headache or lassitude. Cases are not unusual in which the nocturnal
emission is experienced as often as three times in a week after which
there will be a period of two to four weeks without an emission,
followed again by very frequent emissions, and a free period. This
phenomenon is an individual peculiarity, and is not to be looked upon
as abnormal.

Cases of too frequent nocturnal emissions accompanied by languor and
headache are usually caused by irritability or lack of tonicity of
the sexual apparatus, particularly of the seminal vesicles and the
ducts. This irritability and loss of tone is not infrequently caused
by masturbation, though it may also be caused by excessive sexual
intercourse, making itself manifest, of course, in either case, on
cessation of the habit of masturbation or the excessive sexual
intercourse.

Another cause of too frequent nocturnal emissions and one wholly
separate from any abuse of the sexual function is irritability and
mechanical irritation of the sexual apparatus--perhaps especially the
membranous and prostatic portion of the urethra--caused by the
presence of an excessive amount of oxalates in the urine. Oxalates
occur in the urine in sharp angular crystals and would seem to be in a
high degree irritating to the tender mucous membrane of the upper part
of the urethra. The almost invariable presence of these crystals in
excess in those cases that have not been accounted for by abuse of the
sexual function leads one to adopt the plausible theory that the
crystals are the cause of the irritability. However, we must not lose
sight of the fact that these crystals may be simply an accompaniment
of the too frequent emissions, and that the presence of oxalates in
the urine may be caused by some disturbance in the nutritive processes
that go on in the body, which disturbance causes not only the
irritability of the sexual apparatus, but also the presence of the
crystals.

When the seminal vesicles are much distended it occurs not
infrequently that the passage of a hard mass of fecal material through
the rectum will, by simple mechanical pressure on the seminal
vesicles, force out a few drops, perhaps as much as a teaspoonful, of
the contents of the vesicles. This would be called an _involuntary
emission_, but the liquid passed out must not be looked upon as semen.
It is simply the secretion of the seminal vesicles, and in losing it,
one is not losing a vital fluid or a fluid, any portion o