These four writers--the
author of _Onania_, Tissot, Voltaire, Lallemand--are certainly responsible
for much. The mistaken notions of many medical authorities, carried on by
tradition, even down to our own time; the powerful lever which has been
put into the hand of unscrupulous quacks; the suffering, dread, and
remorse experienced in silence by many thousands of ignorant and often
innocent young people may all be traced in large measure back to these
four well-meaning, but (on this question) misguided, authors.

There is really no end to the list of real or supposed symptoms and
results of masturbation, as given by various medical writers during the
last century. Insanity, epilepsy, numerous forms of eye disease,
supra-orbital headache, occipital headache (Spitzka), strange sensations
at the top of the head (Savage), various forms of neuralgia (Anstie, J.
Chapman), tenderness of the skin in the lower dorsal region (Chapman),
mammary tenderness in young girls (Lacassagne), mammary hypertrophy
(Ossendovsky), asthma (Peyer), cardiac murmurs (Seerley), the appearance
of vesicles on wounds (Baraduc), acne and other forms of cutaneous
eruptions (the author of _Onania_, Clipson), dilated pupils (Skene,
Lewis, Moraglia), eyes directed upward and sideways (Pouillet), dark rings
around the eyes, intermittent functional deafness (Bonnier), painful
menstruation (J. Chapman), catarrh of uterus and vagina (Winckel,
Pouillet), ovarian disease (Jessett), pale and discolored skin (Lewis,
Moraglia), redness of nose (Gruner), epistaxis (Joal, J.N. Mackenzie),
morbid changes in nose (Fliess), convulsive cough of puberty (Gowers),
acidity of vagina (R.W. Shufeldt), incontinence of urine in young women
(Girandeau), warts on the hands in women (Durr, Kreichmar, von Oye),
hallucinations of smell and hearing, (Griesinger, Lewis), intermittent
functional deafness (Bonnier), indican in the urine (Herter), an
indescribable odor of the skin in women (Skene), these are but a few of
the signs and consequences of masturbation given by various prominent
authorities.[317]

That many of these manifestations do occur in connection with masturbation
is unquestionable; there is also good reason to believe that some of them
may be the results of masturbation acting on an imperfectly healthy
organism. But in all such cases we must speak with great caution, for
there appears to be little reliable evidence to show that simple
masturbation, in a well-born and h