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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    treated because it is not recognized ; we could easily find in reported cases, instances of this disease, treated for another. An eminent surgeon mentioned to me a man who, addicted by a singular taste for the lowest kind of venereal indulgence, having intercourse only in the corners of the streets, became finally exhausted and affected with severe pains in the kidneys, with emaciation, dryness and paralysis of the legs, which seemed to depend on the position he took in these low connec- tions. He died, after passing six months in bed, in a state to excite pity and horror. Does not this case add a fifth cause of the dangers commonly peculiar to masturbation ■? When the strength is lost by these two ways at the same time, feeble- ness ensues in a much greater degree. A person sitting or standing must in order to keep himself in these situations, es- pecially in the first, call a great many muscles into action, and this action weakens the nervous energy. Debilitated persons- who cannot stand a moment without feeling feeble, the sick who cannot sit without feeling this also, prove it very evidently. Perhaps in lying down in an extended position, this power is not necessary. It is seen that the same act in one of these attitudes produces more debility than in the other, in the first case, than in the second ; and Sanctorius had already indicated the danger of this position : Usus coitus stando, Isedit; nam musculos et eorum utilem perspirationem diminuit. Other cases which are well attested, furnish a sixth cause which perhaps might appear trivial, but which enlightened physicians consider of some consequence ; all living bodies perspire ; there is exhaled at every instant by the exhalent vessels of the skin, an extremely thin fluid which amounts to* much more than all the other evacuations, at the same time another kind of vessels admit a part of the fluids which sur- round the body and carry them into the other vessels. These are the torrens invisibles, to use the happy expression of Senac. which leave our bodies and enter them again. This absorption has been proved in some cases to be very great. Strong per- sons perspire most; the weak who have almost no atmosphere, inspire most, and this expired part, or this perspiration of per- sons in good health contains something nutritious and strength- ening, which inspired by another contributes to give strength. These observations explain how the young woman, with whom David slept, gave him strength; how this same thing has succeeded with other old men to whom it has been advised; and why this weakens the young person who looses it without