TJNCHASTITY 319 



confession of the poor victim did not render the matter 

 clear. Marriage does, indeed, often arrest this final 

 catastrophe, and thus apparently shifts the responsi- 

 bility upon other shoulders, and to the ' injurious effects 

 of early marriages,' to the 'ills of maternity,' are as- 

 cribed the results of previous personal abuse. 



*'For statistics and further information on this all- 

 important subject, we must refer the reader to the opin- 

 ions of physicians who have the charge of our retreats 

 for the insane, lunatic asylums, and the like; to the 

 discriminating physicians of the families of the upper 

 classes,— stimulated alike by food, drinks, scenes where 

 ease is predominant, where indolence is the habit, and 

 novel-reading is the occupation,— for further particu- 

 lars on a subject here but barely alluded to." * 



EFFECTS UPON OPFSPKING. 



If sterility does not result, children are liable to be 

 "delicate, puny, decrepit, or subject to various con- 

 genital maladies, especially of the nervous system, to 

 idiocy from deficient development of the brain, to hy- 

 drocephalus, to epilepsy, convulsions, palsy. The scrof- 

 ulous diathesis, tubercular and glandular maladies, dis- 

 eases of the vertebrje and of the joints, softening of 

 the central portions of the brain, and tuberculous for- 

 mations in the membranes, palsy and convulsions, 

 chorea, inflammations of the membranes or substance 

 of the brain or spinal cord, and numerous other af- 

 fections to which infants and children are liable, very 

 commonly result from the practice of self -pollution by 

 either of the parents previous to marriage. But the 

 evil does not always stop at this epoch of existence; it 

 often extends throughout the life of the offspring, or 

 it appears only with puberty and mature age." 



* Gardner. 



