Different circumstances may render the act of venery injurious at the adult age, but as these do not belong exclusively to this age, we shall speak of them hereafter.
_Of the effect of venereal excesses in the period of decline._ The faculty of procreating in mankind has its limits: as this power is not attained till at a certain period of life, so too it continues only for a certain period. The spermatic animalculæ, the microscopic sign of the power of generating, are seen only during a portion of human existence: they do not appear till puberty, and disappear in advanced life. This is true also in regard to all animals: the rule is a general one. God has willed that the period of maturity should be the only one devoted to love: is it not a fair conclusion that those who transgress this law expose themselves to its penalties? As the sense of venery precedes, so too it may outlive, the procreative power; it then excites to indulgence at too late a period of life. Examples of this anomaly are very common; hence we need not refer for them to the works of the old writers, we will merely say that a large portion of those committed for attempts at rape are old men. Fortunately the venereal sense is that which suffers the soonest from excesses; and if sometimes the venereal desires are excited, the state of the genital organs prevents their indulgence.
Sometimes, however, the case is otherwise: excited in different ways the genital organs in old men, may for a few moments appear to have regained a faculty which they considered to be lost; these imprudent persons soon pay dearly for their indiscretion. Let us reflect a moment on the state in which venereal pleasures find man in his old age. His substance, instead of increasing or of continuing sound, wastes away. We have seen in a former page, that after the fortieth year the weight of the body begins to diminish; the tissues also vary in every respect from the perfect state as seen at the age of maturity. Farther the sensibility is diminished, the vital activity is enfeebled, the faculties become enervated, in short the economy is impaired. Need we now to make any remarks in regard to the most exhausting of human actions to show its danger? And yet we have only pictured old age as it progresses of its own accord, gently and slowly, without being hurried on by any infirmity; but this rarely happens.