252 PLAIN FACTS FOR OLD AND YOUNG 



lessons of purity and self-control. Constipation, piles, 

 worms, pruritis of tlie genitals, and some other less 

 common diseases of the urinary and genital systems, 

 have been causes of sexual excitement which has re- 

 sulted in moral degradation. 



Results of Licentiousness. — Apparently as a 

 safeguard to virtue, nature has appended to the sin of 

 illicit sexual indulgence, as penalties, the most loath- 

 some, deadly, and incurable diseases known to man. 

 Some of these, as gonorrhea and chancroid, are purely 

 local diseases; and though they occasion the trans- 

 gressor a vast amount of suffering, they may be cured 

 and leave no trace of their presence except in the con- 

 science of the individual. Such a result, however, is 

 by no means the usual one. Most frequently, the in- 

 jury done is more or less permanent; sometimes it 

 amounts to loss of life or serious mutilation, as in 

 cases we have seen. And one attack secures no im- 

 munity from subsequent ones, as a new disease may 

 be contracted upon every exposure. 



By far the worst form of venereal disease is syphi- 

 lis, a malady which was formerly confounded with the 

 two forms of disease mentioned, but from which it is 

 essentially different. At first a very slight local lesion, 

 of no more consequence— except from its significance 

 —than a small boil, it rapidly infects the general sys- 

 tem, poisoning the whole body, and liable forever after 

 to develop itself in any one or more of its protean 

 forms. The most loathsome sight upon which a human 

 eye can rest is a victim of this disease who presents 

 it well developed in its later stages. To describe them 

 would be to place before our readers a picture too re- 

 volting for these pages. No pen can portray the woe- 

 begone faces, the hopeless air, of these degraded suf- 



