Onanism, or, A treatise upon the disorders produced by masturbation, or, the dangerous effects of secret and excessive venery / By M. Tissot ; translated from the last Paris edition, by A. Hume.

  • Tissot, S. A. D. (Samuel Auguste David), 1728-1797.
Date:
1781
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Onanism, or, A treatise upon the disorders produced by masturbation, or, the dangerous effects of secret and excessive venery / By M. Tissot ; translated from the last Paris edition, by A. Hume. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    174/204 (page 158)
    3^3 ,diers who were unmarried, and who lived prudently, avere frequently afflicted with epllepfies, priapifms, or noaurnal pollutions; accidents which arofe from too abundant a fecretion of the femen, and perhaps from its being more acrimonious in a hotter climace than their own country, and where the diet is more fuc- culent. Dr. Jaques, whom I have elfewhere quoted, pro- duced a thefts * upon the diforders occafioned by the privation of venereal plcafure. Mr. Reneaume has written another upon ‘ monaftic virginity,’ the objed whereof is the fame. In fine, without mentioning any other, Mr. Gau- bius places exceffive continence amongft the caufes of diforders. It feldom, fays he, produces any ill ; we have, however, found it operate fo upon fome men, bornVith ftrong conftitutions, and who had much feed ; alfo in fome women f- He afterwards enume- rates thefe diforders. Their exillence, therefore, can- not be denied, but their uncommon nefs may be aflirm- ed particularly in this age, which feems to be that ofweaknefs; and we are every day miftaken in attri- buting indiferiminately to this caufe all the diforders of females who are marriageable, and preferibing ma- trimony * It may be neceflary to obferve that the thefis of Mr. jaques was not maintained, and that there w-ib an a'rret of the parfiamcnt againll it. M. de la Mettrie tranilated this thefis into French, or rather minted it, for it was already tranfiated, and infertctl it in that cruel and odious fatire upon the phyficians of Paris, a work wherein truth and his own judgment are equally attacked. ^ Inftitutioneâ pathologicae, §. 5^3*