268 PLAIN FACTS FOR OLD AND YOUNG 



credible ; and yet we have not seen it contradicted. It 

 is more than probable that the practice is far more 

 nearly universal everywhere than even medical men 

 are willing to admit. Many young men who have been 

 addicted to the vice, have in their confessions, declared 

 that they found it universal in the schools in which 

 they learned the practice. 



The extent to which the vice is practiced by an in- 

 dividual is in some cases appalling. Three or four 

 repetitions of the act daily are not uncommon. 



In a case which came under the author's care some 

 time ago, that of a young woman, the vice had been 

 practiced ten to fourteen times daily for weeks at a 

 * time. The patient had become a bed-ridden invalid, 

 and was reduced to the most wretched condition phys- 

 ically and mentally; and it was only by the most ear- 

 nest and persistent effort that she was rescued from the 

 miserable state into which she had fallen. 



Testimony of Eminent Authors.— Says a med- 

 ical writer, ''In my opinion, neither the plague, nor 

 war, nor smallpox, nor similar diseases, have produced 

 results so disastrous to humanity as the pernicious 

 habit of Onanism ; it is the destroying element of civil- 

 ized societies, which is constantly in action, and gradu- 

 ally undermines the health of a nation," 



''The sin of self-pollution, which is generally con- 

 sidered to be that of Onan, is one of the most destruc- 

 tive evils ever practiced by fallen man. In many re- 

 spects it is several degrees worse than common whore- 

 dom, and has in its train more awful consequences, 

 though practiced by numbers who would shudder at 

 the thought of criminal connection with a prostitute. ' ' * 



"However revolting to the feelings it may be to 



* Dr," Adam Clarke. 



