A treatise on the diseases produced by onanism / by Tissot ; translated from a new edition of the French, with notes and an appendix by a physician.

  • Tissot, S. A. D. (Samuel Auguste David), 1728-1797.
Date:
1832
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A treatise on the diseases produced by onanism / by Tissot ; translated from a new edition of the French, with notes and an appendix by a physician. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    tenance, and even the features change; the beard grows, and the whole body often assumes another appearance, since the muscles become so large and firm that they form a sensible difference between the body of an adult, and that of one who has not arrived at puberty. All these developements are pre- vented by debilitating the organ which serves to separate the fluid producing them. Correct observations prove that the ex- tirpation of the testicles, at the period of virility, causes the loss of the beard, and the return of an infantile voice^ Can we doubt, after this of its action on the whole body, and not per- ceive the many bad consequences with which the emission of so precious a fluid must be attended. Its destination deter- mines the only legitimate mode of its evacuation. It is some- times emitted in diseases. It may also be discharged involun- taiily, during libidinous dreams. The author of Genesis has left us the history of the crime of Onan, doubtless to mention his punishment; and we learn from Galen, that Diogenes was guilty of the same crime. If the dangerous consequences arising from the too abundant discharge of semen, depended only on the quantity, or were the same under different modes of evacuation, the quantities in each being equal, then it would be of little importance, physi- cally speaking, in which it took place. But there is a differ- ence ; a too great quantity of semen lost in the natural way, causes very serious symptoms, but these are much more serious when the same amount has been discharged by unnatural means. The diseases of those exhausted by natural connec • tions, are terrible; but those produced by onanism, are much more so. The last are, properly speaking, the object of this work, but they are connected so'intimately with the first, that they cannot well be separated. The description of them in com- mon will form the first article ; in the second, we shall explain the causes, together with those which render masturbation more dangerous; the mode of cure, and remarks on some ana- logous diseases, will terminate the work. Some observations „of the best authors will occasionally be added.