Nothing (says a celebrated Physician of Louvain) so much weakens the vital faculties, and abridges life[15].
BLANCARD had seen simple gonorrhœas, consumptions, and dropsies all acknowledging this cause[16].
MUYS had seen a man as yet unbroken with age, attacked with a spontaneous gangrene in the foot, which he attributed to venereal excesses[17].
The _Memoirs of curious Naturalists_ mention the circumstance of a loss of sight, the observation of which deserves a recital at large. “It is (says the author) unconceivable, what a sympathy the repositories of the seminal humor have with the whole body, but especially with the eyes. _Salmuth_ saw a learned hypochondriac run raving mad, and another man, whose brain was so dried up, that it might be heard shaking as it were loose within the skull; both owing to their having abandoned themselves to excesses of venery. I myself saw a man of fifty-nine years of age, who, three weeks after marriage with a young woman, fell into sudden blindness, and died at the end of four months[18].”
The over-dissipation of the animal spirits weakens the stomach, palls the appetite, and nutrition no longer proceeding in its due course or degree, all the parts languish, and an epilepsy is sometimes the consequence[19].
We cannot, it is true, say that the animal spirits and the seminal humor are the same thing, but observation has taught us, as will be subsequently seen, that these two fluids have a great affinity.
M. HOFFMAN has seen the most dreadful accidents follow a waste of the seed.
“After a long course of nocturnal pollutions (says he) not only the strength diminishes, the body is emaciated, the face turns pale, but moreover the memory fails, a continual sensation of cold seizes all the limbs, the sight dims, the voice grows hoarse[20]; the whole body insensibly decays; the sleep, disturbed by uneasy dreams, brings with it no refreshment, and one feels pains like those which follow a severe beating[21].”
In his consultation for a young man, who, among other disorders, had brought upon himself a weakness in the eyes, by self-pollution: “I have (says he) seen many examples of persons, who, even in the age of full growth, that is to say, when the body is come to the plenary enjoyment of its vigor, had drawn upon themselves not only a redness and extreme pains in the eyes, but also so great a weakness of the sight, as to be no longer able to read or write. I have even seen two instances of a _gutta serena_ produced by this cause[22].”