DISEASES PECULIAR TO MEN 633 



Seminal Weakness or Nocturnal Losses.— The 

 great prevalence of masturbation among boys and 

 young men, and marital excesses among married men, 

 lias rendered the existence of genital weakness so com- 

 mon that many physicians have come to believe that 

 the occurrence of seminal losses during sleep is a per- 

 fectly normal condition, if not too frequently repeated. 

 Extensive observation, however, has convinced the 

 writer that this opinion is an error, and that in a man 

 who is in perfect health, physically, mentally, and mor- 

 ally, such a thing as involuntary seminal losses will 

 not occur, either sleeping or waking. 



This diseased ^condition, for such we consider it to 

 be under all circumstances, is not solely the result of 

 self-abuse, however, as it may arise from any form of 

 sexual abuse, as has been pointed out in previous por- 

 tions of this work. Unquestionably, the underlying 

 cause of the disease consists in a great number of cir- 

 cumstances relating to diet, matters of regimen, social 

 surroundings, etc., pertaining to our modern civiliza- 

 tion, which are directly calculated to stimulate the 

 sexual propensities to abnormal activity. 



The occurrence of an emission during sleep, indi- 

 cates excessive irritability and want of nerve tone on 

 the part of the nerve centers controlling the sexual 

 organs. In a state of health, the influence of the brain 

 or the nervous system alone is not sufficient to produce 

 seminal ejaculation, the natural stimulus of coitus or 

 the abnormal one of masturbation being required to 

 compel the receptacles of this most precious of all vital 

 fluids to yield up their contents. Wlien the controlling 

 nerve centers have been weakened by disease, however, 

 and still further weakened by the general lowering of 

 nerve tone during sleep, even the slight stimulus of a 



