SEXUAL HYGIENE 205 



and interesting if there is an honest, persevering desire 

 to make them so. 



The advantages of exercises of this kind are evi- 

 dent. (1) They are useful as well as healthful; while 

 they call into action a very large number of muscles 

 by the varied movements required, the expenditure of 

 vital force is remunerated by the actual value of the 

 products of the labor; so that no force is wasted. (2) 

 The tillage of the soil and the dressing of vines and 

 plants bring one in constant contact with nature in a 

 manner that is elevating and refining, or at least af- 

 fords the most favorable opportunities for the culti- 

 vation of nobility and purity of mind and elevated 

 principles. 



Exercise carried to such excess as to produce ex- 

 haustion is always injurious. The same is true of 

 mental labor as of physical exercise. Plenty of sleep, 

 and regular habits of retiring and rising, are impor- 

 tant. Dozing is bad at any time; for it is a condition 

 in which the will is nearly dormant, though conscious- 

 ness still lingers, and the imagination is allowed to run 

 wild, and often enough it will run where it ought not. 

 Late study, or late hours spent in any manner, is a 

 means of producing general nervous irritability, and 

 sexual excitement through reflex influence. 



The author has made these suggestions to a large 

 number of young men who were suffering from the 

 results of sexual excesses, and whose lives had been 

 made wretched by the claraorings of artificially stimu- 

 lated passions, and has frequently witnessed the best 

 results. Not a little earnestness and moral courage 

 were required on the part of the patient, however, to 

 secure a rigid carrying out of the principles here laid 

 down. The fascination of a passion long indulged is 



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