UNCHASTITY 309 



the frequent operation of two such powerful influences 

 combined should be so terrible as they are found to be. 



General Debility.— Nervous exhaustion and the 

 loss of the vivifying influence of the seminal fluid, pro- 

 duce extreme mental and physical debility, which in- 

 creases as the habit is practiced, and is continued by 

 involuntary emissions after the habit ceases. If the 

 patient's habits are sedentary, and if he had a delicate 

 constitution at the start, his progress toward the grave 

 will be fearfully rapid, esj^ecially if the habit were 

 acquired young, as it most frequently is by such boys, 

 they being generally precocious. Extreme emaciation, 

 sallow or blotched skin, sunken eyes, surrounded by 

 a dark or blue color, general weakness, dullness, weak 

 back, stupidity, laziness, or indisposition to activity of 

 any kind, wandering and illy defined pains, obscure 

 and often terrible sensations, pain in back and limbs, 

 sleeplessness, and a train of morbid symptoms too long 

 to mention in detail attend the sufferers. 



Consumption. —It is well recognized by experi- 

 enced medical men that this vice is one of the most 

 frequent causes of consumption. At least, such would 

 seem to be the declaration of experience, and the fol- 

 lowing statistical fact adds weight to the conclusion: 



"Dr. Smith read a paper before a learned medical 

 association a few years since, in which he pointed out 

 the startling fact that in one thousand cases of con- 

 sumption, five hundred and eighteen had suffered from 

 some form of sexual abuse, and more than four hun- 

 dred had been addicted to masturbation, or suffered 

 from nocturnal emissions." * 



''Most of those who early become addicted to self- 

 pollution are soon afterward the subjects, not merely 

 of one or more of the ailments already noticed, but 



* Acton. 19 



