Chapter 33

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 of 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 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 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 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.

14. WILL GET WELL.--Feel no more concern about yourself. Say to yourself, "I shall and will get well under this treatment," as you certainly will. Pluck is half the battle. Mind acts and reads directly on the sexual organs. Determining to get well gets you well; whilst all fear that you will become worse makes you worse. All worrying over your case as if it were hopeless, all moody and despondent feelings, tear the life right out of these organs, whilst hopefulness puts new life into them.

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THE CURSE AND CONSEQUENCE OF SECRET DISEASES.

1. THE SINS OF THE FATHERS ARE VISITED ON THE CHILDREN.--If persons who contract secret diseases were the only sufferers, there would be less pity and less concern manifested by the public and medical profession.

2. There are many secret diseases which leave an hereditary taint, and innocent children and grandchildren are compelled to suffer as well as those who committed the immoral act.

3. GONORRHOEA (Clap) is liable to leave the parts sensitive and irritable, and the miseries of spermatorrhoea, impotence, chronic rheumatism, stricture and other serious ailments may follow.

4. SYPHILIS (Pox).--Statistics prove that over 30 per cent. of the children born alive perish within the first year. Outside of this frightful mortality, how many children are born, inheriting eruptions of the skin, foul ulcerations swelling of the bones, weak eyes or blindness, scrofula, idiocy, stunted growth, and finally insanity, all on account of the father's early vices. The weaknesses and afflictions of parents are by natural laws visited upon their children.

5. The mother often takes the disease from her husband, and she becomes an innocent sufferer to the dreaded disease. However, some other name generally is applied to the disease, and with perfect confidence in her husband she suffers pain all her life, ignorant of the true cause. Her children have diseases of the eyes, skin, glands and bones, and the doctor will apply the term scrofula, when the result is nothing more or less than inherited syphilis. Let every man remember, the vengeance to a vital law knows only justice, not mercy, and a single moment of illicit pleasure will bring many curses upon him, and drain out the life of his innocent children, and bring a double burden of disease and sorrow to his wife.

6. If any man who has been once diseased is determined to marry, he should have his constitution tested thoroughly and see that every seed of the malady in the system has been destroyed. He should bathe daily in natural sulphur waters, as, for instance, the hot springs in Arkansas, or the sulphur springs in Florida, or those springs known as specific remedies for syphilic diseases. As long as the eruptions on the skin appear by bathing in sulphur water there is danger, and if the eruptions cease and do not appear, it is very fair evidence that the disease has left the system, yet it is not an infallible test.

7. How many bright and intelligent young men have met their doom and blighted the innocent lives of others, all on account of the secret follies and vices of men.

8. PROTECTION.--Girls, you, who are too poor and too honest to disguise aught in your character, with your sweet soul shining through every act of your lives, beware of the men who smile upon you. Study human nature, and try and select a virtuous companion.

10. SYPHILITIC POISON INERADICABLE.--Many of our best and ablest physicians assert that syphilitic poison, once infected, there can be no total disinfection during life; some of the virus remains in the system, though it may seem latent. Boards of State Charities in discussing the causes of the existence of whole classes of defectives hold to the opinion given above. The Massachusetts board in its report has these strong words on the subject:

"The worst is that, though years may have passed since its active stage, it permeates the very seed of life and causes strange affections or abnormalities in the offspring, or it tends to lessen their vital force, to disturb or to repress their growth, to lower their standard of mental and bodily vigor, and to render life puny and short."

11. A SERPENT'S TOOTH.--"_The direct blood-poisoning, caused by the absorption into the system of the virus (syphilis) is more hideous and terrible in its effect than that of a serpent's tooth._ This may kill outright, and there's an end; but that, stingless and painless, slowly and surely permeates and vitiates the whole system of which it becomes part and parcel, like myriads of trichinae, and can never be utterly cast out, even by salivation.

"Woe to the family and to the people in whose veins the poison courses!

"It would seem that nothing could end the curse except utter extermination. That, however, would imply a purpose of eternal vengeance, involving the innocent with the guilty."

This disease compared with small-pox is as an ulcer upon a finger to an ulcer in the vitals. Small-pox does not vitiate the blood of a people; this disease does. Its existence in a primary form implies moral turpitude.

12. CASES CITED.--Many cases might be cited. We give but one. A man who had contracted the disease reformed his ways and was apparently cured. He married, and although living a moral life was compelled to witness in his little girl's eye-balls, her gums, and her breath the result of his past sins. No suffering, no expense, no effort would have been too great could he but be assured that his offspring might be freed from these results.

13. PREVENTION BETTER THAN CURE.--Here is a case where the old adage, "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure," may be aptly applied. Our desire would be to herald to all young men in stentorian tones the advice, "Avoid as a deadly enemy any approaches or probable pitfalls of the disease. Let prevention be your motto and then you need not look for a cure."

14. HELP PROFFERED.--Realizing the sad fact that many are afflicted with this disease we would put forth our utmost powers to help even these, and hence give on the following pages some of the best methods of cure.

HOW TO CURE GONORRHOEA (Clap).

CAUSES, IMPURE CONNECTIONS, ETC.

SYMPTOMS.--As the disease first commences to manifest itself, the patient notices a slight itching at the point of the male organ, which is shortly followed by a tingling or smarting sensation, especially on making water. This is on account of the inflammation, which now gradually extends backward, until the whole canal is involved. The orifice of the urethra is now noticed to be swollen and reddened, and on inspection a slight discharge will be found to be present. And if the penis is pressed between the finger and thumb, matter or pus exudes. As the inflammatory stage commences, the formation of pus is increased, which changes from a thin to a thick yellow color, accompanied by a severe scalding on making water. The inflammation increases up to the fifth day, often causing such pain, on urinating, that the patient is tortured severely. When the disease reaches its height, the erections become somewhat painful, when the discharge may be streaked with blood.

HOME TREATMENT.

First, see that the bowels are loose--if not, a cathartic should be given. If the digestive powers are impaired, they should be corrected and the general health looked after. If the system is in a good condition, give internally five drops of gelseminum every two hours. The first thing to be thought of is to pluck the disease in its bud, which is best done by injections. The best of these are: tinct. hydrastis, one drachm; pure water, four ounces; to be used three times a day after urinating. Zinc, sulphate, ten grains; pure water, eight ounces; to be used after urinating every morning and night. Equal parts of red wine and pure water are often used, and are of high repute, as also one grain of permanganate of potash to four ounces of water.

If the above remedies are ineffectual, a competent physician should be consulted.

GENERAL TREATMENT.--One of the best injections for a speedy cure is:

Hydrastis, 1 oz. Water, 5 oz.

Mix and with a small syringe inject into the penis four or five times a day after urinating, until relieved, and diminish the number of injections as the disease disappears. No medicine per mouth need be given, unless the patient is in poor health.

SYPHILIS (POX).

1. This is the worst of all diseases except cancer--no tissue of the body escapes the ravages of this dreadful disease--bone, muscle, teeth, skin and every part of the body are destroyed by its deforming and corroding influence.

2. SYMPTOMS.--About eight days after the exposure a little redness and then a pimple, which soon becomes an open sore, makes its appearance, on or about the end of the penis in males or on the external or inner parts of the uterus of females. Pimples and sores soon multiply, and after a time little hard lumps appear in the groin, which soon develop into a blue tumor called _bubo._ Copper colored spots may appear in the face, hair fall out, etc. Canker and ulcerations in the mouth and various parts of the body soon develop.

3. TREATMENT.--Secure the very best physician your means will allow without delay.

4. LOCAL TREATMENT OF BUBOES.--To prevent suppuration, treatment must be instituted as soon as they appear. Compresses, wet in a solution composed of half an ounce of muriate of ammonia, three drachms of the fluid extract of belladonna, and a pint of water, are beneficial, and should be continuously applied. The tumor may be scattered by painting it once a day with tincture of iodine.

5. FOR ERUPTIONS.--The treatment of these should be mainly constitutional. Perfect cleanliness should be observed, and the sulphur, spirit vapor, or alkaline bath freely used. Good diet and the persistent use of alteratives will generally prove successful in removing this complication.

RECIPE FOR SYPHILIS. Bin-iodide of mercury, 1 gr. Extract of licorice, 32 gr.

Make into 16 pills. Take one morning and night.

_LOTION._ Bichloride of mercury, 15 gr. Lime water, 1 pt.

Shake well, and wash affected parts night and morning.

FOR ERUPTIONS ON TONGUE. Cyanide of silver, 1/2 gr. Powdered iridis, 2 gr.

Divide into 10 parts. To be rubbed on tongue once a day.

FOR ERUPTIONS IN SYPHILIS. A 5 per cent. ointment of carbolic acid, in a good preparation.

BUBO.

TREATMENT. Warm poultice of linseed meal, Mercurial plaster, Lead ointment.

GLEET (CHRONIC CLAP).