found in
the urine to be a seminal discharge, for the great majority are of a
different character. They are, most frequently, simply mucus or
phosphates from the bladder. Seminal fluid cannot be distinguished from
mucus by any other than a careful microscopic examination. A microscope
of good quality and capable of magnifying at least one hundred and fifty
diameters is required, together with considerable skill in the operator.
Quacks have done an immense amount of harm by frightening patients into
the belief that they were suffering from discharges of this kind when
there was, in fact, nothing more than a copious deposit of phosphates,
which is not at all infrequent in nervous people, especially after
eating.

When the condition described does really exist, however, the patient
cannot make too much haste to put himself under the care of a competent
physician for treatment. If there is even a reasonable suspicion that
it may exist, he should have his urine carefully examined by one
competent to criticize it intelligently.

By many authors, the term spermatorrhoea is confined entirely to this
stage of the disease.

It is said that the forcible interruption of ejaculation has been the
cause of this unfortunate condition in many cases. Such a proceeding
is certainly very hazardous.

One more caution should be offered; viz., that the occasional presence
of spermatozoa in the urine is not a proof of the existence of internal
emissions, as a few zoosperms may be left in the urethra after a
voluntary or nocturnal emission, and thus find their way into the urine
as it is discharged from the bladder.

Impotence.--In the progress of the disease a point is finally reached
when the victim not only loses all desire for the natural exercise of
the sexual function, but when such an act becomes impossible. This
condition may have been reached even before all of the preceding
symptoms have been developed. Ultimately it becomes impossible to
longer practice the abominable vice itself, on account of the great
degeneration and relaxation of the organs. The approach of this
condition is indicated by increasing loss of erectile power, which is
at first only temporary, but afterward becomes permanent. Still the
involuntary discharges continue, and the victim sees himself gradually
sinking lower and lower into the pit which his own hands have dug. The
misery of his condition is unimaginable; manhood lost, body a wreck,
and death staring