CELIBACY
- SCIENCE DISCOVERS
THE
PHYSIOLOGICAL VALUE OF CONTINENCE
By
Dr. R. W.
Bernard, A.B., M.A., Ph.D.
All Rights
reserved (1957)
HEALTH RESEARCH,
An opinion has gained ground in modern
times, not only among the general public, but also among physicians, that the
belief in the physiological value of continence belongs to the dark ages of
religious superstitions and scientific ignorance, and is incompatible with
physiological knowledge. Certain pseudosexologists, have exploited this idea to
their commercial advantage and have created in the public mind a phobia in
regards to continence, which is regarded as a cause of nervous and mental
diseases and a positive health danger. On the basis of this belief, physicians
and psychoanalysts have looked on continence for the cause of the nervous
ailments of youth and have advised young men to visit prostitutes and risk
venereal infection as a lesser evil than the assumed hazards of abstinence.
A careful reading should, however,
convince any open-minded reader that the above view is false, and that
continence per se can never do harm, but is always beneficial; and that when
trouble occurs in an individual not practicing normal sex relations, the fault
is not continence but some vicarious means of sex expression, excessive
nocturnal emissions, etc. In view of the richness of the semen in lecithin,
cholesterol, phosphorus and other constituents of nervous and brain tissue it
is clear that it is incontinence, or loss of these valuable nerve-nourishing
substances which, by promoting undernutrition, is responsible for disturbed
functioning of the nervous system and brain, and never true continence,
contrary to the unscientific views of the psychoanalysts.
We have seen that the internal secretions
of the sex glands stand at the basis of the individual’s physical and mental
vitality and that sex hormones are present in the external as well as in the
internal secretions of the gonads. Many of the effects attributed to such
hormones, as we have seen, are due to the physiological effect of resorbed
semen. Conservation of semen means conservation of sex hormones and increased
vigor, while loss of semen means loss of hormones and diminished vitality; also
chronic deficiency of such hormones leads to the symptoms of senility, which
Voronoff and Steinach strove to overcome by increasing the amount of sex
hormones in the blood.
The semen is a viscid albuminous fluid,
alkaline in reaction, which is very rich in calcium and phosphorus, also in
lecithin, cholesterol, albumen, nucleoproteins, iron, vitamin E, etc. In the
ejaculation of the normal man, about 226 million spermatozoa are given off;
these are rich in phosphorized fats (lecithin), cholesterol (the parent-source
of sex hormones), nucleoproteins and iron. An ounce of semen is considered to
be equal in value to sixty ounces of blood, of which it constitutes an extract
of some of its most valuable of constituents, as far as its vitalizing power is
concerned. Dr. Frederick McCann remarks on this point, “From what has been
stated it must be admitted that the spermatic fluid does possess potentialities
justifying the belief of ancient writers concerning its vital properties.
The semen contains substances of high
physiological value, especially in relation to the nutrition of the brain and
nervous system. If resorption of semen through the wall of the female genital
tract has a vitalizing effect on the female organism, the same should be the
case in the body of the male in which it is formed and conserved. And
conversely, loss of semen must deprive the organism of vitality and valuable
substances necessary for the nutrition of nervous tissue, such as lecithin,
which has been used therapeutically with great success for the cure of
neurasthenia resulting from sexual excess.
The following are among the many
physiological evidences which demonstrate the value of continence:
1. There is a remarkable similarity of
chemical composition between the semen and the central nervous system, both
being especially rich in lecithin, cholesterin and phosphorus compounds, which
would indicate that seminal emissions withdraw from the body substances
necessary for the nutrition of nervous tissues.
2. Excessive voluntary seminal losses
(through masturbation, coitus, coitus interruptus, and contraceptive practices)
are debilitating and harmful to the body and brain.
3. Excessive involuntary seminal losses
(through nocturnal emissions, diurnal emissions, spermatorrhea, etc.) are
debilitating to the nervous system and may cause neurasthenia.
4. Observations of the immediate effects
of the sexual organism indicate that it temporarily exhausts the nervous
system, and when repeated too frequently leads to chronic nerve-weakness
(sexual neurasthenia).
5. Continence is beneficial to the brain
(for conserved lecithin from retained semen is a true brain food.) Hence some
of the greatest intellectual geniuses in ancient and modern times led continent
lives. These include Pythagoras, Plato, Aristotle, Leonardo da Vinci, Spinoza,
Newton, Kant, Beethoven, Herbert Spencer, etc.
6. Recent physiological evidence, pointing
to the fact that the seminal fluid contains substances of great physiological
value (such as Poehl’s Spermine, which is a nerve-stimulant, lecithin,
cholesterin, vitamin E, male sex hormones, etc.) supports the idea that
continence is beneficial to health, as do the experiments of Prof.
Brown-Sequard on the vitalizing effects of testicular extracts and those of
Prof. Steinach on the rejuvenation that follows the enforced conservation of
semen through ligature of the efferent testicular duct.
7. Leading physiologists, urologists,
genito-urinary specialists, neurologists, psychiatrists, sexologists,
gynecologists and endocrinologists endorse the physiological value of
continence. Among such authorities are Moll, Kraepelin, Marshall, Lydston,
Talmey and others.
Dr. Jacobson sent two hundred letters to
professors of physiology, hygiene, venereal diseases, nervous diseases,
neurology and psychiatry, inquiring as to their opinions concerning continence.
All answers with few exceptions declared continence to be conductive to health.
The following were among the answers received.
Kraepelin says that continence is not
injurious, and that its advantages in avoiding venereal infection are apparent. Gaertner also does not think that continence
is injurious to young men. Gramer writes, “Sexual continence before marriage is
not injurious. Finkler answered that sexual continence is not injurious to
young men, but, on the contrary, is beneficial to body and mind. Lassar also
thinks that sexual continence is not injurious to young men. Seiferts says that
his experience teaches him that continence is not injurious. Gruber says “There
is no reason why continence should be injurious.” Jurgensen thinks that sexual
continence per se is not injurious. Strumpell thinks that continence is
indirectly useful in preventing venereal infection, and is not injurious.
Hoffman considers sexual continence useful.
Strumpell thinks that continence is indirectly useful in preventing
venereal infection, and is surely not injurious. Tuczek is of the opinion that continence is
beneficial. Prof. von Leyden says that, in his experience, he has never seen
injurious consequences from continence. Hein says that in most men sexual
continence is not injurious. Prof. von Grutzner writes that in his opinion
sexual continence is almost never injurious. Prof. Meschede, during 47 years of psychiatric
practice, has never seen a case of insanity caused by sexual continence. Weber
writes that that continence is not injurious to young men, but, on the
contrary, is useful. Hoche is of the opinion that sexual continence is not
injurious to young men and does not lead to masturbation. Neisser writes: “Most
of our young men could remain continent much longer than in the case nowadays.”
Aschffenberg writes: “Even those who are predisposed to nervousness do not
suffer any harm from sexual continence if the impression is awakened in them
that abstinence can never be injurious.” Moll says: “At the present time, most
medical men agree that sexual abstinence, in a general way, is not harmful.”
Hutchinson says:
“The belief that the exercise of the sex
function is necessary to the health of the male at any age is a pure delusion
while before full maturity it is highly injurious.”
Among eminent authorities on sex who
believe that sexual continence is without harm and beneficial to health are the
following: Forel, Moll, Professor Montegazza, Professor Alfred Fournier, Prof.
Dubois; professor of neuropathology at Berne;
Prof. Furbringer, Loewenfeld,
Krafft-Ebing, Prof. Lydston, Ruggles, Prof. Oesterling of Tubingen University,
Chassaignac, Professor Beale of the Royal College of London, the eminent
gynecologist, Ribbing, the great authority, Acton, the gynecologist, Hegar, the
eminent English authority on the physiology of sex, Marshall, Dr. L.
Robinowitch, neurologist and psychiatrist, formerly president of the New York
Neurological Society, the eminent psychiatrist, Dr. Spitzka, also once
president of the New York Neurological Society, the New York gynecologist and
sexologist, Dr. B.S. Talmey, Professor Sajous, dean of American
endocrinologists; Dr. Bruce of the University of Oklahoma, Professor
Brown-Sequard, world-famous physiologist and father of the science of
endocrinology, and others.
Professor von Gruber of Munich, an
eminent European authority on sex, writing on “The Hygienic Significance of
Marriage”, says that it is absurd to regard the semen as an injurious secretion
like the urine, which requires periodic evacuation, but as vital fluid which is
not only reabsorbed during sexual abstention, but this reabsorption appears to
have a beneficial effect on the physiological economy, as shown by the large
number of intellectual geniuses who have led continent lives. Dr. Bernard S.
Talmey, an eminent American gynecologist and authority on sex, expresses a
similar opinion, and states that in the absence of sexually exciting stimuli,
the semen and spermatozoa are produced in smaller amounts and are completely
resorbed through the seminal vesicles, so that continence becomes easy and
natural; the conservation of this vital fluid, he claims, is necessary for the
attainment of the greatest vigor of body and brain, while its loss is harmful,
and a man may live through a lifetime in a state of complete continence,
without injury, but only with benefit, as proven in the case of such men as
Leonardo da Vinci, Kant, Beethoven, Spencer, etc. Dr. Dubois, the
neuropathologist, says that sexual indulgence, not continence, is the cause of
neurasthenia, contrary to the erroneous conclusions of the Freudian school.
Professor Alfred Fournier, a physiologist of note, ridicules the idea of “the
dangers of continence for the young man”, and that during his years of medical
practice, he has never come across one such case. Professor Montegazza, on the
other hand, praises the benefits of chastity, both upon the body and upon the
brain. Dr.John Harvey Kellogg, points to
the fact that many of the famous Greek athletes of antiquity (as Astylos,
Dopompos and others mentioned by Plato) practiced total continence during their
training, which contributed to their extraordinary vigor. Professor Furbringer, a prominent German
authority on sex, writes: “Sexual continence is in the unanimous opinion of the
medical profession not injurious to health as is generally believed.” Writing
on “Sexual Hygiene in Married Life”, he states that when neurasthenia occurs in
an unmarried person it is generally due to masturbation or some other form of
lasciviousness. Krafft-Ebing, the great authority on sexual questions,
considers the “diseases of abstinence” a myth. The gynecologist, Loewenfeld,
considers it possible for a sexually normal individual to live in permanent
continence without any ill-effects whatsoever. According to the noted sex
physiologist and endocrinologist, Prof. F.G. Lydston of the University of
Illinois, “Continence per se, probably never is harmful. The non-elimination of
the seminal secretion from the testes often is productive of great bodily and
mental vigor.” In his opinion, “one may be perfectly healthy and physically
vigorous while leading a life of absolute continence.” Ruggles writes: “Sexual
abstinence is compatible with perfect health and tends to increase vitality
through resorption of the semen.”
Forel, the
eminent Swiss authority on sex, says:
“Abstinence, or sexual continence, is by
no means impractical for a normal young man of average constitution, assiduous
in intellectual and physical work and abstaining from artificial excitants”,
adding, “The idea is current among young people that abstinence is something
abnormal and impossible, and yet the many who observe it prove that chastity
can be practiced without prejudice to health”. Dr. Perier points out the
falsity of the notion of the imaginary dangers of sexual continence, and
considers it a “physical, moral and mental safeguard to young men”. Rohleder
considers as unscrupulous the advice of physicians who recommend sexual
intercourse to young men. Chassaignac claims that the healthier the individual,
the easier to practice complete abstinence; it is only the diseased and
neurotic person who finds it difficult to do so. Professor Oesterling of
Tubingen says, “one cannot repeat too often that abstinence and the most absolute
purity are perfectly compatible with the laws of physiology and morality, and
that sexual indulgence is not more justified by physiology and psychology than
by morality and religion. Professor Beale of the Royal College of London says
that “sexual abstinence has never yet hurt any man when it has been observed.”
The gynecologist, Ribbing, says that he has known many young men who have lived
in total continence without difficulty or injury. Clarke says that continence
increases health and energy, while incontinence does the reverse. According to
Surbled, “the evils of incontinence are well known and undisputed; those
produced by continence are imaginary.” The great authority, Acton, says that
the popular idea that abstinence causes the genital organs to atrophy and
produces impotence is a grave error. “Chastity no more injures the body than
the soul,” he says. The gynecologist Hegar, considers the “sexual necessity”
myth an illusion, while Ribbing, another eminent gynecologist, points out the
needs for sexual control and continence. The noted physiologist, Marshall, in
his “Introduction to Sex Physiology”, points out the need for such restraint
over the reproductive function and the sublimation of sex energy into higher
cerebral forms of expression, as was the case with many intellectual geniuses
of the past, who led continent lives. Dr. L. Robinowitch, a prominent American
neurologist, says that “sexual continence is not only harmless but beneficial”.
American Medicine”, in its editorial of
July 1, 1905, remarks, “It should be an easy matter to convince any developed
man that continence can be a normal state of civilized man.” In 1906, the
American Medical Association passed a resolution that “continence is not
incompatible with health”. The International Brussels Congress also declared
that a chaste life for a man is not prejudicial to health, but, on the
contrary, can be recommended from a purely hygienic standpoint. The congress
stated, “It is the consensus of most of the great medical thinkers that it is
not prejudicial to the health of a man to keep his body clean”. The medical
faculty of Christiania University issued the following statement: “The
assertion that a chaste life will be prejudicial to health rests, according to
our unanimous experience, on no foundation. We have no knowledge of any harm
resulting from a pure an moral life”.
Convincing evidence of the benefits of
continence and that the assumed “sexual necessity” is an illusion is afforded
by the study of the debilitating effects of sexual orgasm, which are immediate
and striking. Though these have been attributed to purely nervous origin, there
can be no doubt that they are chiefly due to the harmful effects of the seminal
discharge, which involves a sudden withdrawal from the body of calcium,
lecithin and other substances necessary for the normal functioning of the
nervous system. Havelock Ellis, in his “Studies in the Psychology of Sex”,
quotes the observations of Dr.F.B.Robinson on this subject, as recorded in the
New York State Medical Journal. He notes that when a stallion cohabits with a
mare for the first time, after a short, vigorous coition, he is apt to fall
down in a dead faint, which Robinson traces to brain anemia thus produced. He
mentions one case of a mare falling dead immediately after. Young bulls
frequently faint away after the first connection with a cow, and it is very
common to observe a young bull so exhausted that he sneaks off to a quiet
corner and lies down for a couple of hours. Fainting, however, does not occur
in dogs, for the dog’s connection is prolonged and thus shock is avoided; also
the dog has no seminal vesicles. In the case of the boar, the orgasm rises to
such a pitch that the animal seems on the verge of pain, and is usually
exhausted for several hours.
Havelock Ellis
writes:
“When we have realized how profound is
the organic convulsion involved in [the] process of detumescence, and how great
the motor excitement involved, we can understand how it is that very serious
effects may follow coitus. Even in animals this is sometimes the case. Young
bulls and stallions have fallen into a faint after first congress; boars may be
seriously affected in a similar way; mares have been known even to fall dead.
In the human species, and especially men, probably, as Bryan Robinson remarks,
because women are protected by the greater slowness with which detumescence
occurs in them - not only death itself, but innumerable disorders and accident
have been known to follow immediately after coitus, these results being mainly
due to the vascular and muscular excitement involved in the process of
detumescence. Fainting, vomiting, urination, defecation have been noted as
occurring in young men after the first coitus. Epilepsy has been not frequently
recorded. Lesions of various organs, even rupture of the spleen, have sometimes
taken place. In men of mature age, the arteries have at times been unable to
resist the high blood-pressure and cerebral hemorrhage with paralysis has
occurred. In elderly men the excitement of intercourse with strange woman has
sometimes caused death, and various cases are known of eminent persons who have
thus died in the arms of young wives or prostitutes.”
The celebrated Russian general,
Skobeloff, died while cohabiting with a girl of ill-fame. Robinson refers to
the case of a judge who died shortly after connection with a girl in a brothel,
and to the case of a man of seventy who died after intercourse with a
prostitute. He also mentions the case of a man of 48 years of age who was found
dying in a Chicago hotel after cohabiting with an accommodating widow. Also the
case of a young man who fainted away at the first coitus, and that of a man
sixty years old who had connection with a strange woman and fell dead as he
walked to the door immediately after the act. Such deaths usually occur in
elder men, and usually as the result of intercourse with strange women, which
is more violent and intensive than with their wives. Atilla king of the Huns,
died while cohabiting with his young wife.
Acton, the great medical authority,
points out that in some persons the termination of the orgasm is accompanied by
an epileptiform convulsion of more or less severity. This is succeeded by a
great amount of prostration. This is seen in a very exaggerated form in the
buck rabbit, which, after each copulation, may be noticed to fall on his side
in a sort of epileptic fit, the whites of the eyes being turned up. The animal
then gives several spasmodic twitches with its hind legs, and lies panting for
several moments until the nervous system recovers itself. Acton mentions cases
of deaths occurring in houses of prostitution as well as in the marriage bed as
arising from the adverse influence of the sexual orgasm on the nervous system
and on the body as a whole, especially in susceptible individuals.
Entomological works abound with cases in which death follows copulation. Geddes
and Thomson, in their book, “The Evolution of Sex”, refer to the fact that some
spiders normally die after fertilizing the female, and such sacrifice of the male
occurs also in other species. The association of reproduction and death is well
known in the case of flying insects, as the common mayflies. Emergence into
winged liberty, the love-dance and the process of fertilization, the deposition
of eggs and the death of the parents, are often the crowded events of a few
hours. “In higher animals”, say these authors, “the fatality of the
reproductive sacrifice has been greatly lessened, yet death may tragically
persist, even in human life, as the direct nemesis of love..... The temporarily
exhausting effect of even moderate sexual indulgence is well known, as well as
the increased liability to all forms of disease while the individual energies
are thus lowered..... Reproduction is the beginning of death.”
Some years ago the author received the
following interesting letter from a reader of this writings:
July 29, 1936
Dear Dr. Siegmeister:
I was wondering if the draining, at any
time, of the lecithin and phosphorus, and other valuable substances during any
sexual act, hindered achievement of the higher intellectuality, and if the
brain and body were debilitated? Please answer this very important question.
I am having great difficulty to
understand how a person as myself, can store up vast amounts of sex forces
without expending it. To make a long story short, I do not understand the very
function of the sexual apparatus. Please send me any literature that you have
on hand, concerning this matter, and I will greatly appreciate it. Also refer
me to some excellent books which will cover this subject in full.
I beg of you. Do not neglect answering
any question asked in this letter.
Thank you,
........................
To this letter
he made the following reply:
Dear Mr.
L_____________:
“You ask whether the draining from the
body of lecithin and phosphorus through the sexual act will hinder the highest
intellectual achievement and debilitate body and brain. Most definitely this is
the case. Read my article on “Do Neuroses and Psychoses have a Chemical
Origin?” in the June, 1936 issue of The Modern Psychologist, in which I show
that the loss of these nerve-and-brain foods through sexual indulgence in any
form deprives the nerves and brain of needed nourishment and leads to nervous
and mental disorders. Our insane asylums are now overfilled with the victims of
thoughtless sexual indulgence which has withdrawn valuable nutrients from the
brain and disordered its functioning. These pitiful individuals, when in
possession of their normal brain-structure, never realized that with each
discharge of seminal fluid, they are pouring forth the very substance of their
nerves and brain, until a time is reached when their brain is so sapped of
lecithin that it ceases to function. Measurements have shown an actual decrease
in the lecithin content of the brains of the insane. This was due to previous
sex indulgence, as a result of which the sex glands took up the blood’s
lecithin to replace expended fluids.
“The greatest intellectual geniuses in
both ancient and modern times led continent lives, and there is yet to be
recorded one individual who freely expended seminal fluid who ever amounted to
anything. In most cases, individuals who have achieved have been forced by
necessity to abstain from sexual indulgence, as Cervantes, who wrote Don
Quixote while in prison, or Dante who wrote his Divine Comedy while in exile.
Milton wrote “Paradise Lost” when blind and when he did not indulge in
sex. Sir Isaac Newton, active in
intellect until the age of 80, led a continent life from birth, and so did
Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo, both of whom retained their creative genius
[until] an advanced age.
“You also ask how a person like yourself
could store up vast amounts of sex force without expending it. To do so is
easily accomplished if you try the right methods. In my booklet, ‘Diet and Sex’
I show how it is possible through a low-protein vegetarian diet to control the
sexual impulses and how debilitating nocturnal emissions may be made to cease
forever, since involuntary sexual losses are as debilitating as voluntary ones,
for the same lecithin and cholesterin are lost. The morning after a nocturnal
emission you will notice that the nerves are weakened and the body cannot stand
the cold as well.
“You say: `I do not understand the very
function of the sexual apparatus.’ It has two functions: Internal Secretion,
which is primary, and Reproduction, which is secondary. Any other use of these
endocrine organs is a perversion which will reap its penalty in the form of
nervous disorder and premature old age and death.
“You ask me for
good literature on the sex question. Permit
me to introduce to you some of the most
daring and original
writers in this field, Melville Keith,
M.D. The following is
quoted from his work, “The Marriage
Law:”
“`We tell you that at every emission of
semen you are losing the food and the best portion of the (blood) corpuscles,
inasmuch as every particle of semen which is ejected will be replaced by more
taken from the blood. This is enough to convince you that when you are ejecting
the semen which should stay in the body and become reabsorbed so as to go and
form the oil for the joints, new muscles, the brain material, as well as every
other part of the body, you are really destroying or throwing away your life.
“`You eject the substance of the
synovial fluid. You send forth, to gratify a moment’s passion, the very
material of which the brain is made. This is a fact which you will acknowledge
when you consider that all this semen is the material of which all these
substances are made and supplied, and when the semen is ejected you have
selected the best part of the body to go out and become to you a useless inert
mass, which can never be restored to you under any circumstances. It is lost and
gone. Then, the semen being out of the body, the sexual penalty comes apace.
The penalty for this loss of semen is so far reaching and so concealed from the
body of people of the present day that we do not know the exact spot to look
for it. But we tell you, when you see paralysis, palsy, apoplexy, rheumatism,
brain softening, bent shoulders and haggard face; when you observe a young old
man and the dried up young lady, in all of these cases, and in dozens of
others, you may set it down that there have been sexual losses and a waste of
the bodily substance from the sexual organism.
“`You will see this penalty all around
you, and there is no place where you may go but you will see the fruits of this
sexual indulgence to excess. The penalty may be denied, and all these diseases
may be attributed to every other cause under the sun, but you will be right in
laying it at the proper place, and that is to the sexual drain which has sapped
the blood corpuscles of the victim before you. We assure you nothing can be so
very enervating as this sexual excess, and any sexual mating is an excess,
providing it is not for the purpose of having children.
“`The penalty for the disobedience of
this law is in the shortened lives and the increased amount of disease which
are everywhere around us.”
The resemblance of the sexual orgasm to
the epileptic attack has been noted by many authors. The sudden withdrawal of
calcium produced by the seminal discharge biochemically produces the
tetany-like symptoms of the orgasm, which are so similar to those of the
epileptic attack which usually follows it in those who are constitutionally
predisposed. According to Acton, the sexual orgasm resembles the epileptic
attack both in its phenomena and its effects. The mental hebetude and physical
prostration following the discharge of nerve force characteristic of an
epileptic attack also follow the sexual orgasm. The latter profoundly affects
the whole nervous system with such intensity that Acton says that “it is only
mature individuals who can bear even infrequent acts of copulation without more
or less injury. In young persons all the
vital powers should be conserved for growth and development.”
Dr. Deslandes observed that epileptic
attacks often follow coitus, as was the case with Napoleon. He says: “There are
some individuals who are susceptible to epilepsy that they have a regular
attack of it whenever they indulge in sexual intercourse... That individuals
subject to epilepsy are likely to have an attack when under the influence of
sexual excitement is well known. It is related of the first Napoleon—who, as is
well known, was subject to epilepsy—that he experienced a paroxysm every time
he attempted copulation.”
Menard had a watch-dog which was
affected with epilepsy every time he copulated. These attacks were
characterized by convulsions and by loss of consciousness. “Coition”, said
Democritus, “is a kind of epilepsy.” “It is”, said Haller, “an action very
similar to a convulsion, and which of itself astonishingly weakens and affects
the whole nervous system.” Tissot reports cases in which emissions of semen
were accompanied by “a convulsion, a species of epilepsy; and the same
observation furnishes evident proof of influence which these violent actions
have on the health of the unfortunate individual in whom they occur. The
promptitude with which the weakness follows the act (of coitus)... and the
debility of all those affected with convulsive diseases prove that the weakness
is produced by the orgasm.” Tissot illustrates this point by referring to an
Amman of a Swiss village, mentioned by Platerus, who, being remarried when old,
and anxious to consumate his nuptials, was affected with a suffocation so
violent, that he was obligated to desist.
The same thing recurred every time he repeated the act. He consulted a
number of quacks; one assured him that after he procured and took several
medicines he was no more in danger. He hazarded a new attempt on this advice;
and full of confidence, he persevered, only to die in the act in the arms of
his wife. Says Tissot: “The violent palpitations which sometimes accompany
coition are also a convulsive symptom.” Hippocrates speaks of a young man in
whom excesses in wine and sexual commerce produced, among other symptoms,
constant palpitations; and Daleaus saw one seized in the act with a palpitation
so violent that he would have suffocated if he persisted.
Havelock Ellis remarks that the symptoms
of coitus bear a strong resemblance to those of epilepsy, and refers to the
statement of this effect by the sophist of Abdera, who said that coitus is a
slight fit of epilepsy, “judging it to be an incurable disease.” Caelius
Aurelianus, one of the leading physicians of antiquity, said that “coitus is a
brief epilepsy.” Fere has pointed out that both these forms of nervous
disturbance have similar symptoms. Ellis notes that the epileptic convulsion in
some cases involves the sexual mechanism, and that it is noteworthy that
epilepsy tends to appear at puberty. Boerhaave has called coitus “a true
epilepsy,” and later Roubaud, Hammond and Kowalevsky have emphasized the
resemblance between coitus and epilepsy. Some authorities have considered
coitus as the cause of epilepsy, the sudden withdrawal of calcium from the
system through the seminal discharge precipitating the tetany-like symptoms of
the epileptic convulsion. Fere has recorded as case of a youth in whom the
adoption of the practice of masturbation, several times a day, was followed by
epileptic attacks, which ceased when masturbation was discontinued. West
describes masturbation in an infant by thigh-rubbing which produced a
convulsion that was mistaken by relatives for an epileptic fit. Tissot writes: “We know that paroxysms of
epilepsy, when accompanied by an emission of seminal fluid, leave the patient
more exhausted, and more confused, than in ordinary cases. Coition is an exciting cause of these fits in
those who are subject to them; and Van Swieten attributes the real exhaustion
of the patients to this cause if the attacks be frequent.”
Dides knew a merchant in Montpelier who
never had coitus without having soon after a fit of epilepsy. Van Swieten knew
an epileptic person who was attacked with a fit of epilepsy the night he
married. Hoffman mentions a very sensual woman who generally had a fit of
epilepsy after each coitus. Boerhaave, in his “Treatise on the Diseases of the
Nerves,” claims that during the sexual orgasm all the nerves are affected, and
sometimes so much as to prove fatal. He relates the case of a woman who fell
into a very long syncope after every act of coition, and that of a man who died
in the first act he engaged in, the force of the convulsion which rendered his
whole body stiff, and for twelve years he suffered from this cataleptic
condition, with complete loss of sensation and consciousness.
Mercier, an English psychiatrist, in his
“Sanity and Insanity,” writes that after the act of coitus, the resulting
languor and lassitude indicate that a great strain has been placed on the store
of energy available to the organism, whose seat is the nervous system, the
highest regions of which—the brain—are most powerfully affected, and this tends
to produce disorder of this organ. But while, with a normally constituted
organism, the stress of the sexual orgasm is not sufficient to produce brain
disorder, unless it is repeated with undue frequency, in one whose energies are
naturally defective and which is constitutionally below the normal level of
stability, the effect of the act will be to produce disturbed cerebral
functioning. This is especially true when such indulgence is begun at too early
an age. “Hence we find that a certain number of cases of insanity,” says
Mercier, “are attributed to sexual excess,” adding, “The indulgence in this
proclivity is a fruitful source of that deterioration of the higher powers of
the nervous system which is the foundation of insanity.”
According to this eminent English
psychiatrist, the sexual orgasm has by its very nature a disintegrative,
deteriorating influence on the orgasm; and the loss of energy it entails,
especially when frequently repeated, results in apathy, lethargy and dementia.
The tension of energy in the nervous system is thereby reduced to the lowest
ebb, and, as a result, the manifestations of this energy are either wanting or
are exhibited in a feeble and prefunctory manner. “The condition is one of
dementia... there is want of mind, the inability to perform mental operations
of even moderate difficulty, the dullness and slowness of feeling, the loss of
all the higher emotions and of many of the lower ones also, that characterize
dementia.” There occurs “a general degradation of conduct, the loss of all the
higher attributes of humanity, and the retention of all the lower and more
animal characteristics. Such are the results of the indulgence of the sexual
passion in great excess. When the indulgence is less excessive, the degradation
is less profound, but in every case there is degradation, and in every case the
deterioration is of the nature of dementia, that is to say, it is a
manifestation of a deficiency in the amount of stored energy.”
Besides those cases in which the
dementia produced by sexual excess is sufficiently pronounced to incapacitate
the wretched individual for the duties of life, and to render it necessary to
commit him to asylum care, Mercier mentions that there are an enormous number
of individuals, forming a considerable part of the total population, in which
premature decadence of mental powers, premature exhaustion of energy and
premature senility result from excess sexual indulgence in early life. The
young man, full of energy, launches out into sexual excesses which at the time
appear to be indulged in with impunity, but sooner or later the day of
reckoning comes, and then, says Mercier, “he is in the position of a
spendthrift who is living on his capital;” having lavished his sexual capital
in his youth, it is exhausted prematurely, so that before middle age he finds
himself a sexual beggar.
Professor Lydston mentions cases of
apoplexy, paralysis and fatal cardiac conditions occurring in predisposed
persons as the result of sexual excess. “From a priori considerations,” he
writes, “involving the immediate effects of sexual excitement and indulgence
upon the brain and spinal cord, we might naturally expect insanity to be a
frequent result of masturbation and excessive venery.” While the majority of
persons are protected against such serious affects upon the cerebrospinal
functions by their natural resistance, in those in whom this resistance nervous
equilibrium incidental to faulty or imperfect nerve structure, whether due to
heredity, congenital defect or acquired disease, the conditions are different.
Under such circumstances, repeated sexual orgasms, according to Prof. Lydston,
can procure “actual structural alterations of nerve-fibers and cells and
vessals of the brain, with coincident psychopathic phenomena,” which “are
naturally to be expected as occasional results of these severe and repeated
shocks to the susceptible nervous system produced by the sexual orgasms.”
“Coition,” says Noquez, “is a
convulsion; it disposes the nerves to spasmodic actions, which are excited by
the slightest cause.” “It is”, says Haller, “an action very violent, similar to
a convulsion, and which of itself astonishingly weakens and affects the brain
and nerves.” Dr. Ryan writes: “Coition has been compared to a fit of epilepsy,
to an electric shock; it entirely engages both mind and body; we neither hear
nor see; and some persons have lost their lives in this crisis. It is for this
reason that sexual intercourse has proven mortal after severe wounds,
hemorrhages, etc., and when too often repeated, weakens the whole economy.
Rouband describes as follows the
immediate effects of the sexual orgasm of coitus, which he compares to an
epileptic attack:
“The circulation quickens, the arteries
beat strongly, the venous blood, arrested by muscular contraction, increases
the general heat, and this stagnation, more pronounced in the brain by the
contraction of the muscles of the neck and the throwing of the head backward,
causes a momentary cerebral congestion, during which intelligence is lost
and the faculties abolished. The eyes, violently injected, become haggard,
and the look uncertain. Or in the majority of cases the eyes are closed
spasmodically to avoid the contact of the light. The respiration is hurried,
sometimes interrupted, and may be suspended by the spasmodic contraction of the
larynx, and the air, for a time compressed, is at last emitted in broken and
meaningly words. The congested nervous centers only communicate confused
sensations and volitions; mobility and sensation show extreme disorder;
the limbs are seized by convulsions and sometimes by cramps, or are
thrown wildly about or become stiff like iron bars. The jaws, tightly pressed,
grind the teeth, and in some persons the delirium is carried so far that they
bite to bleeding the shoulders their companions have imprudently abandoned to
them. This frantic state of epilepsy lasts but a short time, but it
suffices to exhaust the forces of the organism, especially in man. It is, I
believe, Galen who said, `Omne animal post coitum triste.’ (All animals are sad
after coitus.)”
Deslandes, who
writes:
“During this tumult and after the
crisis, the general state of the patient conforms in every manner to that of
the genital system. Thus the face reddens, the neck swells, the veins become
filled, the skin now burning and now moistened with sweat, the heart beats with
rapidity. In fact, there is a state of fever which almost justifies us in
placing the act of venery among diseases. At the same time the nervous centers,
the cerebrum, the cerebellum and the spinal cord experience a very powerful
impression. As the state progresses, consciousness is lost, and the subject is,
at it were, in a state of delirium. The will is suspended, and the muscles are
not controlled by it, but by the nerve centers which are so much irritated. The
trunk and limbs are agitated by involuntary motions and chills. The disturbance
increases until the crisis arrives, when the convulsions affect the genital
system; a fit of epilepsy as it were ensues; the sight becomes dim; the trunk
stiffens and neck is thrown back; and finally this state might be regarded as a
violent access of disease if the beginning and end of it were not known.
“The genital apparatus, lately so full
of life, now becomes flaccid; the scrotum becomes loose and pendulent, and a
sensation of torpor, of fatigue, of chill follow. The convulsive motions are
succeeded by a kind of paralysis, and all attempts at new excitement are in
vain... Now, however, the individual is changed; his face lost its color, his
limbs are stiff, and without motion as if paralyzed; the head is painful, the
mind is slow and limbs are incapable of the least effort. The hearing is dull;
the sight is deranged, and the external senses import to the brain only
imperfect impressions. The pulsations of the heart are feeble, the pulse is
small, the veins are collapsed and the eyelids are livid. The soul is left in a
state of languor and sadness and becomes as it were melancholy.”
During the sexual orgasm of coitus
symptoms occur which border on psychopathology; and there can be little doubt
that excessive frequency of such symptoms may indelibly impress themselves on
the brain and nervous system. On this point, Deslandes observes: “The diseases
affecting the nervous system, that system which is powerfully disturbed by
coition, are not the only ones resulting from venereal excess. We shall see
that all alterations of tissue, every physical disorder, may be caused by this.
We may fearlessly assert that most of the inconveniences and diseases
afflicting the human species arise from venereal excesses.”
The great philosopher, Herbert Spender,
himself a lifelong celibate, describes as follows the effects of sexual excess:
“Chronic derangements of health
supervene, diminished bodily activity, decline of mental power, and sometimes
even insanity... Specialists, who have
good means of judging, agree in the opinion that the aggregate evils
arising from excesses of this kind are greater than from those arising from
excesses of all kinds put together.”
Referring to a case of a man whose three
wives all become insane after marriage, referred to in the “Journal of Mental
Science”, Jan., 1879, Havelock Ellis writes: “In cases of sexual excess, great
physical exhaustion, with suspicions and delusions, is often observed.
Hutchinson has recorded three cases of temporary blindness, all in men, the
result of sexual excess after marriage (Archives of Surgery, Jan., 1893). The
old medical authors attributed many evil results to excess in coitus. Thus
Schurig brings together cases of insanity, syncope, epilepsy, loss of memory,
blindness, baldness, unilateral perspiration and death attributed to this
cause; of death many cases are given, some in women.”
According to Prof. Lydston, the results
of sexual excess are similar to those of masturbation, and both result from the
disturbance of blood chemistry and general metabolism caused by the withdrawal
from the body of the substances of which the semen is composed: calcium,
phosphorus, lecithin, cholesterol, albumen, iron, etc. Though physical
impairment, as well as mental impairment, from sexual excess is very common,
less attention, has been paid to it than to the evil results of masturbation,
in view of the current belief that, unlike masturbation, coitus is harmless
under all circumstances. However it is Lydston’s opinion that “sexual excess is
the most prolific cause of that most civilized and most fashionable of all
hydra-headed diseases, neurasthenia, adding, “Moderation in sexual intercourse
is not only conducive to prolonged virility, but to longevity. It is certain
that many cases of neurasthenia in both male and female are due to sexual
excess.”
According to Dr. Black, “Medical writers
agree that one of the most common causes of the many forms of derangement to
which a woman is subject consists in excessive cohabitation. The diseases known
as menorrhagia, leucorrhea, amenorrhea, abortions, prolapsus, chronic
inflammations and ulcerations of the womb, and a yet greater variety of
sympathetic nervous disorders are some of the distressing forms of these
derangements.”
After referring to cases of men who died
during coitus, Deslandes adds, “Many old men have yielded up their existence in
the nuptial bed, when their term of life might have been continued if they had
not exhausted their strength in unnatural exertions.” Senac attributes to
temporary exhaustion of the nervous system the feebleness which follows
coition. The increased amount of blood in the brain at this time has several
times produced apoplexy. Several such instances have been reported. Hoffman
reports the case of a soldier addicted to sexual excess, who finally died in
the act, the cerebrum having been found full of blood. “This increase of blood
in the brain,” says Tissot, “explains why these excesses produce mania. As this
quantity of blood oppresses the nerves, it weakens; they are more susceptible
of impressions and hence their debility.” Tissot describes as follows the
effects of sexual excess:
“The debility caused by these excesses
derange the functions of all organs... Digestion, perspiration and evacuation
do not take place in their usual healthy manner; hence the strength... (illegible portion)... even the understanding
are evi...
(illegible portion)... diminished; the
sight is obscured;...
(illegible portion)... and rheumatic
pains, and astonishing weakness in the back, debility of the genital organs,
bloody urine, deranged appetite, headache and numerous other diseases ensue; in
a word, nothing shortens life so much as the abuse of sexual pleasures...
Excesses in the gratification of sexual desire not only cause the diseases of
languor, but sometimes acute diseases; and they always produce irregularities
in those affections which depend on other causes, and very readily render them
malignant when the energies of nature are at fault.”
“Serruier mentions a case of a man who
was reduced to a complete state of marasmus in consequence of sexual excesses
and nocturnal emissions. Payva, a Portuguese physician, also observed marasmus
to result from sexual excess. Surrurier, like Boerhaave, mentions epilepsy, in
addition to loss of sight and imbecility in a young soldier, the latter
resulting from onanism and nocturnal pollutions. Parise mentions the case of a
man who was desirous of living with a young Italian girl whose temperament was
extremely ardent. “He paid for his imprudence by blindness, which occurred in 8
days, and which was followed by death.”
Cases of individuals dying during coitus
occur usually in persons very weak as the result of old age or disease.
Fabricus mentions the case of a man who had sex relations on the tenth day
after an attack of pleuritis, which had terminated on the seventh with
perspiration. He “was seized by an ardent fever, and considerable tremor, and
died on the thirteenth day.” Chesneau knew two young married persons who were
attacked in the first week of marriage” with a violent fever and considerable
redness and swelling of the face; one of them had a severe pain in the sacrum;
they both died in a few days.” Tissot writes:
“Hippocrates has left us in his history
of epidemic diseases the case of a young man who after excesses with women and
wine was attacked with a fever accompanied with symptoms the most violent and
irregular, which finally proved fatal.”
Hoffman relates a case of a man
convalescing from pleurisy who after indulging in coitus had a relapse more
dangerous than the original illness. Fabricus relates another case of a young
man whose leg was amputated, and whose physician forbade having any intercourse
with his wife, who was also informed of the danger. The young man disobeyed
orders and became gravely ill.
Dr. Talmey states that the frequent
exercise of the act of copulation leads directly to anemia, malnutrition,
asthenia of the muscles and nerves, and to mental exhaustion. Persons addicted
to sexual excess may be recognized by their pale, long, flabby faces, which
often have tense features. They are melancholic and usually not fit for any
difficult or long continued physical or mental work. They have little power of
resistance. The ill health of many women after a certain period of married life
has the same cause.
Professor von Gruber, while doubting the
allegation that sexual abstinence may prove harmful to the nervous system, is
convinced that sexual excess certainly is. He believes that frequent discharges
of semen lead to a “reduction of the peculiar internal secretion of the
testes,” which is otherwise resorbed into the blood-stream. The immediate
effects of sexual excess, he states, are depression, fatigue and exhaustion. As
further symptoms there is pressure in the lumbar region, nervous irritability,
a feeling of pressure in the head, stupidity, insomnia, ringing in the ears,
spots before the eyes, shunning of light, a feeble trembling and actual
shaking, pounding of the heart, tendency to sweating and muscular weakness.
There is also weakness of memory, neurasthenia, melancholic depression and
disinclination to physical or mental effort. The digestive activity becomes
less efficient and food is less well utilized.
There is a deficiency in blood and a lowered resistance to infectious
bacteria, the tubercle bacillus in particular, for which reason sexual excess
is known to predispose to consumption aside from its tendency to drain the body
of calcium. There is irritable weakness of the genitals, premature ejaculation,
frequent nocturnal emissions, and increasing impotence. The more frequent
nocturnal emissions that result increase the nervous irritability and
exhaustion (i.e., neurasthenia). All these effects are more marked in the young
and the aged; in the former, sexual excess, by its detrimental influence on
metabolism and the process of growth, stunts physical and mental development,
while in the aged it hastens death, often by causing heart failure.
By producing enervation and by exciting
the nervous system, Dr. Shelton claims that sexual excess can further the
development of any disease to which the individual is subject. For this reason
a person predisposed to epilepsy is almost certain to have an attack after each
sexual act. Some cases of epilepsy do not develop until after marriage for this
reason. Asthmatic attacks and St. Vitus’s dance are often brought on and
perpetuated by sexual excess. Spinal and heart disorders are apt to occur.
There is an increase of blood-pressure, which predisposes to apoplexy. Dr.
Shelton writes:
“No function is
so exhausting to the whole system as this.
If excessively indulged in, no practice
can possibly be so enervating. J. Bradford Sax probably over estimates the
amount of energy consumed in coition when he says, “Probably more of the
nervous fluid or influence is expended in a single sexual crisis than would
suffice to carry on all the vital operations, perhaps for a day. At any rate
the energy expended is very considerable and if the act is indulged in daily,
or even weekly, the indulgent individual need not hope for health and strength.
“What
constitutes excess? The reply has been given: Anything
is excess when procreation is not the
end. Man is sexually perverted. He is
the only animal that has his `social problem,’ the only animal that supports
prostitution, the only animal that practices self-abuse, the only animal that
is demoralized by all forms of sexual perversions, the only animal whose male
will attack the females, the only animal where the desire of the female is not
the law, the only one that does not exercise his sexual powers in harmony with
their primitive constitution.”
“Who can say,” interrogates Dr. Dixon,
“that these excesses are not often followed by direful diseases, insanity and
consumption? The records of our madhouses, and the melancholy deaths by
consumption, of the newly married, bear ample witness to the truth of this
assertion. Are they not transmitted to posterity? Look at the frequent mental
imbecility, and the pallid hue, and attenuated form of the children who are the
earlier products of marriage, and see the parents vibrating between life and
the grave, until the candid physician, or the terrors of death teach them to
abstain
Of all members of the mammalian family,
civilized man alone is a victim of an exaggerated and morbid sexual urge, a
condition which he has inflicted, to a certain extent, on the animals which he
has domesticated and which have adopted his diet, especially the dog. Wild
animals in a state of nature practice copulation only at certain mating seasons
for the purpose of reproduction.
Civilized man practices this act at all times, and in most cases without
intention to conceive. On the other hand, so-called savages and primitive races
leading more natural lives and who follow their natural instincts to a greater
extent are far chaste in their sexual behavior, as noted by Havelock Ellis.
Such considerations must lead one to the conclusion that the sex life of
civilized men is unnatural and that the excessive manifestation of the sex urge
among them is due to certain aphrodisiacal stimuli rather than to natural
instinct; among such stimuli are a high-protein meat diet (accompanied by
physical inactivity), the use of tobacco, alcohol and coffee, sexually
stimulating literature, dramas, motion pictures, conversation, etc. For these
reasons civilized man has departed from the natural law, obeyed by animal and
primitive races, which requires the separation of the sexes during pregnancy
and lactation, for the benefit of both mother and child. Violation of this law
may account for the large number of physically and mentally defective offspring
produced by civilized races as compared with animals and primitive peoples.
Among the Andamenese, Portman says that
sex desire is moderate in males, it does not appear before the age of eighteen,
and is rarely gratified until marriage when a man is 26. According to Haydes and Deniker, among the
Fuegians, both men and women are extremely moderate in sexual indulgence. In
the case of the Esquimaux, Cook notes that the sexual passions do not manifest
during the long darkness of winter, and the menstrual function does not either;
the majority of the children are born nine months after the appearance of the
sun. On the basis of such observation Havelock Ellis concludes that the sex
instinct of primitive peoples is less intense and manifests more infrequently
than that of civilized man; moreover it tends to manifest at certain mating
seasons and to find expression chiefly in reproduction.
Animals, like men, become perverted
sexually and victims of an exaggerated sexual urge when they are subjected to
artificial feeding and confinement. Thus apes, when confined to a cage and fed
on meat and other sexually stimulating food, while previously gentle and tame
on a fruit diet, become extremely licentious and vicious. Then they masturbate
excessively and have intercourse daily, while the female consequently
menstruates as freely as a woman. (Other female mammals leading more natural
lives do not menstruate, though under domestication and excessive feeding, cows
and other species do.)
Holder finds that the Indians of America
were originally far less salacious than either the white or the negro races
that later came to this continent. Dr. Beard notes that Indian boys do not
masturbate and young men remain chaste until marriage, conditions which we do
not find among so-called civilized races.
Spencer, who studied California Indians, remarks that after the
appearance of menstruation, a girl is never allowed in the company of the
opposite sex until her marriage, and that during pregnancy and lactation there
is strict chastity. Nor is coitus permitted after feasts of meat, when there is
a state of sexual super-excitation. Ordinarily the men and boys sleep in a
separate dormitory. Spencer remarks that an intelligent Indian of his
acquaintance on his death-bed confessed a sin that had grievously burdened his
conscience. “He had cohabited with his wife after a big dinner of fresh beef,
and felt the remorse of unpardoned guilt upon his soul.”
Chastity before marriage is the rule in
many parts of Africa. In some parts of West Africa a girl guilty of unchastity
is severely punished. Among the Ba Henda of North Transvaal, no sexual
intercourse before marriage is allowed, and if it is seen that a girl's labia
are apart when she sits down on a stone she in punished as guilty of having had
intercourse. Among the Syntengs, the husband does not live in the same house
with his wife, but only visits her occasionally in her mother's house where she
continues to live. Smyth remarks that promiscuous intercourse between the sexes
is not practiced by the Australian aborigines, and their laws on the subject
are strict. No conversation is permitted between single men and girls or
married women. Infractions of these laws are sometimes punished by death. Among the Seri, the young man is compelled to
pass a probationary period of continence for one year prior to marriage as a
test of his ability of sexual self-control. Among the Pueblos, the morals of
the young are supervised by a secret police which reports all irregularities,
in which case the young man and girl are compelled to marry. In Uganda,
continence is practiced for two years after childbirth, and among the Fijians,
husband and wife live apart three or four years, so that no other babe may
interfere with the time thought necessary for nursing children.
Concerning the people of the Malay
Peninsula, Stevens writes:
"The sexual impulse among the
Belendas is developed to a slight extent; they are not sexual... There is
little or no love-play in sexual relations." Among the Malays, strict
chastity is maintained during war time. According to Havelock Ellis, the negro
races of Africa are less lascivious than white men. He writes: "Among the
Cambodians, strict chastity seems to prevail, and if we cross the Himalayas to
the north we find ourselves among wild peoples to whom sexual license was
unknown. Thus, among the Turcomians, even a few days after the marriage has
been celebrated, the couple are separated for an entire year."
Westmarck states that the more that
civilization advances the greater the number of illegitimate births and the
greater the prevalence of prostitution. These are greater in towns than in the
country. He claims that promiscuity is not the original and natural state of
man, but is a product of civilization, or rather pseudo-civilization. The
customs of primitive races are comparatively chaste. Westermarck writes:
"Among a great number of simple
peoples, monogamy requires of a man continence for periods of considerable
length. He has to abstain from his wife not only for a certain time each month,
but during pregnancy or at least during the later stage of it, since pregnant
woman is regarded as unclean, and after childbirth until the child is weaned;
and the latter injection is the more severe as the suckling time lasts for two
or three and occasionally even five or six years."
The ancient Spartans represent a race in
which a high level of sex morality existed, and who were noted for their
chastity. The sexes lived apart, even
after marriage, the men sleeping together in one dormitory and the women in
another. After the act of conception, which followed marriage, Plutarch, in his
life of Lycurgus, states that the man "modestly retired to his companions,
and reposing with them at night, nor even visiting his bride but with great
caution and apprehension of being discovered by the rest of the family. Some of
them even had children before they had an interview with their wives in the day
time. This kind of commerce not only exercised their temperance and chastity,
but kept their bodies fruitful, and the first ardor of their love free and
unabated; for they were not satiated like those that are always with their
wives."
To achieve the chastity which he
considered essential for the preservation of the vigor of the Spartan race,
Lycurgus, the law-giver of Sparta, forbade the consumption of meats and other
stimulating foods, and enforced a vegetarian diet. Alcoholics were also
prohibited. He forbade eating at home, and had the Spartans eat at collective
public tables; and by thus controlling their diet, he was able to control their
morality. He forbade his people "to call in the assistance of butchers and
cooks, or to fatten like voracious animals in private. For so not only their
manners would be corrupted but their bodies disordered, and abandoned to all
manner of sensuality and dissoluteness; and they would require long hours of
sleep."
In Sparta, a matriarchate in which women
had great power, the boys were brought up to be chaste. Xenophon tells us that
it is easier to make a pillar of stone or a marble statue move its eyes than a
Spartan boy. The boys, he said, were more bashful than the girls. A woman of
another country said to a Spartan woman, "You of Lacedoemon are the only
women in the world that rue the men." She answered, "We are the only
women that bring forth men." The bravery and physical perfection of the
Spartan race made them famous throughout the ages.
Chapter Five
A BIOCHEMICAL THEORY OF NEUROSES
AND PSYCHOSES
It is the purpose of this chapter to
present the basis for a new biochemical understanding of the origin and
treatment of neuroses and psychoses, based on new knowledge of the chemical
effects of the secretions of the sex glands, both internal and external, upon
the central nervous system.
The eminent physiologist, Prof. Eugen
Steinach has performed experiments which definitely showed that the internal
secretions of the sex glands, after being resorbed into the circulation, pass
principally to the brain and spinal cord, wherein they are stored. Steinach's
experiments consisted in injecting into a series of castrated frogs extracts of
the brain and spinal cord of frogs in heat, and into a second series of
castrates extracts of the brain and spinal cord of similar castrates were
injected. In the first series a good
clasp reflex appeared, while in the second series no changes were visible.
Steinach also found that injections of other organs of frogs in heat were
unable to evoke the clasp reflex in the castrate. He therefore concluded that
the primary action of the internal secretion of the sex glands, after passing
into the blood, is upon the central nervous system, through the medium of
which, probably by producing local changes in blood supply, effects are
produced in various parts of the body.
The physiologist, Nussbaum, conducted
similar experiments, on the basis of which he concluded that "the internal
secretion of the testicle acts in a specific manner only on certain nervous
centers from which impulses are sent to certain organs, and the metabolism of
the latter is changed in a given direction." He observed that at the
approach of the breeding season in the male frog, there appeared a thickened
pad of skin on the first digit of each fore-limb associated with an increased
muscular development of the forearm. This modification is used in the act of
copulation. If the male frog is castrated, the pad is not formed and the muscle
fails to develop. Nussbaum then noted that if pieces of testis from another
frog are grafted into the dorsal lymph sac of a frog previously castrated, the
secondary sexual characters of the latter developed just as in a normal frog.
He also found that if the nerves supplying the first digit were severed, the
pad did not develop, and if the nerves supplying the clasping muscles of the
fore-arm were severed, the enlargement did not occur. He concluded that the
internal secretion of the testis had a specific action on certain local groups
of ganglion cells, and that the influence of the testis on the metabolism of
different tissues is intermediated through the nervous system.
In the light of these and other
physiological experiments, the fact is well established that the action of the
secretions produced by the sex glands and resorbed into the blood-stream is
primarily on the brain and spinal cord. The eminent authority, Professor
Thorek, in his work, "The Human Testis," writes as follows on this
subject:
"The gonad elaborates through its
internal secretions the chemical products which are taken up by the circulation
and carried to the central nervous system, and there erotization results. That
these substances of internal secretion have a selective action seems probable,
and that such substances are stored in the central nervous system, seems, in
view of recent experiments, quite certain... O'Malleey thinks that the direct
action of the chemical products of the gonads through the nervous system
influences the growth and increased metabolism of every tissue of the body.
That there is a direct relationship between the gonads and the hypophysis is
fairly well established... Since the time of Hippocrates and Aristotle, it has
been believed that there was a coordination between the testicular fluid and
the nervous system, brain and cord."
There exists considerable evidence from
the field of psychiatry to indicate a definite relationship between the sex
glands and the brain, and that the degeneration of the latter organ is usually
accompanied by a degeneration of the former. Sir Frederick Mott found that the
testicles in 27 cases of dementia praecox show atrophy of the seminiferous
tubules and absence of spermatogenesis. The similarity between the state of the
testicles and that of the brain suggests that this disease might result from a
premature atrophy of the gonads, commencing at puberty or early adolescence and
becoming more marked until it culminates in impotency accompanied by cerebral
involution. In this connection it should be noted that the majority of these
insane subjects studied by Mott were habitual masturbators, which practice
should have a relation to their testicular degeneration, which Mott considers
the primary cause of their brain involution and degeneration. Mott's
observations were confirmed by Obregia, Parhon and Urechia(?) who also found degeneration
of the seminiferous tubules and absence of spermatogenesis in dementia praecox.
These investigators conclude that spermatozoa may have an internal function
that is necessary for the normal metabolism of the brain, and that dementia
praecox may be due to an alteration or deficiency of their production due to
degeneration of the seminiferous tubules of auto-intoxication.
That the latter may result from
masturbation and sexual excess in causing a chemical withdrawal from the
circulation of lecithin, cholesterin and phosphorus compounds necessary for the
nutrition of the brain (all of which substances are especially abundant in the
semen), is indicated by the studies of the eminent American neurologist and
psychiatrist, Dr. E.C. Spitzka, a celebrated brain anatomist who was formerly
president of the New York Neurological Society. In his psychiatric textbook,
"Insanity, Its Classification, Diagnosis and Treatment," Dr.Spitzka
writes:
"That a connection between the
development of the mind and the male genitals exists is indisputable. Even if
we assume that the defective development of the genital system found in brain
monstrosities, idiots, imbeciles, original monomaniacs and the periodically
insane is an accidental accompaniment of the neural maldevelopment, we must
admit the convincing proof that the early extirpation of the testicles, as in
eunuchs and castrated animals, exerts and influence on the mental complexion
and development.
"The functional abuse of the male
sexual apparatus is of more general importance to the alienist than its organic
affections. Excessive venery and masturbation have from time immemorial been
supposed to exert a deleterious influence on the nervous system, and may
provoke insanity, partly through their weakening effect on the general
nutrition. That there is a close connection between pathological nervous states
and the sexual function is exemplified in the satryriasis of mania and in the
early stages of paretic dementia, as well as in the sexual delusions of
manomania, and abnormal genital sensations of that condition. In the former
case the sexual exaltation is a result, in the latter the genital sensations
are collateral phenomena of the psychosis, but there are certain cases in
which, while an original predisposition may have existed, masturbation is the
factor responsible for the production of insanity."
In his "Masturbatic Insanity,"
Dr. Spitzka presents a study of twelve cases of insanity, all of which he
attributes to masturbation. He claims that the occurrence of psychoses as the
result of masturbation is primarily due to arrested brain nutrition. This
results from the withdrawal from the circulation of brain-nourishing lecithin
and other phosphorus compounds through excessive seminal discharges. For we
must remember that lecithin is a chief constituent of the myelin sheaths of
nerve-cells and essential for their activity, during which it is consumed—for
it is the nerve-oil that keeps the fire of nerve and brain activity burning.
Since lecithin is also a principal constituent of the semen, we can readily
understand why excessive sexual activity should lead to lecithin deficiency and
undernutrition of nerve and brain cells.
While a generation and diminished size
of the testicles have been found to accompany the involution of the brain in
dementia praecox and other psychoses, and excessive development of the testes
had been found to be associated with mental precocity. Professors Morro of Turin and Snochi of Genoa
came across a child of nine who had three testicles and whose intelligence was
far above that which is considered normal at its age. The parents, alarmed by
the unusual characteristics of the child, had the extra testicle removed. Some
months later the child's intellectual development underwent a regression, which
brought it down to the mental level corresponding to its age.
In this connection, it is interesting to
note that in contrast with the lasciviousness of idiots and the insane, which,
according to Dr. Spitzka, is largely responsible for their arrested brain nutrition
and development, most of the greatest mental geniuses in history led strictly
continent lives (which should result in superior brain nutrition from the
conservation of lecithin and other brain-nourishing seminal constituents). Thus among philosophers we have Pythagoras,
Plato, Aristotle, Porphyry, Proclus, Leibniz, Berkeley, Locke, Spinoza, Kant
and Spencer; among artists, Leonardo da Vinci, Michael Angelo, Raphael and Fra
Angelica; among composers, Handel and Beethoven; and among scientists Newton.
We have just seen how profoundly the sex
glands influence the brain. Their influence on the nerves, however, is more
immediate and profound. Deficiency of lecithin, present in the myelin sheaths
of the nerves and necessary for their nourishment and the generation of their
vitality, as the result of external discharge through the semen (which is very
rich in this substance), provides a biochemical explanation of the etiology of
neurasthenia, and indicates the proper method of therapy for this common malady.
This fact has been suspected by Dr. Beard, originator of the term,
"neurasthenia," who, in the latter part of the nineteenth century,
first studied this ailment, subsequently known as the "American
disease."
In his work, "Sexual
Neurasthenia," Beard first called attention to the fact that though other
factors may promote it, neurasthenia has a sexual origin, the weakened
condition of the nerves being intimately related to the sexual life of the individual.
He came to the conclusion that neurasthenia has its origin in abnormal
functioning of the sexual organs by the observation that in patients who came
to him with functional nervous diseases, examination invariably showed that
there was a condition of inflammation of the prostatic urethra. He wrote: "In
men, as in women, a large group of nervous symptoms, which are very common
indeed, would not exist but for morbid states in the reproductive system... A
morbid state of this part of the body is both an effect and a cause of nervous
exhaustion."
Beard then proceeded to determine what
caused this morbid condition in the reproductive organs (inflammation of the
prostatic urethra), which he considered the predisposing cause of neurasthenia.
A study of the symtomatology of spermatorrhea, a disease characterized by an
involuntary loss of sexual secretions (in the urine, after defecation, or at
other times), led him to a solution of this problem. Beard noted that
spermatorrhea was a frequent symptom of all kinds of neurasthenic as well as
other debilitating diseases, and that there was a direct relationship between
the amount of seminal fluid discharged and the intensity of the nervous
symptoms. He also found that frequent nocturnal emissions likewise led to
neurasthenic symptoms. "Seminal emissions," he concluded, are
frequently the cause of nervous and other diseases." In spite of their
universality (among civilized males, but not among animals), Beard believed
that nocturnal emissions are pathological; and like spermatorrhea, a related
condition of seminal emission, they are suscepstantially cured, he stated.
This, he claimed, by the conservation of nerve-nourishing seminal constituents
that results, would markedly reduce the nervous symptoms thus produced.
As the result of his observations, Beard
came to the conclusion that neurasthenia is a direct effect of the withdrawal
from the blood of certain chemical substances needed for the nutrition of
nervous tissue, which results from seminal discharges; and that the loss of
considerable quantities of seminal fluid, involuntarily or voluntarily, leads
to undernourishment of the cells of the central nervous system, causing them to
be weakened and exhausted. He also pointed out that this condition is usually
associated with an inflammatory state of the prostatic urethra "which is
so often the source whence all these difficulties originate, and by which they
are maintained." The prostatic urethra, he claimed, is the most important
center of reflex irritation of the body, a morbid state of which is both an
effect and cause of nervous exhaustion.
The next question that arises is: What
is the cause of this congested and inflammatory condition of the prostatic
urethra, which predisposes the individual to spermatorrhea and neurasthenia.
This, Beard claims, is primarily a result of sexual indulgence, especially
involving the practices of contraception and coitus interruptus.
Neurasthenic symptoms also follow involuntary seminal emissions by night or
day, whether they assume the form of excessive nocturnal emissions, diurnal
emissions or true spermatorrhea. "There is quite a long series of
diseases, symptoms and hygienic problems involved in the relation of the
genital function to the nervous system," he concluded.
There appears to be a definite relation
between disturbed functioning of the prostate gland and neurasthenia. In view
of the fact that the prostatic secretion was found by Stern to contain
"abundant amounts" of lecithin, which is an important constituent of
nervous tissue, we can readily understand why the loss of prostatic secretion,
a constituent of the semen, should tend to cause undernutrition of nerve-cells
by depriving them of lecithin, and thus bring about chronic undernourishment of
the nervous system, manifesting in neurasthenia. For this reason, lecithin
preparations have been used for years by European physicians for the cure of
neurasthenia, and with marked success.
But there is no sense in administering lecithin externally if the
organism is losing its own physiological lecithin through seminal discharges,
the dietary prevention of which should be the first step in the treatment of
neurasthenia.
Concerning the relation between the
prostate gland and neurasthenia, Dr. F. G. Lydston, professor of diseases of
the genito-urinary organs and syphilology at the Medical School of the
University of Illinois, says:
"Considering the abundant sensory
and sympathetic nerve supply of the prostate and its intimate relation to the
sympathetic nervous system in general, the frequency with which nervous
symptoms develop in patients suffering from prostatic disease is not
remarkable... Disturbed prostate may lead to the male equivalent of hysteria,
to melancholia, headache and depression... It is the author's belief that the
prostate secretes a hormone, the perversion of which, conjoined with the
absorption of infection toxins, often has much to do with the etiology of
sexual neurasthenia."
In his book, "Psychopathia
Sexualis," Kraft-Ebing mentions a number of cases of neurasthenia caused
by masturbation and sexual excess. In all these cases, the nervous derangement,
which was often the starting-point of a mental derangement, had one primary
cause: loss of prostatic and other seminal constituents through orgasms or
involuntary seminal emissions. He considers sexual neurasthenia to commence, as
a local neurosis of the genitalia, accompanied by frequent seminal emissions,
and to progressively develop into a neurosis of the lumbar cord, accompanied by
frequent nocturnal emissions, diurnal emissions and impairment of sexual vigor.
Professor Casper, of the University of
Berlin, regards spermatorrhea and neurasthenia as going hand in hand, and that
both result from excessive seminal losses through sexual excess, leading to
involuntary emissions. In his "Textbook of Genito-Urinary diseases,
speaking of spermatorrhea, he says: "Sexual excesses may cause the
symptom, either directly or by causing neurasthenia. Of the sexual excesses,
masturbation occupies first place. It must be conceded that if the habit is
persisted in for years it will impair the soundness of both body and mind, that
it will result in enfeeblement and hyperesthenia of the nervous system...
Frequent pollutions may occur in certain organic diseases of the spinal cord,
in the early stages of tabes and myelitis, for instance." Among the causes
of nervous diseases Casper refers to coitus interruptus as a prominent one.
Modern studies of the etiology of
neurasthenia trace this disorder to a disturbance in the functioning of the
endocrine glands, which glandular dysfunction has a sexual causation. According to Dr. Harrower, "The more we
study the neurasthenic individual and closely observe the incidental variations
in functional activity, the more evident it becomes that neurasthenia rarely
exists without some associated disturbance in the work of the ductless
glands."
The fluids elaborated by the testes, the
prostate gland and the accessory sex glands are very rich in phosphorus, as are
the spermatozoa themselves. The loss of semen must therefore lower the
phosphorus content of the blood, for it is from here that these glands derive
the phosphorus for the manufacture of their secretions. This must deprive the
nervous system of an element so necessary for its nutrition and normal
well-being. This explains the neurasthenic effects of masturbation and sexual
excess, which are due to loss of phosphorus through seminal emissions. The same
occurs in prostatitis, where considerable phosphorus is lost through the
expelled prostatic fluid. Lorand points out the beneficial influence of phosphorus
when administered in many brain disorders, which are accompanied by a
diminution of the phosphorus content of the brain, as Marie found in idiocy and
dementia praecox. In the brain phosphorus is present chiefly in the form of
lecithin, a phosphorized fat.
Dr. Evans, an English physiologist, has
presented the interesting idea that thinking is merely a phase of phosphorus
metabolism in the brain, which recalls the saying of German biochemists,
"Ohne Phosphor keine Gedanken" (Without phosphorus, no thought).
Evans states that during thinking and mental exertion, phosphates are increased
in the excreta; and he therefore concludes that thinking involves an oxidation
of phosphorus compounds in the brain (under the catalytic influence of the
iodine of the thyroid hormone). Evans says: "If we take a fresh brain
(either human or animal), and immerse it in either absolute alcohol, sulphuric
ether or olive oil, we obtain a luminous solution of phosphorus." This may
be the origin of the phosphorescent "brain glow" observed by Dr. G.W.
Crile as given off by the living brain in a dark room. In this oxidation of
phosphorus in the brain, Evans sees the origin of the generation of electric
nerve-currents (for the oxidation of phosphorus in the atmosphere causes an
electric discharge to be given off.
Crile has shown that the electrical energy of the nervous system is
generated in the brain, which represents a central storage battery of the
body.)
It is thus clear that phosphorus, oxygen
and sufficient thyroid hormone (iodine) are all necessary for the normal
generation of brain electricity, and that in the absence of either of these
three elements, there will be deficient brain action. For it is well known that
the brain is richer in phosphorus than any other part of the body, and also
uses up oxygen three times as rapidly as other tissues; also without the
catalytic influence of the thyroid hormone, it cannot function normally—or
without iodine on which element the thyroid depends for the manufacture of its
secretion.
According to this point of view,
neurasthenia may be considered as representing a condition of phosphorus
deficiency, or rather lecithin deficiency—for lecithin is the form in which
phosphorus is present in the myelin sheaths of the nerves, the nerve-oil whose burning
keeps the fires of nerve vitality burning. Since lecithin is a prominent
constituent of the semen, we can understand why excessive loss of semen can
cause nerve starvation and all the symptoms of neurasthenia. When the lack of
lecithin and organic phosphorus is more serious, the brain itself suffers
lecithin deficiency and becomes disturbed in its functioning, just as any other
starved organ is when deprived of the elements it requires for its normal
nutrition and functioning. In this way, psychoses commence to manifest. From
beri beri to polyneuritis, to psychoses, is only a transition or more graver
nerve-and-brain-cell starvation of the vitamin B complex and lecithin, both of
which are intimately related and to a large extent replaceable. (Foods rich in
vitamin B complex, like the germ of grains, legumes, Brewer's yeast, etc., are
generally also rich sources of lecithin.)
That a basic cause of nervous and mental
disorders is a lecithin deficiency in the organism, produced by excessive
withdrawals of this substance to replace expended secretions (the semen, like
nerve and brain cells, being very rich in lecithin) is probable. The action of
alcohol, like that of anesthetics, is dependent on its activity to dissolve and
remove lecithin from the brain; and when the concentration of brain lecithin is
sufficiently lowered, insanity is the result. Sexual excess produces a similar
effect; and, together with alcohol, constitutes a principal cause of
neuropsychopathic conditions.
The modern view is that the origin of
nervous and mental disorders is to be looked for in the endocrine glands. Now
it is interesting to note that organic phosphorus, in the form of lecithin, is
not only a prominent constituent of nerve and brain tissue but also of the
endocrine glands, and is as necessary to the nutrition of the latter as it is
of the former. Fenger, in an article, "Phosphatides in the Ductless
Glands," points out that all the ductless gland, like nervous tissue, are
rich in lecithin (phosphatides, phospholipins). An ether-extract of the
pituitary gland was found to contain 62.61% lecithin. The anterior portion of
the gland was found to contain ten times as much phosphatides (lecithin) as
lean meat; the posterior pituitary, seven times this amount, being similar in
composition to the brain. The pineal gland was found to contain thirteen times
as much lecithin as lean meat. Jeleffy showed, the pineal gland is filled with
neuroglia and rich in phosphorus; these neuroglia are believed to possess
photo-sensibility to ultra-violet rays. The corpus luteum of the ovary was
found by Fenger to contain 15 times as much phosphatides as lean meat, and the
suprarenal gland was found to contain the most of all, seventeen times as much
as lean meat.
In view of these observations, we can understand
the reason why Dr. Brinkley places the sex glands in the position of master
glands in the endocrine chain, for they alone, through their external
secretion, are able to withdraw considerable amounts of lecithin and
phosphatides from the circulation, and thus directly affect the functioning of
the other glands, which are so dependent on phosphatides for their normal
functioning. The immediate effect of such sudden lowering of the phosphatide
content of the blood, as the result of seminal emissions, is to produce
hyperactivity of other endocrines. This explains the observed swelling of the
thyroid gland during menstruation, and as the result of coitus, which is
noticeable in women, in whom this gland enlarges and over-secretes at this
time. For this reason hyperthyroidism and goiter have a relation to sexual
excess. Enlargement of the thyroid gland in the bride the morning after the
wedding has traditionally been taken as a sign that intercourse has taken
place. But while the immediate effect of such phosphatide withdrawal is
overactivity of the other endocrines, as a compensatory factor in the body's
effort to maintain a normal concentration of phosphatides in the blood, the
final effect is to produce underactivity and atrophy of the endocrines, due to
chronic phosphatide deficiency; and this is why sexual excess leads to an
earlier appearance of senility, a condition resulting from endocrine
hypofunction and degeneration. Thus the
basic cause of endocrine dysfunctions—hypoactivity or hyperactivity—is to be
found in the sex glands and their ability to alter the lecithin or phosphatide
content of the blood, which is the primary raw material from which the
endocrines manufacture their hormones.
There is no time in life when the
endocrine glands of the individual may be more powerfully affected by a
deficiency of phosphatides than during the months of embryonic development,
when these glands are most sensitive to their chemical environment, the maternal
blood-stream. Deficiency of phosphatides in the mother's blood at this time,
due to ovarian overactivity (as the result of sexual intercourse) may affect
the development of the thyroid and other endocrine glands of the embryo, as
well as of its central nervous system. This explains the origin of cretins and
Mongolian idiots, when born of parents with normal heredity. Prof. M. Schlapp,
neuropsychiatrist of the New York Post-Graduate Hospital, has made a special
study of this problem, studying hundreds of cases of cretins born of normal
parents, and his conclusion is that a prenatal injury to the thyroid and other
glands of the embryo by an endocrine disturbance in the mother was the basic
cause of such conditions. He noted a
preponderance of such children born from adolescent mothers or those
approaching the climateric, when the ovaries tend to be most active. Dr.
Schlapp believes that glandular depletion of the mother during
gestation is the basic cause of the production of cretins and idiots, when
there is no direct hereditary causation. It is clear that such "glandular
depletion" can result from the excessive withdrawal of phosphatides from
the mother's blood as the result of sexual intercourse during pregnancy, which
also tends to produce endocrine dysfunction in the form of glandular hyper-and-hypoactivities.
The phosphatide withdrawal caused by
activity of the sex glands and seminal emission exercises a most powerful
effect upon the thymus glands, which are most dependent on adequate phosphorus
supply for their normal well-being and activity. Now it is interesting to note
that coincident with the increased activity of the sex glands at puberty and
the subsequent withdrawal by them of phosphatides, the thymus gland
degenerates. Such degeneration may be
viewed as a product of lecithin deficiency, similar to the endocrine
degeneration which McCarrison notes to result from vitamin B deficiency. If
lack of vitamin B causes the thymus to degenerate, lack of lecithin, which is
similar in its action, should do the same. Experiments on animals have shown
that the thymus is more easily affected than other glands by deficiency of
phosphorus and vitamins in the diet, and atrophies then deprived of these
elements. The lymphoid cells of the thymus, according Chittenden, contain 3.5%
of a nucleo-protein rich in phosphorus.
According to Hammar, the thymus
increases in weight from 5 grams at birth to 25 grams at puberty, after which
it commences to diminish, losing 5 grams between the ages of 15 and 25. However there are individuals in whom this
thymus degeneration does not occur and in whom the thymus persist throughout
life. According to Berman, Raphael,
noted for his chastity, was such a thymocentric individual in whom thymus
degeneration did not occur. It is probable that phosphatide starvation as the
result of the seminal emissions of puberty cause the customary degeneration of
the thymus at this time. This results from a disturbance of phosphorus
metabolism, which leads to a similar disturbance of calcium metabolism. Basch
found considerable excretion of calcium in thymectomized animals, which leads
to ricket-like symptoms.
The parenchyma of the thymus contains
nucleinates rich in phosphorus. Nucleohiston, the most important protein of the
thymus, contains 3.7% phosphorus. The richness of the thymus in phosphorus
shows that it is important not only for the proper development of the bones,
but also the brain, for which reason premature atrophy of the thymus leads to
the appearance of idiocy. At the Bicetre Hospital, according to Morel, 75 per
cent of non-myxedematous idiotic children, from one to five years old, showed
absence of the thymus gland on post-mortem examination. Bourneville also found absence of the thymus
in 28 feeble-minded children examined. Basch, Kloss, Vogt, Morel and others
observed mental disorders in puppies the fifth or sixth month after removal of
the thymus. The animals appeared idiotic and retarded in development. Both bone
and brain deformities appeared as the result of the phosphorus deficiency thus
produced.
That the internal secretion of the sex
glands may have a nutritive function in relation to nervous tissue and brain
cells, and that mental diseases may result from its absence, is indicated by
the observation of McCarrison, who found that atrophy of the testicles is
frequently found in cerebral and spinal diseases. Thorek, in his work on the
testis, notes developmental defects in the reproductive system of idiots and
cretins. Todde found diminished weight of the testicle in 88% of 25 cases of
dementia praecox studied. Many physicians also noted an improvement in dementia
praecox after gland transplantation.
Frequently, in operating upon women having dementia praecox and other
psychoses, atrophied ovaries are found. Neurotic phenomena usually follow the
removal of the ovaries. Matsumotot, in study of 20 cases of dementia praecox,
found cessation of spermatogenesis.
These facts indicate an intimate
relation between spermatozoa and the cells of the cerebral cortex, absence of
the formation of the former leading to decline of the latter. There is evidence
that spermatozoa, when not discharged, are resorbed into the blood-stream and
carried to the brain. Both in their chemical composition and their elongated
form, they have a remarkable similarity to brain-cells, which, like them, lack
the capacity of reproduction, in contrast to most other cells of the body which
have this capacity. Could spermatozoa, passing to the brain and spinal marrow,
have a relation to the mobile neuroglia, which likewise move about by
flagellated motions of their tail, and which are potential cells of the central
nervous system? This is an interesting speculation. Norret must have had some
such thought in mind when he remarked, "The resorption of what Dr.LeCamus
called a mass of microscopic brains is a source of vigor and longevity."
That the semen contains substances of
great physiological value, especially in relation to the nutrition of the
nervous system, is clear from its chemical analysis, which shows that it is
extremely rich in lecithin, cholesterin and phosphorus, the chief constituents
of nerve and brain tissue. It therefore follows that the withdrawal of these
substances from the circulation by seminal discharges (voluntarily or
involuntarily) must have an adverse effect on the nutrition of nerve and brain
tissue and result in disturbed functioning. Such biochemical consideration
support the view that loss of seminal fluid involves lowered nutrition of nerve
and brain tissue, and, when excessive, to nervous and mental disorders. The
remarkable similarity in chemical composition between the semen and the central
nervous system indicates such a relationship. Older physiologists suspected
this fact. Hoffman wrote:
"One easily understands why there
is so intimate a connection between the brain and the testicles, since these
two organs separate from the blood the most exquisite part of the lymph... The
seminal fluid is distributed in all the nerves of the body; it seems to be of
the same nature." (Could this "most exquisite" part of the lymph
which both the testicles and the brain extract from the blood be lecithin?)
That the semen contains substances of
great importance for the nutrition of the central nervous system was clearly
shown by the isolation from the semen of Spermine, the active principle of
testicular extracts, by Poehl, a Russian physiologist. Poehl found that when
Spermine was injected into animals it acted as a catalyst of cell activity,
resulting in an increased rate of oxidation in all tissues, metabolic processes
being accelerated and nervous citality increased. The effects were similar to
those observed by Brown-Sequard after spermatic injections. Since Schreiner,
the discoverer of spermin, had shown in 1878 that it is a normal constituent of
the semen, this indicates that the latter acts as a nerve stimulant in the
organism in which it is formed and resorbed, and that its loss must deprive the
nervous system and brain of its stimulating action. It may be for this reason
that natives in some parts of Australia, according to Havelock Ellis,
administer a potion of semen to feeble and dying members of their tribe.
Both the semen and the brain are composed largely of phosp