dorsal consumption, epilepsy, paralysis, loss of sight, &c., less dangerous diseases are overlooked, and that their origin is not suspected? How often, for instance, are we ignorant of the true cause of these affections whose characters are constantly changing, which are seen every day, which at first produce uneasiness, but with which one soon becomes familiar; which are not the symptoms of a disease having its name and place among other diseases, so much as the indication of constitutional affections, which appear from a variety of influences, and are referred to each one of them. And yet this kind of affection, as we shall state hereafter, is that presented most frequently by individuals addicted but for a short time to onanism, who indulge in it but seldom, or whose constitution resists this kind of excess.
Appeal has been made also to direct observation; the number of those who have fallen victims to onanism has been cited. It has been said, call to mind every thing which has occurred to you in the course of a long practice, you will doubtless find deplorable and even numerous instances of the diseases attending onanism; but does this number approximate that of the individuals who abandon themselves to this vice? There are few persons who are not addicted to masturbation; very well, are there many whose constitutions are impaired and whose health is destroyed? It is admitted that premature and too frequent and too often repeated indulgences may injure and sometimes have caused great detriment, yet those who live through them are very numerous, and the distance between the use and abuse of the act of venery, is greater than is generally admitted.
This manner of counting the dead and wounded has something specious in it, but it is defective in this respect, that it takes no account of what has escaped observation, and cannot be estimated. Every practitioner has undoubtedly seen more cases of masturbation than he has seen victims to this habit. But how many circumstances have prevented him from seeing all the diseases which are caused by this habit,
