308 PLAIN FACTS FOE OLD AND YOUNG 



at all overdrawn. We have yet to consider the general 

 effects, some of which have already been incidentally 

 touched upon in describing nocturnal emissions, with 

 their immediate results. 



General Effects. —The many serious effects which 

 follow the habit of self-abuse, in addition to those ter- 

 rible local maladies already described, are the direct 

 result of two causes in the male; viz. 



1. Nervous exhaustion. 



2. Loss of the s(MTiinal fluid. 



There has been much discussion as to which one 

 of these was the cause of the effects observed in these 

 cases. Some have attributed all the evil to one cause, 

 and some to the other. That the loss of semen is not 

 the only cause, nor, perhaps, the chief source of injury, 

 is proved by the fact that most deplorable effects of 

 the vice are seen in children before puberty, and also 

 in females, in whom no seminal discharge nor anything 

 analogous to it occurs^ In these cases, it is the nerv- 

 ous shock alone which works the evil. 



Again, that the seminal fluid is the most highly 

 vitalized of all the fluids of the body, and that its rapid 

 production is at the expense of a most exliaustive effort 

 on the part of the vital forces, is well attested by all 

 physiologists. 



The nervous shock accompanying the exercise of 

 the sexual organs, either natural or unnatural, is the 

 most profound to which the system is subject. The 

 whole nervous system is called into activity; and the 

 effects are occasionally so strongly felt upon a weak- 

 ened organism that death results in the very act. The 

 subsequent exhaustion is necessarily proportionate to 

 the excitement. 



It need not be surprising, then, that the effects of 



