D.

This little volume is fervently and solemnly dedicated to its Mission.

Those who conscientiously read and faithfully apply its teachings to
life, cannot fail to become wiser, better and happier members of the
Home circle and of Society at large.

PREFACE.

For many years I have wished that some able pen would place before the
community at large the knowledge contained in the following pages. Some
of this information has appeared from time to time in such books as
"Graham's Lectures on Chastity," "Todd's Students' Manual," and a few
popular works of a similar kind, which have been of immense service to
the human race in preserving chastity and in reclaiming the unchaste.
But all these are now inadequate to the growing demand for more light on
these vital topics. It has been too much the custom for everyone,
parents included, to shrink from instructing their own children, or
those entrusted to their care, on these points; consequently, many young
people _solely from their ignorance_ fall into the direst evils of a
sexual nature and are thereby much injured and sometimes wholly ruined
for life's important duties.

An experience of forty years in my professional career has afforded me
thousands of opportunities for sympathizing with young men, and young
women too, who had unconsciously sunk into these very evils merely for
want of an able writer to place this whole subject truthfully and
squarely before them, or for some wise friend to perform the same kind
office verbally. The perusal of a work by Wm. Acton, M. R. C. S., of
London, on "The Functions and Disorders of the Reproductive Organs in
Childhood, Youth, Adult Age, and Advanced Life," has, by his purity of
sentiments, which have ever been identical with my own, both inspired
and emboldened me to write a work of similar import. But his is for the
profession while mine is for the profession and the laity, of both sexes
and of any age. May its perusal inspire the readers with a higher
appreciation of the matters herein treated, and with a greater effort to
reformatory measures everywhere. Whenever I advise the consulting of a
"judicious" (a term I use many times) physician, I mean one fully and
practically qualified, both by inherent qualities and education, for the
fullest confidence of his patients.

I am indebted to my son, Joseph C. Guernsey, M. D., for assistance in
editing and carrying this work through the press.