Are We a Declining Race ? 



enfin la fievre lente termine leurs jours." 

 (" Dissertation on the Dangers of Onanism." 

 A. Schwartz.) Hippocrates again in " De 

 Glandulis," Foes. Q. 273, ascribes " tabes dor- 

 sales " to this vice. 



" Premature or excessive sexual desires and 

 indulgences, and still more the crime of self 

 pollution, are the chief of the class of causes in 

 producing tubercular phthisis, and several other 



maladies Several instances have 



occurred in my practice of persons having ad- 

 mitted this when afflicted with phthisis, or with 

 any other of the maladies entailed by this vice, 

 and they were conscious of the cause only when 

 too late, and often when their minds and the 

 powers of volition were too much weakened to 

 resist the impulse to its commission. Even 

 married people, who have become addicted to it 

 previously to marriage, have continued it sub- 

 sequently, as they have themselves confessed to 

 me in several instances." (Dr. Copland : 

 " Dictionary of Medicine.") 



" The loss of too much semen occasions lassi- 

 tude, debilitates, and renders exercise difficult, it 

 causes convulsions, emaciation, and pain in the 

 membrane of the brain, it deadens the senses and 

 particularly the sight, gives rise to a dorsal 

 consumption, and various other disorders 

 which are connected with these." (Boerhaave : 

 Onanisme, p. n.) 



" Young people of either sex who devote 



themselves to lasciviousness destroy their health 



in dissipating those powers which were destined 



to bring their bodies to the greatest degree of 



96 



