FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   272   273   274   275   276   277   278   279   280   281   282   283   284   285   286   287   288   289   290   291   292   293   294   295   296  
297   298   299   300   301   302   303   304   305   306   307   308   309   310   311   312   313   314   315   316   317   318   319   320   321   >>   >|  
ealthy individual, can produce any evil results beyond slight functional disturbances, and these only when it is practiced in excess. To illustrate the real pathological relationships of masturbation, a few typical and important disorders may be briefly considered. The delicate mechanism of the eye is one of the first portions of the nervous apparatus to be disturbed by any undue strain on the system; it is not surprising that masturbation should be widely incriminated as a cause of eye troubles. If, however, we inquire into the results obtained by the most cautious and experienced ophthalmological observers, it grows evident that masturbation, as a cause of disease of the eye, becomes merged into wider causes. In Germany, Hermann Cohn, the distinguished ophthalmic surgeon of Breslau, has dealt fully with the question.[318] Cohn, who believes that all young men and women masturbate to some extent, finds that masturbation must be excessive for eye trouble to become apparent. In most of his cases there was masturbation several times daily during from five to seven years, in many during ten years, and in one during twenty-three years. In such cases we are obviously dealing with abnormal persons, and no one will dispute the possibility of harmful results; in some of the cases, when masturbation was stopped, the eye trouble improved. Even in these cases, however, the troubles were but slight, the chief being, apparently, photopsia (a subjective sensation of light) with otherwise normal conditions of pupil, vision, color-sense, and retina. In some cases there was photophobia, and he has also found paralysis of accommodation and conjunctivitis. At a later date Salmo Cohn, in his comprehensive monograph on the relationship between the eye and the sexual organs in women, brought together numerous cases of eye troubles in young women associated with masturbation, but in most of these cases masturbation had been practiced with great frequency for a long period and the ocular affections were usually not serious.[319] In England, Power has investigated the relations of the sexual system to eye disease. He is inclined to think that the effects of masturbation have been exaggerated, but he believes that it may produce such for the most part trivial complaints as photopsisae, muscsae, muscular asthenopia, possibly blepharospasm, and perhaps conjunctivitis. He goes on, however, to point out that more serious complaints of the eye are ca
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   272   273   274   275   276   277   278   279   280   281   282   283   284   285   286   287   288   289   290   291   292   293   294   295   296  
297   298   299   300   301   302   303   304   305   306   307   308   309   310   311   312   313   314   315   316   317   318   319   320   321   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

masturbation

 

troubles

 

results

 
system
 

trouble

 
disease
 

conjunctivitis

 
believes
 

sexual

 

produce


practiced

 

slight

 

complaints

 

normal

 
sensation
 
conditions
 
possibly
 

muscsae

 

retina

 

muscular


vision
 

asthenopia

 

blepharospasm

 
subjective
 

stopped

 

improved

 

harmful

 

dispute

 
possibility
 
photopsia

photophobia
 

apparently

 
relations
 

inclined

 
numerous
 

investigated

 

period

 

ocular

 

England

 

frequency


brought

 

organs

 

exaggerated

 

accommodation

 

paralysis

 

affections

 

trivial

 
relationship
 

effects

 

monograph