OTHER FORMS OF SEXUAL DEBILITY.
Involuntaryseminal emissions are oftentimes very serious, distressing, and intractable. They may be produced in two ways—from continence, or by a high degree of morbid irritability or weakness. The latter is by far the more frequent; for the treatment of the former is obvious, and generally effectual. The difference between seminal discharges in persons of full health, and those morbidly weak, is very opposite: in the former it is consequent upon an erection, followed by an act of coitus; while in the latter both are absent. The general debility in the generative system, inseparable from morbid irritability, occasions both a failure in the erection of the penis, and an inability to retain the fluid in the secreting organs. There is no doubt that this disposition to seminal emissions, conjoined as it generally is with more or less deficiency of thevis virilis, is too often owing to the habit of self-abuse in early age. The testes usually wither in these cases, and the patient becomes nearly, if not entirely, impuissant. Sometimes these cases are attended by an excessive irritability of the bladder, accompanied by pains in the loins, kidneys, &c. Their treatment consists in taking nutritious and digestible food, to impart strength and invigorate the constitution. Stimulants are at the same time to be carefully avoided, except where great languor and lassitude prevail. Abstemiousness in liquids is to beenjoined. Habits of a relaxing nature should be avoided; the patient, instead of sleeping on a soft, downy bed, should lie on a firm mattress; the air of the room should be preserved at a moderate temperature, and but few hours should be allotted to sleep; he should pass much of his time in the open air in a cool atmosphere; taking frequent and moderate exercise, so that it does not occasion fatigue. Cold bathing is a very important and essential part of the treatment to be observed; the daily use of thebidet, or the frequent application of a towel, dipped in cold water, to the testes, applied twice or thrice a day, or thedouche bath, will be found of much service. To prescribe formulæ for the various temperaments subject to this affection would be to transcribe all the tonics from the pharmacopœia: they are severally useful, but the various preparations of iron surpass all others. During this treatment the state of the mind should not be neglected: no lascivious idea should be for a moment encouraged, nor should the imagination be permitted to wander over the works of fiction or romance in any way connected with matters of love.
It not unfrequently happens that patients affected with these complaints are apt to despond, and become miserably depressed in spirits; to remove which, every recreation should be encouraged to prevent them pondering over their own situation, and, if possible, to divert the mind from gloomy ideas: lively and agreeable company should be courted; theatres, concerts, or any other rational amusement consonant with the principles of the patient, should be visited or pursued, and by an uninterrupted perseverance in this mode of treatment for a sufficient length of time, I have seen the most beneficial results arise. The great art and difficulty in treating these cases consist in giving tonics to a certain extent and no further—avoiding excess, whereby we stimulate and produce fever; or depletion, and induce debility. Early hours, fresh air, exercise, attention to diet, the shower bath, topical application of cold, with properly regulated sexual intercourse, are rarely ineffectual in curing the disease.
I could narrate many instances wherein the sexual desire declined on the intervention of ordinary illness; any powerful mental solicitude will suffice, but such a causeis commonly remediable. Where the cause is traceable to excesses and pernicious indulgences, if not accompanied by disorganization, hope should not be abandoned; but the patient should not cling to, or hang his reliance upon, hole-and-corner speculators, or their advertised specifics. He should consult men legitimately engaged in the profession, in which, perhaps, more talent and honor are concentrated, than in any other department of science.