The Biology, Physiology and Sociology of Reproduction Part 4

The disease manifests itself in from three to seven days after exposure by swelling of the orifice of the urethra, peculiar sensations between tickling and itching, and smarting or burning during urination. The peculiar sensations fix the attention to the genitals, thus causing frequent pa.s.sage of urine.

These symptoms increase for about a week, when the disease reaches its maximum degree of severity, which is maintained a variable time, the discharge from the urethra being thick, creamy and of a greenish yellow color.

In the majority of carefully treated cases, the discharge ceases in from three to six weeks with apparent recovery. Unfortunately, however, there is frequently a tendency for the disease to become chronic. The discharge becomes thin and more watery and persists for an indefinite period. This condition--chronic gonorrhea--is commonly known as "gleet."

c. =Syphilis=, popularly termed the "pox," is a const.i.tutional affection of the type known as "blood diseases."

It is by far the most important and most greatly to be feared of the venereal diseases. No disease has been so wide-spread in its dissemination or more potent in its influence upon humanity.

It has been known for centuries, having been mentioned by j.a.panese historians and in Chinese writings two thousand years ago.

Syphilis is contagious and is transmitted by inoculation. The infectious material enters the broken surface of either the skin or mucous membrane, called "contact" or "acquired" syphilis. When it is transmitted by the mother to the embryo, it is called "hereditary" or "inherited" syphilis.

The disease manifests itself first in a "_primary lesion_" which is a local ulcer (hard chancre) at the point or points of inoculation at a period ranging from ten to thirty days after exposure. It may appear as an erosion or as a dry scaling and indurated papule, varying in size from a pin-head to a silver dollar. The base of the ulcer is indurated. It is oval in shape, perhaps somewhat irregular, with a raw surface and red colored base devoid of pus.

Immediately following the appearance of the chancre, the glands in direct connection with it become enlarged, hard and rarely painful, but they have no tendency to suppurate like the enlarged glands of chancroid.

The chancre disappears in a few weeks and then there is a period when the individual has no outward manifestations of the disease. In about six weeks after the chancre the so-called _secondary symptoms_ make their appearance. They are heralded by headache, pains in the limbs and back, nausea, sleeplessness and nervous irritability and fever, followed by the appearance of a rash upon the face and body, falling out of the hair, sore throat and mouth. These symptoms disappear to be again followed by a period free from symptoms. After a longer or shorter time the so-called _tertiary symptoms_ make their appearance, which are many and varied.

The disease presents a succession of morbid const.i.tutional disturbances, appearing at variable intervals, and pursues a chronic course.

This disease remains in the body for years and affects the most vital organs, particularly the brain and spinal cord.

When one is infected with this disease he should seek the services of a reputable physician. The treatment of this extends over a long period, usually about three years, and must be strictly and conscientiously carried out. Marriage upon the part of an individual once infected should be only upon the approval of a physician.

After having detailed, as above, the terrible consequences of the venereal diseases, it is hardly necessary to add that the young man who deliberately seeks any of the usual chances for illicit intercourse, is more than taking his life in his hands. If infection with a venereal disease meant simply the death of the infected individual, it would really be very much less deleterious to society than is the present condition. When the young man "sows wild oats" and catches incidently gonorrhea, that twenty years ago was considered a sort of a "good joke," he will, in a large proportion of cases, lay the foundation for broken health and will run a serious risk of transmitting the disease to an innocent, pure wife.

When a woman catches this disease, particularly from her husband, she is very likely to interpret the discharge as a leucorrhea, may say nothing about it to her husband or her physician, but adopt simple home treatment with antiseptic and astringent douches. Such treatment will usually result in allaying the inflammation in the superficial organs, but will not eradicate it from the deeper organs. It spreads to the uterus, Fallopian tubes and ovaries and may even affect peritoneal tissues, first of the pelvis, then of the abdomen--may even finally affect the heart and joints. Of course, these are rather the extreme limit, but they are not at all rare cases. Once this terrible disease gets into a woman's organs, it is very likely to lead to a sojourn in a hospital where she loses some portion of her body as a sacrifice to this mogul of gonorrhea.

It is claimed by specialists in this field that at least sixty-five per cent. of the operations that women are subjected to in the hospitals for diseases of the pelvic organs are the results of gonorrheal infection. Besides the cases that require operation, a large proportion of cases of sterility is due to gonorrheal infection, either in the man or woman, or both.

If we consider the revolting sequences of syphilis with its train of operations, and progeny of scrofulous children, it would seem to make the natural retribution for illicit intercourse infinitely outweigh any brief pleasures derived from the enjoyment of the stolen fruits.

It hardly seems possible that any young man who knows the whole truth about these venereal diseases and their terrible after-effects could be tempted to indulge in illicit intercourse.

2. MASTURBATION.

The vice of masturbation or self-abuse is very likely to be learned in boyhood, perhaps even by boys of six or eight years of age through their a.s.sociations with obscene playmates. It not infrequently happens, however, that the habit is learned independent of these evil a.s.sociations. It has been explained above that secretions frequently acc.u.mulate under the prepuce and acc.u.mulating there serve as a local irritation, causing itching of the organ. This local irritation leads the boy to attempt to allay the irritation through rubbing. Such manipulation of the organ is very likely to excite it and to lead to the discovery on the part of the boy that such local manipulation may lead to pleasurable sensations of momentary duration. If he has not been instructed by his parents that these organs are sacred to the uses of manhood and that they will be injured if handled during childhood, he is very likely to repeat this act until it becomes a more or less fixed habit.

While it must be admitted that anything short of extreme excess in this habit among little boys will not be permanently injurious if the habit is stopped at p.u.b.erty, it must be perfectly evident that if a boy enters p.u.b.erty with this habit, the psychical and physical conditions of p.u.b.erty are such as to make the habit very difficult to stop. If it is not stopped a serious injury may result. So the necessity hardly need be further urged for explaining to young boys that these organs should not be handled.

After the boy enters p.u.b.erty, the habit of masturbation either acquired during p.u.b.erty or carried into that stage from early boyhood, begins to have a distinctly deleterious effect.

Let us now consider just what is the character of this deleterious effect. From what we know of the physiology of the s.e.xual apparatus, it must be evident that a s.e.xual o.r.g.a.s.m could be produced during waking hours only through strong stimulation of the activity of the testes, accompanied by liberation of spermatozoa and of the other elements of the vital fluid. Let us not forget in this connection, the statement made above: that the testis produces two forms of secretion, the internal secretion and the external secretion, the internal secretion being absorbed, produces those male characteristics which we group together under virility, while the external secretion is used for procreation. Spermatozoa do not make any part of the internal secretion. One reason for this must be evident, i.e., that being cellular elements, they could not pa.s.s through the vessel walls and be absorbed into the blood current, and if they could, by some special adaptation, get into the blood current, there is no conceivable action which they could perform in the body. We must then look upon the internal secretion as composed of the liquid elements of the testicular secretion.

So far as physiologists know at present, the external secretion differs from the internal secretion only in possessing spermatozoa.

When we say that the testes form their external secretion under s.e.xual excitement only, we simply mean that they liberate or release spermatozoa under s.e.xual excitement. The spermatozoa must be looked upon as the fertilizing element of the s.e.m.e.n, while the liquid portion of the s.e.m.e.n probably contains that mysterious element which, absorbed into the body, produces virility and which, pa.s.sed out with the spermatozoa, may have an important role to perform in the fertilizing function.

If the adolescent young man is leading a continent life, we may a.s.sume that from time to time he is subjected to conditions which serve as strong s.e.xual stimuli, arousing in him a definite desire for s.e.xual intercourse; but leading a continent life, he curbs his desire and fixes his thoughts upon other subjects. In this way, though the s.e.xual excitement is brought quickly under abeyance, we can rest a.s.sured that a certain number of spermatozoa have been released from the testes; and that the other secretions have been increased in volume. The excitement may be sufficient even to cause an erection, and produce a few drops of the secretion of Cowper's glands. The spermatozoa, together with a small amount of the liquid secretion, will make their way gradually along the vasa deferentia and collect in the ampullae.

The bulk of the liquid secretion, however, will, in the course of the following hours or days, be reabsorbed, thus making for virility. The small advance guard of spermatozoa that may have made their way to the ampullae will undergo a gradual decrease of their nascent activity, as the days go by. On the occasion of the next nocturnal emission the ampullae will empty along with the seminal vesicles and these spermatozoa pa.s.s out. If they be examined under the microscope as a part of a normal nocturnal emission, they will be found to be almost motionless or very greatly lacking in typical spermatozoon activity.

Now let us suppose that the young man, instead of curbing his s.e.xual appet.i.te, resorts, after a season of erotic imaginations, to the act of masturbation. We may picture the seminal ducts, vasa deferentia and ampullae as being gorged with the secretion of the testes, including, of course, myriads of just released and nascent spermatozoa, together with several cubic centimeters of the liquid portion of the testicular secretion. The act of masturbation causes an o.r.g.a.s.m and leads to a complete emptying of all these ducts. Thus we note that in this case the virile fluid is wasted, not being used in the procreative act or reabsorbed to exert its influence on virility. Nature's ends have been defeated. The system suffers a certain degree of depletion from which it recovers only after hours or even days. It must be evident from this picture of the processes that go on in the male s.e.xual apparatus incident to the act of masturbation that the act cannot be performed repeatedly, as it naturally is when it becomes a habit, without interfering with the virility of the adolescent male.

In the study of a large number of cases the author has found that the princ.i.p.al _physical_ changes that occur in a young man as the result of this habit are, flabbiness of muscle and clamminess of hands. The really virile man possesses firm muscles and clear, direct eyes and a strong grip; usually also a warm grip.

It has been thought by some that pimples on the face are a sign of masturbation in the youth, but such is not the case. They are a sign of lack of elimination through the kidneys and bowels and are not to be interpreted as having any essential relation to masturbation. There may possibly be an incidental relation growing out of the fact that in some cases of masturbation that habit seems to affect the nutrition and that in turn may cause the appearance of pimples on the face of the adolescent. However, one must be very slow to pa.s.s judgment in these cases.

Not the least important among the results of masturbation is the att.i.tude of the victim to society in general. This _psychical_ change is noticed in immoderate cases of masturbation and takes the form of disinclination to enter into any physical contests, or games; and disinclination to cultivate the society of the opposite s.e.x. Here again one must be conservative in his judgment, because there are individuals who possess a very retiring temperament naturally, and who may become so engrossed in study or productive work that they take little share in the society of either s.e.x, so that individuals who may be wholly innocent of any abuse of their s.e.xual apparatus would suffer a very grave injustice if they were cla.s.sed among the masturbators. So allow the author at this place to emphasize the importance of never pa.s.sing judgment on anybody in these matters on circ.u.mstantial evidence.

While the damage that one may do to his system through the practice of masturbation may not be very serious, in many cases that have come under the author's observation in which the habit has reached extreme limits, very serious, sometimes irretrievable damage has been done, yet the encouraging feature of this whole matter is, that if the adolescent youth, who is practicing this habit, is warned of its danger and stops at once absolutely, nature comes to his rescue, and gradually, step by step, but surely, rebuilds the whole fabric of his virility, bringing back gradually the flush of perfect health into his cheek, the light of perfect manhood into his eye and the tone of perfect virility into his muscles.

This change can be wrought in from one to three years of absolute continence. Nature, like a loving mother, heals the wounds of her child with a kiss.

3. CONTINENCE.

Such frequent reference has been made above to continence in ant.i.thesis to illicit intercourse and masturbation that little need be said in addition to that which has preceded. The young man who holds before his mental vision an ideal of the home he hopes some day to establish--in which a pure wife reigns as queen, sovereign of his life, and gently hovers over a brood of l.u.s.ty boys and fair girls--cannot for a moment consider as a sane solution of his s.e.xual problem, periodic visits to the house of ill fame or the periodic lapse into illicit intercourse with clandestines; nor can he expect to develop his powers, physically or intellectually to the highest possible degree if he permits himself to contract that habit [masturbation] which, step by step, undermines his development. There is open to the young man only one of the three alternatives mentioned above, i.e., TO LEAD THE "CONTINENT LIFE."

The continent life is a goal which every healthy young man should strive to reach. To arrive at a goal that is before us and above us requires sacrifice and brings compensation. The sacrifice takes the form of the exertion of the whole will power of the man and the painstaking observance of those rules of hygiene which make continent living more easily attainable. The compensations of continence are those that come from the a.s.surance that the young man has of his virility, of his worthiness to take the hand of a pure wife in wedlock, of the consciousness of his ability to establish and maintain a home, and to protect this home against all dangers.

CHAPTER V.

HYGIENE.

HYGIENE.

It is proposed in this chapter to outline, very briefly, a few simple rules of hygiene, the observance of which will tend to bring the young man into the highest possible state of physical development. a.s.suming that he wishes to lead a continent life, the observance of these rules will make that much desired condition more easily attainable.

1. DIET.

a. =Choice of Food.=--The young man who is boarding at a restaurant or in a boarding club can modify his diet only within the range of the menu provided. Fortunately, the young man can observe the most important rule of diet, i.e., _to eat abstemiously_. Wherever one is boarding he can eat temperately; he can avoid highly spiced foods, tea and coffee. The observance of these simple rules will go a long way towards simplifying his s.e.xual problem. It has been discovered by the study of the influence of diet upon s.e.xual appet.i.te, that the heavy eating of rich and highly spiced foods, indulgence in stimulants and narcotics, all tend to excite the s.e.xual desires.

The author presents a menu that would be looked upon as a temperate one for a student:

Breakfast.

Fruit Well cooked cereal breakfast food with cream or a slice of bacon, an egg, with bread and b.u.t.ter Gla.s.s of milk, cocoa or cereal coffee

Dinner.