r study, from errors in diet such as use of coffee, highly
seasoned food, wines, spirituous liquors or drugs of various
kinds--though perhaps prescribed by a physician. When these troubles
arise from constitutional disorders, a skillful physician must be
consulted at once. Errors in diet and the taking of drugs causing this
trouble must of course be discontinued. [G]"Certain medicines--as
astringents, purgatives, narcotics, stimulants and diuretics
especially--may bring on conditions from which spermatorrhoea may
arise." Among other causes Lallemand refers to the use of quinine,
tobacco and, particularly _alcohol_. The trouble may also arise from
injuries and many other accidental causes, besides masturbation and
venereal excesses.

[G] Lallemand and Wilson, page 192.

It is distressing to see what a complete wreck seminal losses make of
those who were once robust and healthy young men, and what a shock they
give to the nervous system. They become weak, pale, and feeble in mind,
while all that was manly and vigorous has gone out of them. Now which of
the two is preferable--the pride of a virtuous youth, or the roue
exhausted and worn out by sexual abuses? It demands great strength to
become either, but really a much greater effort for the latter; because
it requires very great perseverance for a chaste and pure minded man to
debase himself by such practices. It depends on the mind which is all
right before yielding the first point; therefore beware and shun the
first step downward. Strengthen the moral courage and exercise the will
power so as always to be able to say, "No," to whatever temptation the
conscience tells you is wrong.

CHAPTER V.

Adolescence of the Female.

Adolescence of the female embraces the period of life from the age of
twelve or fourteen, to twenty-one years.

At about the twelfth or fourteenth year of the girl's life a marked
change comes over her form, features and mental state. Unlike the male,
the forms which in him are angular, become in her rounded, symmetrical
and beautiful, and the characteristic feminine proportions are well
marked; she becomes more graceful in her movements, her voice grows
sweeter, more mellow, more powerful and capable of registering a higher
tone. New feelings and desires are awakened in her mind. Her deportment
becomes more commanding and less frivolous, and the girl is lost in the
woman.

If she has been so fortunate as to have escaped all the dang