The philosophy of marriage : being four important lectures on the functions and disorders of the nervous system, and reproductive organs, illustrated with cases / by L.J. Jordan.

  • Jordan, Henry J.
Date:
[1865]
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The philosophy of marriage : being four important lectures on the functions and disorders of the nervous system, and reproductive organs, illustrated with cases / by L.J. Jordan. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    to this spot is complained of ; also occasional pain, 'flatulence, a sense of distension, and other anomalous symptons. These symptoms are undoubtedly the result of venereal excitement, implicating the central ganglia of the sympathetic nervous system. Hence we have the strongest reason to infer, that when undue excitement of the generative functions causes irritation of these ganglia, this undue exciteanent will be thus communicated to the spinal cord, producing depression of spirits, pain at the pit of the stomach, and general prostration. If such be the nature of these complicated nervous phenomena, it is not altogether so sur- prising as it would otherwise be, that in the worst cases which occur of excesses in young men, nature has been sometimes unable to recover from too rapidly repeated shocks. The irritation thus set up has morbidly ex- cited the channels of nervous influence, pro- ducing in them some permanent injury, from which they never wholly recover, It is also a similar sympathetic influence thus morbidly developed, that re-acts on the kidneys as well as the stomach, causing them to pour out a considerable quantity of thick, muddy, unhealthy urine; and an irritablility of the bladder, inducing a frequent desire to mictu- rate. Many of the foregoing symptoms were appar- ent in case 1563, which I treated successfully by correspondence only. The patient thus writes:— At the age of about fifteen I acquired the fearful habit of masturbation, and continued an iimorant devotee and victim of it until I was