Читать книгу A Treatise on the Crime of Onan. Illustrated with a Variety of Cases, Together with the Method of Cure онлайн

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The over-dissipation of the animal spirits weakens the stomach, palls the appetite, and nutrition no longer proceeding in its due course or degree, all the parts languish, and an epilepsy is sometimes the consequence[19].

We cannot, it is true, say that the animal spirits and the seminal humor are the same thing, but observation has taught us, as will be subsequently seen, that these two fluids have a great affinity.

M. Hoffman has seen the most dreadful accidents follow a waste of the seed.

“After a long course of nocturnal pollutions (says he) not only the strength diminishes, the body is emaciated, the face turns pale, but moreover the memory fails, a continual sensation of cold seizes all the limbs, the sight dims, the voice grows hoarse[20]; the whole body insensibly decays; the sleep, disturbed by uneasy dreams, brings with it no refreshment, and one feels pains like those which follow a severe beating[21].”

In his consultation for a young man, who, among other disorders, had brought upon himself a weakness in the eyes, by self-pollution: “I have (says he) seen many examples of persons, who, even in the age of full growth, that is to say, when the body is come to the plenary enjoyment of its vigor, had drawn upon themselves not only a redness and extreme pains in the eyes, but also so great a weakness of the sight, as to be no longer able to read or write. I have even seen two instances of a gutta serena produced by this cause[22].”