The Cause. 



dans Tantiquite et les temps modernes, ont 

 attaque de front ou traite incidemment la grosse 

 question d'hygiene individuelle et sociale, qu' 

 impliquent 1'exercice, et surtout Tabus et la 

 perversion des fonctions genitales. En general, 

 ils n'ont fait que paraphraser le passage qu'on 

 trouve dans le traite, De morbis, sans avoir 

 paru remarquer et comprendre la conception 

 etiologique du tabes genitalis que je signalais 

 plus haut. Aussi me semble-t-il inutile de 

 dormer des citations textuelles. Ou'il me suffise 

 de nommer les auteurs les plus celebres : Celse, 

 Aretee, Galien, Santorini, Hoffman, Boerhaave, 

 Senoc, Van Swieten, Levis, Storck, etc." 



Hippocrates was evidently the principal 

 authority of his day, and for many succeeding 

 generations. It is not altogether surprising that 

 his attention should have been drawn to the 

 effects of " L'abus des plaisirs de 1'amour," con- 

 sidering that he lived at a time when the Greeks, 

 by their profligate habits, were preparing the 

 way for their ultimate degradation, " a period 

 in which sensuality was almost unbridled." 



Although we look upon the period just prior 

 to, and the commencement of, the present era 

 as being the most immoral, some authors seem 

 to think that the vice was not so prevalent then 

 as in more modern times. It would, of course, be 

 difficult to guage the standard of physique at so 

 remote a period in order to make comparison 

 with the present day. " Cependant en reflechis- 

 sant sur les moeurs austeres, le genre de vie, et 

 la nourriture des anciens, en comparant leur 

 force et leur vigeur a la notre, nous avons tien de 



