tary vice, or marital excesses. At
length the powers of the erectile tissues are diminished, and there is
weakness which prevents the act of copulation, or the erection may be
slow and not last long enough, on account of a faulty functional
condition of the spinal cord.

A PECULIAR FORM OF IMPOTENCY is associated with certain abnormal
nutritive changes which give rise to a lymphatic or fat condition of the
system. Not that the temperament in all these cases is originally
lymphatic, but the system degenerates in consequence of nutritive
perversion. With the loss of sexual ardor, there is also apathy of mind,
loss of manliness, and the victim becomes cold, dispassionate, and
treacherous, devoid of any admiration or love for the opposite sex. He
acquires rotundity of person, the face is fat, smooth, often beardless,
and the voice is feminine.

The victims of this disease represent two distinct classes, viz.: (1)
those who are fearfully tormented by the consciousness that they are
losing their virile powers, and become irritable, jealous and often
desperate; and (2) those who are completely indifferent to this
deprivation.

(1.) Patients of the former class are readily restored to health by
proper treatment, for they are willing to make an effort for the
recovery of their manly powers. There is not complete loss of sexual
desire, yet their disappointment is so great that they may entertain
suicidal thoughts. They are moody, fickle, discontented, excitable, and
remarkably impulsive. With proper treatment, they regain tone of body,
vigor of mind, an increase of sexual desire, and become more attentive
to business affairs, and less indifferent to the gentler sex. With the
restoration of the general health and the sexual functions, remarkable
constitutional changes occur. It is often the case that their intimate
friends hardly recognize them by looks or acts.

(2.) It is equally true that those who are wholly indifferent to the
loss of virile power, uninterested in the evidences of their manhood,
are sometimes incurable. In fact, it is useless to treat the latter
class, because they will neither co-operate with the physician, nor
persist in the treatment necessary to effect a radical and
constitutional change.

Masturbation perverts and finally destroys the secretory functions of
the testicles. It sometimes causes chronic inflammation, which may
result in obliteration of the minute seminal canals, or obstruction of
the c