Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners Part 58

8. It is only true to say that thousands of young men in the early stages of a licentious career would rather lose a right hand than have their mothers or sisters know what manner of men they are. From the side of the mothers and sisters it may also be affirmed that, were they aware of the real character of those brothers and sons, they would wish that they had never been born.

9. Let it be remembered that s.e.xual desire is not in itself dishonorable or sinful, any more than hunger, thirst, or any other lawful and natural desire is. It is the gratification by unlawful means of this appet.i.te which renders it so corrupting and iniquitous.

10. Leisure means the opportunity to commit sin. Unclean pictures are sought after and feasted upon, paragraphs relating to cases of divorce and seduction are eagerly read, papers and books of an immoral character and tendency greedily devoured, low and disgusting conversation indulged in and repeated.

11. The practical and manly counsel to every youth and young man is, entire abstinence from indulgence of the s.e.xual faculty until such time as the marriage relations.h.i.+p is entered upon. Neither is there, nor can there be, any exception to this rule.

12. No man can affirm that self-denial ever injured him. On the contrary, self-restraint has been liberty, strength and blessing. Beware of the deceitful streams of temporary gratification, whose eddying current drifts towards license, shame, disease and death. Remember, how quickly moral power declines, how rapidly the edge of the fatal maelstrom is reached, how near the vortex, how terrible the penalty, how fearful the sentence of everlasting punishment.

13. Be a young man of principle, honor, and preserve your powers. How can you look an innocent girl in the face when you are degrading your manhood with the vilest practice? Keep your mind and life pure, and n.o.bility will be your crown.

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Remedies for the Social Evil.

1. MAN RESPONSIBLE.--Every great social reform must begin with the male s.e.x. They must either lead, or give it its support. Prost.i.tution is a sin wholly of their own making. All the misery, all the l.u.s.t, as well as all the blighting consequences, are chargeable wholly to the uncontrolled s.e.xual pa.s.sion of the male. To reform sinful women, _reform the men_. Teach them that the physiological truth means permanent moral, physical and mental benefit, while seductive indulgence blights and ruins.

2. CONTAGIOUS DISEASES.--A man or woman cannot long live an impure life without sooner or later contracting disease which brings to every sufferer not only moral degradation, but often serious and vital injuries and many times death itself becomes the only relief.

3. SHOULD IT BE REGULATED BY LAW?--Dr. G. J. Ziegler, of Philadelphia, in several medical articles says that the act of s.e.xual connection should be made in itself the solemnization of marriage, and that when any such single act can be proven against an unmarried man, by an unmarried woman, the latter be at once invested with all the legal privileges of a wife. By bestowing this power on women very few men would risk the dangers of the society of a dissolute and scheming woman who might exercise the right to force him to a marriage and ruin his reputation and life. The strongest objection of this would be that it would increase the temptation to destroy the purity of married women, for they could be approached without danger of being forced into another marriage. But this objection could easily be harmonized with a good system of well regulated laws. Many means have been tried to mitigate the social evils, but with little encouragement. In the city of Paris a system of registration has been inaugurated and houses of prost.i.tution are under the supervision of the police, yet prost.i.tution has not been in any degree diminished. Similar methods have been tried in other European towns, but without satisfactory results.

4. MORAL INFLUENCE.--Let it be an imperative to every clergyman, to every educator, to every statesman and to every philanthropist, to every father and to every mother, to impart that moral influence which may guide and direct the youth of the land into the natural channels of morality, chast.i.ty and health. Then, and not till then, shall we see righteous laws and rightly enforced for the mitigation and extermination of the modern house of prost.i.tution.

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The Selfish Slaves of Doses of Disease and Death.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A TURKISH CIGARETTE GIRL.]

1. MOST DEVILISH INTOXICATION.--What is the most devilish, subtle alluring, unconquerable, hopeless and deadly form of intoxication, with which science struggles and to which it often succ.u.mbs; which eludes the restrictive grasp of legislation; lurks behind lace curtains, hides in luxurious boudoirs, haunts the solitude of the study, and with waxen {442} face, furtive eyes and palsied step totters to the secret recesses of its self-indulgence? It is the drunkenness of drugs, and woe be unto him that crosseth the threshold of its dream-curtained portal, for though gifted with the strength of Samson, the courage of Richard and the genius of Archimedes, he shall never return, and of him it is written that forever he leaves hope behind.

2. THE MATERIAL SATAN.--The material Satan in this sensuous syndicate of soul and body-destroying drugs is opium, and next in order of h.e.l.lish potency come cocaine and chloral.

3. GUM OPIUM.--Gum opium, from which the sulphate of morphine is made, is the dried juice of the poppy, and is obtained princ.i.p.ally in the orient.

Taken in moderate doses it acts specially upon the nervous system, deadens sensibility, and the mind becomes inactive. When used habitually and excessively it becomes a tonic, which stimulates the whole nervous system, producing intense mental exaltation and delusive visions. When the effects wear off, proportionate la.s.situde follows, which begets an insatiate and insane craving for the drug. Under the repeated strain of the continually increasing doses, which have to be taken to renew the desired effect, the nervous system finally becomes exhausted, and mind and body are utterly and hopelessly wrecked.

4. COCAINE.--Cocaine is extracted from the leaves of the Peruvian cocoa tree, and exerts a decided influence upon the nervous system, somewhat akin to that of coffee. It increases the heart action and is said to be such an exhilarant that the natives of the Andes are enabled to make extraordinary forced marches by chewing the leaves containing it. Its after effects are more depressing even than those of opium, and insanity more frequently results from its use.

5. CHLORAL.--The name which is derived from the first two syllables of chlorine and alcohol, is made by pa.s.sing dry chlorine gas in a continuous stream through absolute alcohol for six or eight weeks. It is a hypnotic or sleep-producing drug, and in moderate doses acts on the caliber of the blood vessels of the brain, producing a soothing effect, especially in cases of pa.s.sive congestion. Some patent medicines contain chloral, bromide and hyoscymus, and they have a large sale, being bought by persons of wealth, who do not know what they are composed of and recklessly take them for the effect they produce.

6. VICTIMS RAPIDLY INCREASING.--"From my experience," said a leading and conservative druggist, "I infer that the {443} number of what are termed opium, cocaine, and chloral "fiends" is rapidly increasing, and is greater by two or three hundred per cent than a year ago, with twice as many women as men represented. I should say that one person out of every fifty is a victim of this frightful habit, which claims its doomed votaries from the extremes of social life, those who have the most and the least to live for, the upper cla.s.ses and the cyprian, professional men of the finest intelligence, fifty per cent of whom are doctors and walk into the pit with eyes wide open. And lawyers and other professional men must be added to this fated vice."

7. DESTROYS THE MORAL FIBER.--"It is a habit which utterly destroys the moral fiber of its slaves, and makes unmitigated liars and thieves and forgers of them, and even murder might be added to the list of crimes, were no other road left open to the gratification of its insatiate and insane appet.i.te. I do not know of a single case in which it has been mastered, but I do know of many where the end has been unspeakable misery, disgrace, suffering, insanity and death."

8. SHAMEFUL DEATH.--To particularize further would be profitless so far as the beginners are concerned, but would to heaven that those not within the shadow of this shameful death would take warning from those who are. There are no social or periodical drunkards in this sort of intoxication. The vice is not only solitary, unsocial and utterly selfish, but incessant and increasing in its demands.

9. APPEt.i.tE STRONGER THAN FOR LIQUOR.--This appet.i.te is far stronger and more uncontrollable than that for liquor, and we can spot its victim as readily as though he were an ordinary b.u.mmer. He has a pallid complexion, a s.h.i.+fting, shuffling manner and can't look you in the face. If you manage to catch his eye for an instant you will observe that its pupil is contracted to an almost invisible point. It is no exaggeration to say that he would barter his very soul for that which indulgence has made him too poor to purchase, and where artifice fails he will grovel in abject agony of supplication for a few grains. At the same time he resorts to all kinds of miserable and transparent s.h.i.+fts, to conceal his degradation. He never buys for himself, but always for some fict.i.tious person, and often resorts to purchasing from distant points.

10. OPIUM SMOKING.--"Opium smoking," said another representative druggist, "is almost entirely confined to the Chinese and they seem to thrive on it.

Very few others. .h.i.t the pipe that we know of."

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11. MALT AND ALCOHOLIC DRUNKENNESS.--Alcoholic stimulants have a record of woe second to nothing. Its victims are annually marching to drunkards'

graves by the thousands. Drunkards may be divided into three cla.s.ses: First, the accidental or social drunkard; second, the periodical or spasmodic drunkard; and third, the sot.

12. THE ACCIDENTAL OR SOCIAL DRUNKARD is yet on safe ground. He has not acquired the dangerous craving for liquor. It is only on special occasions that he yields to excessive indulgence; sometimes in meeting a friend, or at some political blow-out. On extreme occasions he will indulge until he becomes a helpless victim, and usually as he grows older occasions will increase, and step by step he will be lead nearer to the precipice of ruin.

13. THE PERIODICAL OR SPASMODIC DRUNKARD, with whom it is always the unexpected which occurs, and who at intervals exacts from his acc.u.mulated capital the usury of as prolonged a spree as his nerves and stomach will stand. Science is inclined to charitably label this specimen of man a sort of a physiologic puzzle, to be as much pitied as blamed. Given the benefit of every doubt, when he starts off on one of his hilarious tangents, he becomes a howling nuisance; if he has a family, keeps them continually on the ragged edge of apprehension, and is unanimously p.r.o.nounced a "holy terror" by his friends. His life and future is an uncertainty. He is unreliable and cannot be long trusted. Total reformation is the only hope, but it rarely is accomplished.

14. THE SOT.--A blunt term that needs no defining, for even the children comprehend the hopeless degradation it implies. Laws to restrain and punish him are framed; societies to protect and reform him are organized, and mostly in vain. He is p.r.o.ne in life's very gutter; bloated, reeking and polluted with the doggery's slops and filth. He can fall but a few feet lower, and not until he stumbles into an unmarked, unhonored grave, where kind mother earth and the merciful mantle of oblivion will cover and conceal the awful wreck he made of G.o.d's own image. To the casual observer, the large majority of the community, these three phases, at whose vagaries many laugh, and over whose consequences millions mourn, comprehend intoxication and its results, from the filling of the cup to its shattering fall from the nerveless hand, and this is the end of the matter. Would to G.o.d that it were! for at that it would be bad enough. But it is not, for wife, children and friends must suffer and drink the cup of trouble and sorrow to its dregs.

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OBJECT LESSONS OF THE EFFECTS OF ALCOHOL AND CIGARETTE SMOKING.

By PROF. GEORGE HENKLE, who personally made the postmortem examinations and drew the following ill.u.s.trations from the diseased organs just as they appeared when first taken from the bodies of the unfortunate victims.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE STOMACH of an habitual drinker of alcoholic stimulants, showing the ulcerated condition of the mucous membrane, incapacitating this important organ for digestive functions.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE STOMACH (interior view) of a healthy person with the first section of the small intestines.]

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[Ill.u.s.tration: THE LIVER of a drunkard who died of Cirrhosis of the liver, also called granular liver, or "gin drinker's liver." The organ is much shrunken and presents rough, uneven edges, with carbuncular non-suppurative sores. In this self-inflicted disease the tissues of the liver undergo a cicatrical retraction which strangulates and partly destroys the parenchyma of the liver.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE LIVER IN HEALTH.]

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[Ill.u.s.tration: THE KIDNEY of a man who died a drunkard, showing in upper portion the sores so often found on kidneys of hard drinkers, and in the lower portion, the obstruction formed in the internal arrangement of this organ. Alcohol is a great enemy to the kidneys, and after this poison has once set in on its destructive course in these organs no remedial agents are known to exist to stop the already established disease.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE KIDNEY in health, with the lower section removed, to show the filtering apparatus (Malphigian pyramids). Natural size.]

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[Ill.u.s.tration: THE LUNGS AND HEART of a boy who died from the effects of cigarette smoking, showing the nicotine sediments in lungs and shrunken condition of the heart.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE LUNGS AND HEART IN HEALTH.]