192 PLAIN FACTS FOR OLD AND YOUNG 



cendency. On this point, the following remarks by 

 Mayer are very just: 



"At the outset, the sexual necessities are not so un- 

 controlled as is generally supposed, and they can be 

 put down by the exercise of a little energetic will. 

 There is, therefore, as it appears to us, as much injus- 

 tice in accusing nature of disorders which are depend- 

 ent upon the genital senses, badly directed, as there 

 would be in attributing to it a sprain or a fracture acci- 

 dentally produced." 



It would be just as reasonable to offer the appetite 

 for liquor as an apology for its use, and a good evi- 

 dence of the physiological necessity for alcoholic stim- 

 ulants, as to argue that sexual indulgence is a physio- 

 logical need for the individual, whereas no such 

 necessity exists unless produced by erotic thoughts or 

 other conditions within the individual's own control, 

 or by morbid or diseased conditions which require med- 

 ical treatment for their removal, and which will be 

 aggravated, rather than alleviated, by the gratifica- 

 tion of the desire for indulgence. 



Internal Secretions. —Bouchard, the distin- 

 guished French physiologist, has shown that the 

 character of all cells within the body of an animal, 

 depends upon the influence of certain subtle substances 

 in the fluids of the individual, which, altliough so small 

 in amount that they have, until recently, evaded the 

 closest scrutiny of the physiologist and the chemist, 

 are nevertheless so potent in their influence upon the 

 animal organism that they practically control every 

 function, from the first step of nutrition in the diges- 

 tion of the food, to the final process of assimilation in 

 the conversion of food elements into tissue. 



These peculiar substances, known as ' ' internal secre- 



