ritability and exhaustion of the entire nervous system.
Long engagements--when the participants are frequent companions--are
thus peculiarly unfortunate. It is only when the sexual functions are
normally exercised in adult life, as in sexual intercourse, that
sexual excitement is not harmful.

Young women about to marry should receive instruction from their
mothers as to the sexual relations which will exist after marriage.
Most girls are allowed to grow up ignorant of such matters and in
consequence may become greatly shocked and even disgusted by the
sexual relations in marriage--fancying that there must be something
unnatural and wrong about them because the subject was avoided by
those responsible for their welfare.

Any excess in frequency of sexual intercourse after marriage is
followed by feelings of depression and debility of some sort which may
be readily attributed to the cause and so corrected. Any deviation
from the natural mode of intercourse is pretty certain to lead to
physical disaster; thus, unnatural prolongation of the act, or
withdrawal on the part of the man before the natural completion of the
act in order to prevent conception, often results in deplorable
nervous disorders.

In conclusion, it may be said that parents must take upon themselves
the burden of instructing their children in sexual hygiene or shift it
upon the shoulders of the family physician, who can undertake it with
much less mental perturbation and with more intelligence. Otherwise
they subject their offspring to the possibility of incalculable
suffering, disease, and even death--largely through their own
inexcusable neglect.

CHAPTER II

=Genito-Urinary Diseases=

_Contagious Disorders--Common Troubles of Children--Inflammation of
the Bladder--Stoppage and Suppression of Urine--Causes and Treatment
of Bright's Disease._

=GONORRHEA.=--Gonorrhea is a contagious inflammation of the urethra,
accompanied by a white or yellowish discharge. It is caused by a
specific germ, the _gonococcus_, and is acquired through sexual
intercourse with a person suffering from this disease. Exceptionally
the disease may be conveyed by objects soiled with the discharge, as
basins, towels, and, in children, diapers, so that in institutions for
infants it may be thus transferred from one to the other, causing an
epidemic. The mucous membrane of the lower part of the bowel and the
eyes are also subject to the disease through contamination