTOMS OF THE SECRET HABIT.

The effects of either self-pollution or excessive sexual indulgence, appear in many forms. It would seem as if God had written an instinctive law of remonstrance, in the innate moral sense, against this filthy vice.

All who give themselves up to the excesses of this debasing indulgence, carry about with them, continually, a consciousness of their defilement, and cherish a secret suspicion that others look upon them as debased beings. They feel none of that manly confidence and gallant spirit, and chaste delight in the presence of virtuous females, which stimulate young men to pursue the course of ennobling refinement, and mature them for the social relations and enjoyments of life.

This shamefacedness, or unhappy quailing of the countenance, on meeting the look of others, often follows them through life, in some instances even after they have entirely abandoned the habit, and became married men and respectable members of society.

In some cases, the only complaint the patient will make on consulting you, is that he is suffering under a kind of continued fever. He will probably present a hot, dry skin, with something of a hectic appearance. Though all the ordinary means of arresting such symptoms have been tried, he is none the better.

The sleep seems to be irregular and unrefreshing--restlessness during the early part of the night, and in the advanced stages of the disease, profuse sweats before morning. There is also frequent starting in the sleep, from {455} disturbing dreams. The characteristic feature is, that your patient almost always dreams of sexual intercourse. This is one of the earliest, as well as most constant symptoms. When it occurs most frequently, it is apt to be accompanied with pain. A gleety discharge from the urethra may also be frequently discovered, especially if the patient examine when at stool or after urinating. Other common symptoms are nervous headache, giddiness, ringing in the ears, and a dull pain in the back part of the head. It is frequently the case that the patient suffers a stiffness in the neck, darting pains in the forehead, and also weak eyes are among the common symptoms.

One very frequent, and perhaps early symptom (especially in young females) is solitariness--a disposition to seclude themselves from society. Although they may be tolerably cheerful when in company, they prefer rather to be alone.

The countenance has often a gloomy and worn-down expression. The patient's friends frequently notice a great change. Large livid spots under the eyes is a common feature. Sudden flashes of heat may be noticed passing over the patient's face. He is liable also to palpitations. The pulse is very variable, generally too slow. Extreme emaciation, without any other assignable cause for it, may be set down as another very common symptom.

If the evil has gone on for several years, there will be a general unhealthy appearance, of a character so marked as to enable an experienced observer at once to detect the cause. In the case of onanists especially there is a peculiar rank odor emitted from the body, by which they may be readily distinguished. One striking peculiarity of all these patients is, that they cannot look a man in the face! Cowardice is constitutional with them.

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HOME TREATMENT OF THE SECRET HABIT.

1. The first condition of recovery is a prompt and permanent abandonment of the ruinous habit. Without a faithful adherence to this prohibitory law on the part of the patient all medication on the part of the physician will assuredly fail. The patient must plainly understand that future prospects, character, health, and life itself, depend on an unfaltering resistance to the morbid solicitation; with the assurance, however, that a due perseverance will eventually render what now seems like a resistless and overwhelming {456} propensity, not only controllable but perfectly loathsome and undesirable.

2. Keep the mind employed by interesting the patient in the various topics of the day, and social features of the community.

3. Plenty of bodily out of door exercise, hoeing in the garden, walking, or working on the farm; of course not too heavy work must be indulged in.

4. If the patient is weak and very much emaciated, cod liver oil is an excellent remedy.

5. DIET. The patient should live principally on brown bread, oat meal, graham crackers, wheat meal, cracked or boiled wheat, or hominy, and food of that character. No meats should be indulged in whatever; milk diet if used by the patient is an excellent remedy. Plenty of fruit should be indulged in; dried toast and baked apples make an excellent supper. The patient should eat early in the evening, never late at night.

6. Avoid all tea, coffee, or alcoholic stimulants of any kind.

7. "Early to bed and early to rise," should be the motto of every victim of this vice. A patient should take a cold bath every morning after rising. A cold water injection in moderate quantities before retiring has cured many patients.

8. If the above remedies are not sufficient, a family physician should be consulted.

9. Never let children sleep together, if possible, to avoid it. Discourage the children of neighbors and friends from sleeping with your children.

10. Have your children rise early. It is the lying in bed in the morning that plays the mischief.

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NOCTURNAL EMISSIONS

Involuntary emissions of semen during amorous dreams at night is not at all uncommon among healthy men. When this occurs from one to three or four times a month, no anxiety or concern need be felt.

When the emissions take place without dreams, manifested only by stained spots in the morning on the linen, or take place at stool and are entirely beyond control, then the patient should at once seek for remedies or consult a competent physician. When blood stains are produced, then medical aid must be sought at once.

HOME TREATMENT FOR NOCTURNAL EMISSIONS.

Sleep in a hard bed, and rise early and take a sponge bath in cold water every morning. Eat light suppers and refrain from eating late in the evening. Empty the bladder thoroughly before retiring, bathe the spine and hips with a sponge dipped in cold water.

_Never sleep lying on the back._

Avoid all highly seasoned food and read good books, and keep the mind well employed. Take regular and vigorous outdoor exercise every day.

Avoid all coffee, tea, wine, beer and all alcoholic liquors. Don't use tobacco, and keep the bowels free.

PRESCRIPTION.--Ask your druggist to put you up a good Iron Tonic and take it regularly according to his directions.

BEWARE OF ADVERTISING QUACKS.

Beware of these advertising schemes that advertise a speedy cure for "Loss of Youth," "Lost Vitality," "A Cure for Impotency," "Renewing of Old Age," etc. Do not allow these circulating pamphlets and circulars to concern you the least. If you have a few _Nocturnal Emissions_, remember it is only a mark of vitality and health, and not a sign of a deathly disease, as many of these advertising quacks would lead you to believe.

Use your private organs only for what your Creator intended they should be used, and there will be no occasion for you to be frightened by the deception of quacks.

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Lost Manhood Restored.

1. RESOLUTE DESISTENCE.--The first step towards the restoration of lost manhood is a resolute desistence from these terrible sins. Each time the temptation is overcome, the power to resist becomes stronger, and the fierce fire declines. Each time the sin is committed, its hateful power strengthens, and the fire of lust is increased. Remember, that you cannot commit these sins, and maintain health and strength.

2. AVOID BEING ALONE.--Avoid being alone when the temptation comes upon you to commit self-abuse. Change your thoughts at once; "keep the heart diligently, for out of it are the issues of life."

3. AVOID EVIL COMPANIONS.--Avoid evil companions, lewd conversation, bad pictures, corrupt and vicious novels, books, and papers. Abstain from all intoxicating drinks. These inflame the blood, excite the passions, and stimulate sensuality; weakening the power of the brain, they always impair the power of self-restraint. Smoking is very undesirable. Keep away from the moral pesthouses. Remember that these houses are the great resort of fallen and depraved men and women. The music, singing, and dancing are simply a blind to cover the intemperance and lust, which hold high carnival in these guilded hells. This, be it remembered, is equally true of the great majority of the theatres.

4. AVOID STRONG TEA, OR COFFEE.--Take freely of cocoa, milk, and bread and milk, or oatmeal porridge. Meats, such as beef and mutton, use moderately. We would strongly recommend to young men of full habit, vegetarian diet. Fruits in their season, partake liberally; also fresh vegetables. Brown bread and toast, as also rice, and similar puddings, are always suitable. Avoid rich pastry and new bread.

5. THREE MEALS A DAY ARE ABUNDANT.--Avoid suppers, and be careful, if troubled with nightly emissions, not to take any liquid, not even water, after seven o'clock in the evening, at latest. This will diminish the secretions of the body, when asleep, and the consequent emissions, which in the early hours or the morning usually follow the taking of any kind of drink. Do not be anxious or troubled by an occasional emission, say, for example, once a fortnight.

6. REST ON A HARD MATTRESS.--Keep the body cool when asleep; heat arising from a load of bed-clothes is most {460} undesirable. Turn down the counterpane, and let the air have free course through the blankets.

7. RELIEVE THE SYSTEM.--As much as possible relieve the system of urine before going to sleep. On rising, bathe if practicable. If you cannot bear cold water, take the least possible chill off the water (cold water, however, is best). If bathing is not practicable, wash the body with cold water, and keep scrupulously clean. The reaction caused by cold water, is most desirable. Rub the body dry with a rough towel. Drink a good draught of cold water.

8. EXERCISE.--Get fifteen minutes' brisk walk, if possible before breakfast. If any sense of faintness exists, eat a crust of bread, or biscuit. Be regular in your meals, and do not fear to make a hearty breakfast. This lays a good foundation for the day. Take daily good, but not violent exercise. Walk until you can distinctly feel the tendency to perspiration. This will keep the pores of the skin open and in healthy condition.

9. MEDICINES.--Take the medicines, if used, regularly and carefully. Bromide of Potassium is a most valuable remedy in allaying lustful and heated passions and appetites. Unless there is actual venereal disease, medicine should be very little resorted to.

10. AVOID THE STREETS AT NIGHT.--Beware of corrupt companions. Fast young men and women should be shunned everywhere. Cultivate a taste for good reading and evening studies. Home life with its gentle restraints, pure friendships, and healthful discipline, should be highly valued. There is no liberty like that of a well-regulated home. To large numbers of young men in business houses, home life is impracticable.

11. BE OF GOOD CHEER AND COURAGE.--Recovery will be gradual, and not sudden; vital force is developed slowly from within. The object aimed at by medicine and counsel is to aid and increase nervous and physical vigor, and give tone to the demoralized system. Do not pay the slightest heed to the exaggerated statements of the wretched quack doctors, who advertise everywhere. Avoid them as you would a pestilence. Their great object is, through exciting your fears, to get you into their clutches, in order to oppress you with heavy and unjust payments. Be careful, not to indulge in fancies, or morbid thoughts and feelings. Be hopeful, and play the part of a man determined to overcome.

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Manhood Wrecked and Rescued.

1. THE NOBLEST FUNCTIONS OF MANHOOD.--The noblest functions of manhood are brought into action in the office of the parent. It is here that man assumes the prerogative of a God and becomes a creator. How essential that every function of his physical system should be perfect, and every faculty of his mind free from that which would degrade; yet how many drag their purity through the filth of masturbation, revel in the orgies of the debauchee, and worship at the shrine of the prostitute, until, like a tree blighted by the livid lightning, they stand with all their outward form of men, but without life.

2. THRESHOLD OF HONOR.--Think of a man like that; in whom the passions and vices have burned themselves out, putting on the airs of a saint and claiming to have reformed! Aye, reformed, when there is no longer sweetness in the indulgence of lust. Think of such loathsome bestiality, dragging its slimy body across the threshold of honor and nobility and asking a pure woman, with the love-light of heaven in her eyes, to pass her days with him; to accept him as her lord; to be satisfied with the burnt-out, shriveled forces of manhood left; to sacrifice her purity that he may be redeemed, and to respect in a husband what she would despise in the brute.

3. STOP.--If you are, then, on the highway to this state of degradation, stop. If already you have sounded the depths of lost manhood, then turn, and from the fountain of life regain your power, before you perpetrate the terrible crime of marriage, thus wrecking a woman's life and perhaps bringing into the world children who will live only to suffer and curse the day on which they were born and the father who begat them.

4. SEXUAL IMPOTENCY.--Sexual impotency means sexual starvation, and drives many wives to ruin, while a similar lack among wives drives husbands to libertinism. Nothing so enhances the happiness of married couples as this full, life-abounding, sexual vigor in the husband, thoroughly reciprocated by the wife, yet completely controlled by both.

5. TWO CLASSES OF SUFFERERS.--There are two classes of sufferers. First, those who have only practiced self-abuse and are suffering from emissions. Second, those who by overindulgence in marital relations, or by dissipation with women, have ruined their forces.

6. THE REMEDY.--For self-abuse: When the young man has practiced self-abuse for some time, he finds, upon {462} quitting the habit, that he has nightly emissions. He becomes alarmed, reads every sensational advertisement in the papers, and at once comes to the conclusion that he must take something. _Drugs are not necessary._

7. STOP THE CAUSE.--The one thing needful, above all others, is to stop the cause. I have found that young men are invariably mistaken as to what is the cause. When asked as to the first cause of their trouble, they invariably say it was self-abuse, etc., but it is not. _It is the thought._ This precedes the handling, and, like every other cause, must be removed in order to have right results.

8. STOP THE THOUGHT.--But remember, _stop the thought_! You must not look after every woman with lustful thoughts, nor go courting girls who will allow you to hug, caress and kiss them, thus rousing your passions almost to a climax. Do not keep the company of those whose only conversation is of a lewd and depraved character, but keep the company of those ladies who awaken your higher sentiments and nobler impulses, who appeal to the intellect and rouse your aspiration, in whose presence you would no more feel your passions aroused than in the presence of your own mother.

9. YOU WILL GET WELL.--Remember you will get well. Don't fear. Fear destroys strength and therefore increases the trouble. Many get downhearted, discouraged, despairing--the very worst thing that can happen, doing as much harm, and in many cases more, than their former dissipation. Brooding kills; hope enlivens. Then sing with joy that the savior of knowledge has vanquished the death-dealing ignorance of the past; that the glorious strength of manhood has awakened and cast from you forever the grinning skeleton of vice. Be your better self, proud that your thoughts in the day-time are as pure as you could wish your dreams to be at night.

10. HELPS.--Do not use tobacco or liquor. They inflame the passions and irritate the nervous system; they only gratify base appetites and never rouse the higher feelings. Highly spiced food should be eschewed, not chewed. Meat should be eaten sparingly, and never at the last meal.

11. DON'T EAT TOO MUCH.--If not engaged in hard physical labor, try eating two meals a day. Never neglect the calls of nature, and if possible have a passage from the bowels every night before retiring. When this is not done the feces often drop into the rectum during sleep, producing heat which extends to the sexual organs, causing the lascivious dreams and emission. This will be noticed especially in the morning, when the feces usually distend {463} the rectum and the person nearly always awakes with sexual passions aroused. If necessary, use injections into the rectum of from one to two quarts of water, blood heat, two or three times a week. Be sure to keep clean and see to it that no matter collects under the foreskin. Wash off the organ every night and take a quick, cold hand-bath every morning. Have something to do. Never be idle. Idleness always worships at the shrine of passion.

12. THE WORST TIME OF ALL.--Many are ruined by allowing their thoughts to run riot in the morning. Owing to the passions being roused as stated above, the young man lies half awake and half dozing, rousing his passions and reveling in lascivious thought for hours perhaps, thus completely sapping the fountains of purity, establishing habits of vice that will bind him with iron bands, and doing his physical system more injury than if he had practiced self-abuse, and had the emission in a few minutes. Jump out of bed at once on waking, and never allow the thought to master you.

13. A HAND BATH.--A hand bath in cold water every morning will diminish those rampant sexual cravings, that crazy, burning, lustful desire so sensualizing to men by millions; lessen prostitution by toning down that passion which alone patronizes it, and relieve wives by the millions of those excessive conjugal demands which ruin their sexual health; besides souring their tempers, and then demanding millions of money for resultant doctor bills.