him in the face.

This is a brief sketch of the local effects of the horrid vice of
self-abuse. The description has not been at all overdrawn. We have yet
to consider the general effects, some of which have already been
incidentally touched upon in describing nocturnal emissions, with
their immediate results.

General Effects.--The many serious effects which follow the habit of
self-abuse, in addition to those terrible local maladies already
described, are the direct results of two causes in the male; viz.,

1. Nervous exhaustion;

2. Loss of the seminal fluid.

There has been much discussion as to which one of these was the cause
of the effects observed in these cases. Some have attributed all the
evil to one cause, and some to the other. That the loss of semen is
not the only cause, nor, perhaps, the chief source of injury, is proved
by the fact that most deplorable effects of the vice are seen in children
before puberty, and also in females, in whom no seminal discharge nor
anything analogous to it occurs. In these cases, it is the nervous shock
alone which works the evil.

Again, that the seminal fluid is the most highly vitalized of all the
fluids of the body, and that its rapid production is at the expense
of a most exhaustive effort on the part of the vital forces, is well
attested by all physiologists. It is further believed by some eminent
physicians that the seminal fluid is of great use in the body for
building up and replenishing certain tissues, especially those of the
nerves and brain, being absorbed after secretion. Though this view is
not coincided in by all physiologists, it seems to be supported by the
following facts:--

1. The composition of the nerves and that of spermatozoa is nearly
identical.

2. Men from whom the testes have been removed before puberty, as in
the case of eunuchs, are never fully developed as they would otherwise
have been.

The nervous shock accompanying the exercise of the sexual
organs--either natural or unnatural--is the most profound to which the
system is subject. The whole nervous system is called into activity;
and the effects are occasionally so strongly felt upon a weakened
organism that death results in the very act. The subsequent exhaustion
is necessarily proportionate to the excitement.

It need not be surprising, then, that the effects of the frequent
operation of two such powerful influences combined should be so
terrible as they are found to be.