"Individual predispositions, acquired or hereditary, engender for each a series of peculiar ills. In some, the debility bears upon the pulmonary organs. Hence results the dry cough, prolonged hoa.r.s.eness, st.i.tch in the side, spitting of blood, and finally phthisis. How many examples are there of young debauchees who have been devoured by this cruel disease!... It is, of all the grave maladies, the one which venereal abuses provoke the most frequently. Portal, Bayle, Louis, say this distinctly."

A Cause of Consumption.--This fatal disease finds a large share of its victims among those addicted to s.e.xual excesses, either of an illicit nature or within the marriage pale, for the physical effects are essentially identical. This cause is especially active and fatal with sedentary persons, but is sufficiently powerful to undermine the const.i.tution under the most favorable circ.u.mstances, as the following case ill.u.s.trates:--

The patient was a young man of twenty-two, large, muscular, and well developed, having uncommonly broad shoulders and a full chest. His occupation had been healthful, that of a laborer. Had had cough for several months, and was spitting blood. Examination of lungs showed that they were hopelessly diseased. There was no trace of consumption in the family, and the only cause to which the disease could be attributed was excessive s.e.xual indulgence, which he confessed to have practiced for several years.

Effects on Wives.--If husbands are great sufferers, as we have seen, wives suffer still more terribly, being of feebler const.i.tution, and hence less able to bear the frequent shock which is suffered by the nervous system. Dr. Gardner places this evil prominent among the causes "the result of which we see deplored in the public press of the day, which warns us that the American race is fast dying out, and that its place is being filled by emigrants of different lineage, religion, political ideas, and education."

The same author remarks further on the results of this with other causes which largely grow out of it:--

"It has been a matter of common observation that the physical status of the women of Christendom has been gradually deteriorating; that their mental energies were uncertain and spasmodic; that they were prematurely care-worn, wrinkled, and enervated; that they became subject to a host of diseases scarcely ever known to the professional men of past times, but now familiar to, and the common talk of, the matrons, and often, indeed, of the youngest females in the community."

So prevalent are these maladies that Michelet says with truth that the present is the "age of womb diseases."

Every physician of observation and experience has met many cases ill.u.s.trative of the serious effects of the evil named. Some years ago, when acting as a.s.sistant physician in a large dispensary in an Eastern city, a young woman applied for examination and treatment. She presented a great variety of nervous symptoms, prominent among which were those of mild hysteria and nervous exhaustion, together with impaired digestion and violent palpitation of the heart. In our inquiries respecting the cause of these difficulties, we learned that she had been married but about six months. A little careful questioning elicited the fact that s.e.xual indulgence was invariably practiced every night, and often two or three times, occasionally as many as four times a night. We had the key to her troubles at once, and ordered entire continence for a month. From her subsequent reports I learned that her husband would not allow her to comply with the request, but that indulgence was much less frequent than before. The result was not all that could be desired, but there was marked improvement. If the husband had been willing to "do right," entire recovery would have taken place with rapidity.

Another case came under our observation in which the patient, a man, confessed to having indulged every night for twenty years. We did not wonder that at forty he was a complete physical wreck.

The Greatest Cause of Uterine Disease.--Dr. J. R. Black remarks as follows on this subject:--

"Medical writers agree that one of the most common causes of the many forms of derangement to which woman is subject consists in excessive cohabitation. The diseases known as menorrhagia, dysmenorrhoea, leucorrhoea, amenorrhoea, abortions, prolapsus, chronic inflammations and ulcerations of the womb, with a yet greater variety of sympathetic nervous disorders, are some of the distressing forms of these derangements. The popular way of accounting for many of these ills is that they come from colds or from straining lifts. But if colds and great strain upon the parts in question develop such diseases, why are they not seen among the inferior animals? The climatic alternations they endure, the severe labor some of them are obliged to perform, ought to cause their ruin; or else in popular phrase, 'make them catch their deaths from cold.'"

Legalized Murder.--A medical writer of considerable ability presents the following picture, the counterpart of which almost any one can recall as having occurred within the circle of his acquaintance; perhaps numerous cases will be recalled by one who has been especially observing:--

"A man of great vital force is united to a woman of evenly-balanced organization. The husband, in the exercise of what he is pleased to term his 'marital rights,' places his wife, in a short time, on the nervous, delicate, sickly list. In the blindness and ignorance of his animal nature, he requires prompt obedience to his desires; and, ignorant of the law of right in this direction, thinking that it is her duty to accede to his wishes, though fulfilling them with a sore and troubled heart, she allows him pa.s.sively, never lovingly, to exercise daily and weekly, month in and month out, the low and beastly of his nature, and eventually, slowly but surely, to kill her. And this man, who has as surely committed murder as has the convicted a.s.sa.s.sin, lures to his net and takes unto him another wife, to repeat the same programme of legalized prost.i.tution on his part, and sickness and premature death on her part."

Prof. Gerrish, in a little work from which we take the liberty to quote, speaks as follows on this subject:--

"One man reckless of his duty to the community, marries young, with means and prospects inadequate to support the family which is so sure to come ere long. His ostensible excuse is love; his real reason the gratification of his carnal instincts. Another man, in exactly similar circ.u.mstances, but too conscientious to a.s.sume responsibilities which he cannot carry, and in which failure must compromise the comfort and tax the purses of people from whom he has no right to extort luxuries, forbears to marry; but, feeling the pa.s.sions of his s.e.x, and being imbued with the prevalent errors on such matters, resorts for relief to unlawful coition. At the wedding of the former, pious friends a.s.semble with their presents and congratulations, and bid the legalized prost.i.tution G.o.dspeed. Love shields the crime, all the more easily because so many of the rejoicing guests have sinned in precisely the same way. The other man has no festival gathering.... Society applauds the first and frowns on the second; but, to my mind, the difference between them is not markedly in favor of the former."

"We hear a good deal said about certain crimes against nature, such as pederasty and sodomy, and they meet with the indignant condemnation of all right-minded persons. The statutes are especially severe on offenders of this cla.s.s, the penalty being imprisonment between one and ten years, whereas fornication is punished by imprisonment for not more than sixty days and a fine of less than one hundred dollars. But the query very pertinently arises just here as to whether the use of the condom and defertilizing injections is not equally a crime against nature, and quite as worthy of our detestation and contempt. And, further, when we consider the brute creation, and see that they, guided by instinct, copulate only when the female is in proper physiological condition and yields a willing consent, it may be suggested that congress between men and women may, in certain circ.u.mstances, be a crime against nature, and one far worse in its results than any other. Is it probable that a child born of a connection to which the woman objects will possess that felicitous organization which every parent should earnestly desire and endeavor to bestow on his offspring? Can the unwelcome fruit of a rape be considered, what every child has a right to be, a pledge of affection? Poor little Pip, in 'Great Expectations,'

spoke as the representative of a numerous cla.s.s when he said, 'I was always treated as if I had insisted on being born, in opposition to the dictates of reason, religion and morality, and against the dissuading arguments of my best friends.' We enjoin the young to honor father and mother, never thinking how undeserving of respect are those whose children suffer from inherited ills, the result of the selfishness and carelessness of their parents in begetting them.

"These accidental pregnancies are the great immediate cause of the enormously common crime of abortion, concerning which the morals of the people are amazingly blunted. The extent of the practice may be roughly estimated by the number of standing advertis.e.m.e.nts in the family newspapers, in which feticide is warranted safe and secret. It is not the poor only who take advantage of such nefarious opportunities; but the rich shamelessly patronize these professional and cowardly murderers of defenseless infancy. Madame Restell, who recently died by her own hand in New York, left a fortune of a million dollars, which she had acc.u.mulated by producing abortions."

A husband who has not sunk in his carnality too far below the brute creation will certainly pause a moment, in the face of such terrible facts, before he continues his sensual, selfish, murderous course.

Indulgence during Menstruation.--The following remarks which our own professional experience has several times confirmed, reveal a still more heinous violation of nature's laws:--

"To many it may seem that it is unnecessary to caution against contracting relationships at the period of the monthly flow, thinking that the instinctive laws of cleanliness and delicacy were sufficient to refrain the indulgence of the appet.i.tes; but they are little cognizant of the true condition of things in this world. Often have I had husbands inform me that they had not missed having s.e.xual relations with their wives once or more times a day for several years; and scores of women with delicate frames and broken-down health have revealed to me similar facts, and I have been compelled to make personal appeals to the husbands."[21]

[Footnote 21: Gardner.]

The following is an important testimony by an eminent physician[22]

upon the same point:--

"Females whose health is in a weak state ... become liable, in transgressing this law, to an infectious disorder, which, it is commonly supposed, can only originate or prevail among disreputable characters; but Dr. b.u.mstead and a number of other eminent authorities believe and teach that gonorrhoea may originate among women entirely virtuous in the ordinary sense of the term. That excessive venery is the chief cause that originates this peculiar form of inflammation, has long been the settled opinion of medical men."

[Footnote 22: Dr. J. R. Black.]

It seems scarcely possible that such enormity could be committed by any human being, at least by civilized men, and in the face of the injunctions of Moses to the Jews, to say nothing of the evident indecency of the act. The Jews still maintain their integrity to the observance of this command of their ancient lawgiver.

"Reason and experience both show that s.e.xual relations at the menstrual period are very dangerous to both man and woman, and perhaps also for the offspring, should there chance to be conception."[23]

[Footnote 23: Mayer.]

The woman suffers from the congestion and nervous excitement which occur at the most inopportune moment possible. Man may suffer physical injury, though there are no grounds for the a.s.sertions of Pliny that the menstrual blood is so potent for evil that it will, by a mere touch, rust iron, render a tree sterile, make dogs mad, etc., or that of Paracelsus that "of it the devil makes spiders, fleas, caterpillars, and all the other insects that people the air."

Effects upon Offspring.--That those guilty of the transgression should suffer, seems only just; but that an innocent being who had no part in the sin--no voice in the time or manner of its advent into the world--that such a one should suffer equally, if not more bitterly, with the transgressors themselves, seems anything but just. But such is nature's inexorable law, that the iniquities of the parents shall be visited upon the children; and this fact should be a most powerful influence to prevent parental transgression, especially in this direction, in which the dire consequences fall so heavily and so immediately upon an innocent being.

Says Acton, "The ill effects of marital excesses are not confined to offending parties. No doubt can exist that many of the obscure cases of sickly children, born of apparently healthy parents, arise from this cause; and this is borne out by investigations amongst animals."

Breeders of stock who wish to secure sound progeny will not allow the most robust stallion to a.s.sociate with mares as many times during the whole season as some of these salacious human males perform a similar act within a month. One reason why the offspring suffer is that the seminal fluid deteriorates very rapidly by repeated indulgence. The spermatozoa do not have time to become maturely developed. Progeny resulting from such immature elements will possess the same deficiency.

Hence the hosts of deformed, scrofulous, weazen, and idiotic children which curse the race, and testify to the sensuality of their progenitors.

Another reason is the physical and nervous exhaustion which the parents bring upon themselves, and which totally unfits them to beget sound, healthy offspring.

The effects of this evil may often be traced in a large family of children, nearly all of whom show traces of the excesses of their parents. It commonly happens, too, that such large families are on the hands of poor men who cannot earn enough to give them sufficient food and comfortable clothing, with nothing whatever to provide for their education. The overburdened mother has her strength totally exhausted by the excessive demands upon her system incident to child-bearing, so that she is unable to give her children that culture and training which all children need. More than as likely as not she feels that they were forced upon her, and hence she cannot hold for them all that tender sympathy and affection a mother should feel. The little ones grow up ignorant and often vicious; for want of home care drives them to the street. Thus does one evil create another.

It is certainly a question which deserves some attention, whether it is not a sin for parents to bring into the world more children than they can properly care for. If they can rear and educate three children properly, the same work would be only half done for six; and there are already in the world a sufficiency of half-raised people. From this cla.s.s of society the ranks of thieves, drunkards, beggars, vagabonds, and prost.i.tutes, are recruited. Why should it be considered an improper or immoral thing to limit the number of children according to the circ.u.mstances of the parents? Ought it not to be considered a crime against childhood and against the race to do otherwise? It is seriously maintained by a number of distinguished persons that man "is in duty bound to limit the number of his children as well as the sheep on his farm; the number of each to be according to the adequacy of his means for their support."

Indulgence during Pregnancy.--Transgressions of this sort are followed by the worst results of any form of marital excess. The mother suffers doubly, because laden with the burden of supporting two lives instead of one. But the results upon the child are especially disastrous. During the time when it is receiving its stock of vitality, while its plastic form is being molded, and its various organs acquiring that integrity of structure which makes up what is called const.i.tutional vigor,--during this most critical of all periods in the life of the new being, its resources are exhausted and its structure depraved--and thus const.i.tutional tendencies to disease produced--by the unnatural demands made upon the mother.

Effect upon the Character.--Still another terrible consequence results from this practice so contrary to nature. The delicate brain, which is being molded, with the other organs of the body, receives its cast largely from those mental and nervous sensations and actions of the mother which are the most intense. One of the most certain effects of s.e.xual indulgence at this time is to develop abnormally the s.e.xual instinct in the child. Here is the key to the origin of much of the s.e.xual precocity and depravity which curse humanity. Sensuality is born in the souls of a large share of the rising generation. What wonder that prost.i.tution flourishes in spite of Christianity and civil law?

It is scarcely necessary to say that all medical testimony concurs in forbidding indulgence during gestation. The same reasons require its interdiction during the nursing period. The fact that fecundation would be impossible during pregnancy, and that during this period the female, normally, has no s.e.xual desire, are other powerful arguments in favor of perfect continence at this time.

We quote the following from a work on health by Dr. J. R. Black:--

"Coition during pregnancy is one of the ways in which the predisposition is laid for that terrible disease in children, epilepsy. The unnatural excitement of the nervous system in the mother by such a cause cannot operate otherwise than by inflicting injury upon the tender germ in her womb. This germ, it must be remembered, derives every quality it possesses from the parents, as well as every particle of matter of which it is composed. The old notion of anything like spontaneity in the development of the qualities of a new being is at variance with all the latest facts and inductions concerning reproduction. And so is that of a creative fiat. The smallest organic cell, as well as the most complicated organism, in form and quality, is wholly dependent upon the laws of derivation.

"These laws are competent to explain, however subtle the ultimate process may be, the great diversities of human organization and character. Impressions from without, the emotions, conduct, and play of the organic processes within, are never alike from day to day, or from hour to hour; and it is from the aggregate of these in the parents, but especially of those in the mother immediately before and after conception, that the quality of the offspring is determined. Suppose, then, that there is every now and then an unnatural, excited, and exhausted state of the nervous system produced in the mother by excessive cohabitation, is it any wonder that the child's nervous system, which derives its qualities from those of its parents, should take its peculiar stamp from that of the parent in whom it lives, moves, and has its being?

"In the adult, epilepsy is frequently developed by excessive venery; and the child born with such a predisposition will be exceedingly liable to the disease during its early years when the nervous system is notoriously p.r.o.ne to deranged action from very slight disturbing causes.

"The infringement of this law regulating intercourse during pregnancy also reacts injuriously upon the mental capacity of the child, tending to give it a stupid, animalized look; and, there is also good reason to believe, aids in developing the idiotic condition."

A Selfish Objection.--The married man will raise the plea that indulgence is to him a necessity. He has only to practice the principles laid down for the maintenance of continence to entirely remove any such necessity should there be the slightest semblance of a real demand.

Again, what many mistake for an indication of the necessity for indulgence, to relieve an acc.u.mulation of s.e.m.e.n, is in fact, to state the exact truth, but a call of nature for a movement of the bowels.

How this may occur, has already been explained, as being due to the pressure of the distended r.e.c.t.u.m upon the internal organs of generation situated at the base of the bladder. It is for this reason, chiefly, that a good share of s.e.xual excesses occur in the morning.

But, aside from all other considerations, is it not the most supreme selfishness for a man to consider only himself in his s.e.xual relations, making his wife wholly subservient to his own desires? As a learned professor remarks, in speaking of woman, "Who has a right to regard her as a therapeutic agent?"

Brutes and Savages More Considerate.--It is only the civilized, Christianized (?) male human being who complains of the restraint imposed upon him by the laws of nature. The untutored barbarian, even some of the lowest of those who wear the human form, together with nearly all of the various cla.s.ses of lower animals, abstain from s.e.xual indulgence during pregnancy. The natives of the Gold Coast and many other African tribes regard it as a shameful offense to cohabit during gestation. In the case of lower animals, even when the male desires indulgence, the female resents any attempt of the sort by the most vigorous resistance.

Are not these wholesome lessons for that portion of the human race which professes to represent the acc.u.mulated wisdom, intelligence, and refinement of the world? Those who need reproof on this point may reflect that by a continuance of the evil practice they are placing themselves on a plane even below the uncouth negro who haunts the jungles of Southern Africa.

We quote the following from the pen of a talented professor in a well-known medical college:--

"I believe we cannot too strenuously insist upon this point--that s.e.xual intercourse should never be undertaken with any other object than procreation, and never then unless the conditions are favorable to the production of a new being who will be likely to have cause to thankfully bless his parents for the gift of life. If this rule were generally observed, we should have no broken-nosed Tristram Shandys complaining of the carelessness of their fathers in begetting them."[24]