Part 96

7. STOP THE CAUSE.--The one thing needful, above all others, is to stop the cause. I have found that young men are invariably mistaken as to what is the cause. When asked as to the first cause of their trouble, they invariably say it was self-abuse, etc., but it is not. It is the thought. This precedes the handling, and, like every other cause, must be removed in order to have right results.

8. STOP THE THOUGHT.--But remember, stop the thought! You must not look after every woman with lustful thoughts, nor go courting girls who will allow you to hug, caress and kiss them, thus rousing your passions almost to a climax. Do not keep the company of those whose only conversation is of a lewd and depraved character, but keep the company of those ladies who awaken your higher sentiments and nobler impulses, who appeal to the intellect and rouse your aspiration, in whose presence you would no more feel your passions aroused than in the presence of your own mother.

9. YOU WILL GET WELL.--Remember you will get well. Don't fear. Fear destroys strength and therefore increases the trouble. Many get downhearted, discouraged, despairing--the very worst thing that can happen, doing as much harm, and in many cases more, than their former dissipation. Brooding kills; hope enlivens. Then sing with joy that the savior of knowledge has vanquished the death-dealing ignorance of the past; that the glorious strength of manhood has awakened and cast from you forever the grinning skeleton of vice. Be your better self, proud that your thoughts in the day-time are as pure as you could wish your dreams to be at night.

10. HELPS.--Do not use tobacco or liquor. They inflame the passions and irritate the nervous system; they only gratify base appetites and never rouse the higher feelings. Highly spiced food should be eschewed, not chewed. Meat should be eaten sparingly, and never at the last meal.

11. DON'T EAT TOO MUCH.--If not engaged in hard physical labor, try eating two meals a day. Never neglect the calls of nature, and if possible have a passage from the bowels every night before retiring. When this is not done the feces often drop into the rectum during sleep, producing heat which extends to the sexual organs, causing the lascivious dreams and emission. This will be noticed especially in the morning, when the feces usually distend {463} the rectum and the person nearly always awakes with sexual passions aroused. If necessary, use injections into the rectum of from one to two quarts of water, blood heat, two or three times a week. Be sure to keep clean and see to it that no matter collects under the foreskin. Wash off the organ every night and take a quick, cold hand-bath every morning. Have something to do. Never be idle. Idleness always worships at the shrine of passion.

12. THE WORST TIME OF ALL.--Many are ruined by allowing their thoughts to run riot in the morning. Owing to the passions being roused as stated above, the young man lies half awake and half dozing, rousing his passions and reveling in lascivious thought for hours perhaps, thus completely sapping the fountains of purity, establishing habits of vice that will bind him with iron bands, and doing his physical system more injury than if he had practiced self-abuse, and had the emission in a few minutes. Jump out of bed at once on waking, and never allow the thought to master you.

13. A HAND BATH.--A hand bath in cold water every morning will diminish those rampant sexual cravings, that crazy, burning, lustful desire so sensualizing to men by millions; lessen prostitution by toning down that passion which alone patronizes it, and relieve wives by the millions of those excessive conjugal demands which ruin their sexual health; besides souring their tempers, and then demanding millions of money for resultant doctor bills.

14. WILL GET WELL.--Feel no more concern about your self. Say to yourself, "I shall and will get well under this treatment," as you certainly will. Pluck is half the battle. Mind acts and reads directly on the sexual organs. Determining to get well gets you well; whilst all fear that you will become worse makes you worse. All worrying over your case as if it were hopeless, all moody and despondent feelings, tear the life right out of these organs whilst hopefulness puts new life into them.

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The Curse and Consequence of Secret Diseases.

1. THE SINS OF THE FATHERS ARE VISITED ON THE CHILDREN.--If persons who contract secret diseases were the only sufferers, there would be less pity and less concern manifested by the public and medical profession.

2. There are many secret diseases which leave an hereditary taint, and innocent children and grandchildren are compelled to suffer as well as those who committed the immoral act.

3. GONORRHOEA (Clap) is liable to leave the parts sensitive and irritable, and the miseries of spermatorrhoea, impotence, chronic rheumatism, stricture and other serious ailments may follow.

4. SYPHILIS (Pox).--Statistics prove that over 30 per cent. of the children born alive perish within the first year. Outside of this frightful mortality, how many children are born, inheriting eruptions of the skin, foul ulcerations, {465} swelling of the bones, weak eyes or blindness, scrofula, idiocy, stunted growth, and finally insanity, all on account of the father's early vices. The weaknesses and afflictions of parents are by natural laws visited upon their children.

5. The mother often takes the disease from her husband, and she becomes an innocent sufferer to the dreaded disease. However, some other name generally is applied to the disease, and with perfect confidence in her husband she suffers pain all her life, ignorant of the true cause. Her children have diseases of the eyes, skin, glands and bones, and the doctor will apply the term scrofula, when the result is nothing more or less than inherited syphilis. Let every man remember, the vengeance to a vital law knows only justice, not mercy, and a single moment of illicit pleasure will bring many curses upon him, and drain out the life of his innocent children, and bring a double burden of disease and sorrow to his wife.

6. If any man who has been once diseased is determined to marry, he should have his constitution tested thoroughly and see that every seed of the malady in the system has been destroyed. He should bathe daily in natural sulphur waters, as, for instance, the hot springs in Arkansas, or the sulphur springs in Florida, or those springs known as specific remedies for syphilic diseases. As long as the eruptions on the skin appear by bathing in sulphur water there is danger, and if the eruptions cease and do not appear, it is very fair evidence that the disease has left the system, yet it is not an infallible test.

7. How many bright and intelligent young men have met their doom and blighted the innocent lives of others, all on account of the secret follies and vices of men.

8. PROTECTION.--Girls, you, who are too poor and too honest to disguise aught in your character, with your sweet soul shining through every act of your lives, beware of the men who smile upon you. Study human nature, and try and select a virtuous companion.

Transcriber's note: there is no 9. in the original.

10. SYPHILITIC POISON INERADICABLE.--Many of our best and ablest physicians assert that syphilitic poison, once infected, there can be no total disinfection during life; some of the virus remains in the system, though it may seem latent. Boards of State Charities in discussing the causes of the existence of whole classes of defectives hold to the opinion given above. The Massachusetts board in its report has these strong words on the subject:

"The worst is that, though years may have passed since its active stage, it permeates the very seed of life and {466} causes strange affections or abnormalities in the offspring, or it tends to lessen their vital force, to disturb or to repress their growth, to lower their standard of mental and bodily vigor, and to render life puny and short.

11. A SERPENT'S TOOTH.--"The direct blood-poisoning, caused by the absorption into the system of the virus (syphilis) is more hideous and terrible in its effect than that of a serpent's tooth. This may kill outright, and there's an end; but that, stingless and painless, slowly and surely permeates and vitiates the whole system of which it becomes part and parcel, like myriads of trichinae, and can never be utterly cast out, even by salivation.

"Woe to the family and to the people in whose veins the poison courses!

"It would seem that nothing could end the curse except utter extermination. That, however, would imply a purpose of eternal vengeance, involving the innocent with the guilty."

This disease compared with small-pox is as an ulcer upon a finger to an ulcer in the vitals. Small-pox does not vitiate the blood of a people; this disease does. Its existence in a primary form implies moral turpitude.

12. CASES CITED.--Many cases might be cited. We give but one. A man who had contracted the disease reformed his ways and was apparently cured. He married, and although living a moral life was compelled to witness in his little girl's eye-balls, her gums, and her breath the result of his past sins. No suffering, no expense, no effort would have been too great could he but be assured that his offspring might be freed from these results.

13. PREVENTION BETTER THAN CURE.--Here is a case where the old adage, "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure," may be aptly applied. Our desire would be to herald to all young men in stentorian tones the advice, "Avoid as a deadly enemy any approaches or probable pitfalls of the disease. Let prevention be your motto and then you need not look for a cure."

14. HELP PROFFERED.--Realizing the sad fact that many are afflicted with this disease we would put forth our utmost powers to help even these, and hence give on the following pages some of the best methods of cure.