In this connection is the proper place to speak of the disadvantages of long engagements. It is, probably, too much to expect of human nature that two young persons should be very much in love with each other, and should have frequent opportunities of seeing each other alone, without indulging in sundry endearing words, looks, and embraces; nor has the author one word to say in disparagement of what goes so far to turn life into a poem, and put softness and sweetness into natures too prone to harshness and selfishness. But there are proper limitations for all things. No man can indulge in such caresses without experiencing more or less activity in the sexual organs. This is a matter wholly involuntary and beyond his control; so his body has been made and so it must act, whether he will or no, if he put himself in a position to apply the stimulus. Now this is well enough within bounds, but for this excitement and partial activity of the sexual organs to go on for months with no result will surely have a bad effect. Three months is long enough for an engagement, especially if the parties can see each other frequently. A courtship conducted by correspondence might continue longer without the same danger, but long engagements should be avoided where possible.
The diseases of the sexual organs to which men are specially liable are Gonorrhoea, which in popular language is designated Clap; Syphilis, which is limited to the sexual organs only in its first stage, and may even enter the system through other channels, and which is popularly known as the Pox; and Chancroids or Venereal Sores. These disease are none of them suitable for treatment by the patient himself, or by domestic methods. They should send the patient to his physician as soon as they are recognized. But a few remarks upon their causes, nature, and proper treatment will be appropriate here, and may save the sufferer from mistakes, and unnecessary anxiety. Many misconceptions regarding these diseases are prevalent, and result in much evil. Quacks thrive upon them, partly because of these misapprehensions, partly because patients are reluctant to have the family physician know of their existence, and partly, no doubt, because of the medical gullibility of a class still large in the community.
Gonorrhoea is an inflammation of the membrane lining the canal through which the urine passes after leaving the bladder. In women the disease has a different seat, but it is the purpose here to speak only of gonorrhoea in men. It is caused by the contact of irritating matters of a certain kind directly with this membrane, and many authors claim that the only substance that will produce it is the discharge from another case of the same disease. Be that as it may, there is a disease known as Urethritis, or inflammation of the lining membranes of this same urinary canal, which an unprofessional person would be unable to distinguish from a true gonorrhoea, unless by positive knowledge of its cause, and no attempt will be made in this place to distinguish the two. The enormous prevalance of this disorder, and its indiscriminate invasion of all classes of society, are among the most shocking revelations that come to a medical practitioner, and if known generally, would doubtless do much to break down that hugely false idea that safety for the young is to be found in ignorance on sexual subjects. Ignorance lends power to temptation, and temptation comes to all in some degree. For nine hundred and ninety-nine of every thousand cases of gonorrhoea are due to impure sexual intercourse. The contact of the mucous membrane with the impure and irritating discharges which are very common among women who submit their bodies to indiscriminate intercourse, sets up an acute inflammation which occasions, first, a tingling and itching on passing water, and later, a discharge which at the start is slight and merely glues up the outlet, but soon becomes abundant, thick, like matter, and accompanied with intense pain in passing water, and erections which are also very painful.
As has been said, it is not the intention to fully describe the disease or its treatment in this place, but to allude to some misapprehensions concerning it.
And, first, the disease is not always due to impure sexual intercourse. The irritating substance which causes it may be a discharge of the “whites” in the wife of the patient-a disease to which she may become a victim in the most innocent manner possible-or it may be the menstrual discharge itself. Again, the disease may be caused by simple excesses of intercourse, or by irritating discharges in the urine of the patient himself, as in some cases of gout, and the inflammation may result from accidental wounding of the penis by some mechanical injury. There is perhaps a bare possibility that in some cases the disease has been communicated from one man to another by the patient’s allowing the discharge to touch some article which was afterward touched by the private member of another person–such cases are, however, too rare to be worth considering.
Secondly, the disease is by no means a trivial affair. It is the most fatal of all the venereal diseases, and often results in permanent, or at best very intractable injuries to the sexual organs, and to the body generally. One attack makes the patient more liable to a second, and each subsequent attack is more difficult to cure than its predecessors.
Thirdly, it is not a disease to be quickly or easily cured, nor is the patient wise who takes his case into his own hands, who delays treatment, or who seeks the advice of either a druggist or a quack. Moreover, it seems almost unnecessary to remark, the disease can never be cured by “giving it away” to someone else. The patient who gets entirely rid of an ordinary attack of gonorrhoea in six weeks may count himself unusually fortunate. Many patients continue treatment for from two to five or six months, and strictures, inflammations of the testicles, bladder, eyes, or deeper organs may easily complicate the case and make longer treatment necessary.
With regard to treatment, as has been said, a physician should be consulted, and one should be selected who is neither afraid of local measures or so bound to them that he will use them indiscriminately in every case. In the four or five days that usually intervene between the contact, and the development of the inflammation, injections offer the most promising and helpful mode of treatment, but they are never safe in the hands of patients, are never admissible in the stage of inflammation, although they may come in again after that is passed and while a mild discharge–a Gleet–still persists. Late in the treatment, too, it may be necessary to pass steel sounds into the bladder once a week or so. The best medicine is usually the oil of sandal wood, which may be had put up in capsules each containing one dose, or the oil itself may be taken on a lump of sugar, ten drops, four times a day. The medicines wanted in the disease are numerous, and no one of them has a record of universal success. The treatment is very greatly facilitated by absolute rest in bed and the use of a diet of very plain food, chiefly vegetable, and absolutely excluding all drinks containing the least alcohol, tobacco, coffee, tomatoes, rhubarb, onions, garlic, strawberries, sorrel, water-cresses, asparagus, and even meats. An abundance of water should be drank, and of course, sexual indulgences must be entirely abandoned.
Chancroid or the venereal sore, is a disease which seems to be almost exclusively propagated by direct contagion in impure sexual intercourse, but the sore is one that can only be distinguished from the chancre or first symptom of syphilis by the careful examination of a physician, and even he is hardly warranted in pronouncing a positive opinion in all cases without making experiments and holding his judgment in reserve for several days. The disease is mentioned here merely for the purpose of informing those who may be afflicted with a sore on the private parts that it does not necessarily prove that they have that justly dreaded disease, syphilis. While a chancroid may give rise to much trouble and is the usual cause of buboes–those distressing abscesses in the groin popularly named “blue balls”– it is still a purely local disease, and when cured it leaves no blood-taint behind.
Syphilis, however, is a constitutional disease of the most dreadful proportions, pronounced by many eminent medical authors to be incurable, eating its way, year after year, into the very bones and marrow, making a wreck of both body and mind, and destroying innocent children as well as the victim who can trace to his own act the origin of his plague. Probably the disease is curable by long-continued, patient, and persistent effort, but it so often suddenly breaks out again, after the most thorough treatment has suppressed, perhaps for months, all signs of its existence, that one is disposed to doubt the reality and permanence of many of the so-called cures. But this is not the place to discuss the disease or its treatment further than to say that as its first symptom–a chancre–is very similar to another and perfectly curable disease–venereal sore so its later expressions resemble quite closely other maladies, many of which are of inconsiderable importance. Many a man has been rendered miserable by the thought that he was afflicted with the dire plague of syphilis when his sole trouble was a tetter or some other harmless skin disease. When in doubt, then, consult some regular, well-known, honest physician; tell him your whole story, and when you know positively what is the matter, it will be time enough to consider what has to be done about it.
Member New York State and County Homoeopathic Medical Societies ;
Formerly Staff-Physician to the College and Wilson Mission
Dispensaries ; Fellow of the N. Y. Academy of Anthropology ; Member American Historical Association,