Chapter I – Sexual Health of the Male


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 Chancroids or Venereal Sores….


It is a mistaken idea that the sexual organs demand no attention before puberty. It is true that marked changes occur at that epoch, without which the special functions of those organs could not be performed, but it is also true that sexual life begins before birth, is usually or often expressed by outward signs or inward feelings some years before puberty, which marks neither the dawn nor the maturity of that life, and that sexual health may by very decidedly influenced by the treatment the sexual organs receive in the very earliest years. The boy and the girl are different creatures from the first moment they have the power of expression, and the wise parent will not allow the reproductive organs to be neglected in infancy from the false idea that they need no attention till they are fully developed and ready to fulfil their functions.

With regard to the boy, the first attention demanded by the sexual organs, as such, is circumcision. The foreskin is a sort of cap or bag, consisting chiefly of skin outside, and mucous membrane inside, which covers over an enlargement at the extreme end of the male organ of generation, known as the “glans penis.” The foreskin is, usually, capable of being retracted, so as to fully expose the glans, and even when this cannot be done in infancy it often becomes possible in later life. In rare instances, however, there is no orifice in this foreskin for the escape of urine, or the orifice is too small to admit of its retraction behind the glans; in the former case making an immediate operation necessary for the continuance of life itself. Far more frequently the foreskin is so long that it extends beyond the glans, and its retraction is either an impossibility from the superabundance of flesh or, for the same reason, the foreskin is forced over the glans again the moment it is released. In any of the above cases the glans remains covered by the foreskin, at least until years of maturity, while health requires that it be freely exposed.

The glans penis is perhaps the most sensitive point in the whole body, although its sensibility is of a peculiar kind, giving rise both to the pleasure peculiar to sexual intercourse and, by what is called “reflex action,” to the emission of the fluid which follows such intercourse. The glans is not specially rich in nervous of ordinary feeling, and hence its peculiar sensitiveness is not readily appreciated, except in connection with sexual acts. The nerves are there, however, and exciting them to action is known to be one of the most exhausting of the processes of animal life. These nerves are excited naturally by contact with the warm and moist lining of the female organs, combined with friction, and a very similar excitement, milder, but vastly more enduring, is set up by the contact with an elongated foreskin. If, then, this glans be constantly covered by loose skin for several of the earlier years of life, the delicate sexual organs are maintained in a condition resembling, in some degree, a perpetual masturbation or self-abuse, besides which the irritation so induced is a direct and strong temptation to that habit.

Another reason for exposing the glans is found in the fact that around its neck a number of small orifices exist, through which is discharged a fluid of peculiar odor and properties. Unless this discharge is frequently washed away it sets up an irritation closely resembling some of the impure diseases to which these organs are liable, and it can evidently be better cared for where the glans is freely exposed than under other circumstances.

In these two conditions we find the sources of many of the nervous disorders which are known to be caused by a long or tight foreskin, and among which are troubles of every sort in all parts of the body, including wetting the bed, stammering, twitchings, headache, epilepsy, and even something very like hip disease; none of which troubles, when arising from a long foreskin, can be permanently cured without first circumcising the patient.

General, as well as sexual health, then, requires that the glans penis be freely exposed, and that the foreskin be habitually and permanently retracted, and to accomplish this exposure and retraction from earliest infancy circumcision is usually necessary. This rite, as is well known, was made one of fundamental religious importance among the Jews, but was by no means limited to the descendants of Abraham, and undoubtedly was established primarily as a sanitary precaution. The eighth day of life being the established one amongst a race of people scattered over all parts of the globe, shows conclusively that the act can scarcely be performed at too early an age if the infant be otherwise healthy. By all means, then, let every boy baby be circumcised at the earliest convenient day–of course committing the operation to a surgeon–and let every boy or man of whatever age also undergo the operation unless he can habitually retain the foreskin retracted so as to fully expose the glans penis.

But a long foreskin is by no means the only source of irritation from which the immature sexual organs must be protected. Great care must be taken to guard them from unnecessary handling, even in washing, and too much pains cannot be bestowed upon the choice of a nurse with regard to this very thing. Some nurses will endeavor to soothe a child to sleep by tickling the privates, and many a boy has thus been taught by his nurse to seek pleasures of which he should have had no knowledge whatever.

For pleasure is associated with many movements of the sexual parts in the earliest years of life, and it is probably to this fact that we must look for an explanation of the fondness children manifest for the amusement of sliding down a stair-balustrade, a form of play which ought to be looked upon with disfavor. Play in general, however–active, romping, boisterous play, of boys and girls together, regardless of noise, dirt, and properties–is always to be looked upon as the most natural and healthful employment in which children can engage, and little fear need be felt of their having too much of it. The danger lies entirely the other way, for fashion and propriety, school boards and, alas! poverty, combine to deny to the rising generation its fair share of out-door play, with the essential accessories of noise, dirt, and torn clothes.

As the boy grows older it becomes of the utmost importance that he should be actively employed, and that his parents should retain his perfect confidence. The more physical exertion and the more playmates, both boys and girls, a boy has, the less likely will he be to have any morbid tendencies toward habits which at his age are certainly not natural or dependent upon natural sexual instincts; for such instincts, if allowed to come of themselves, would wait upon the maturity of the organs through which they must find expression, and are hence unnatural, however strong, in earlier years. But playmates are apt to be the principal teachers of the young boy, and they often teach what would be better unlearned.

It becomes, then, a matter of the utmost importance that parents hold on to the boy’s confidence, so that nothing shall enter his mind to be concealed from them, and no teaching from whatever source shall be preferred to theirs. And while it is doubtless the best plan to keep the boy’s mind as far as possible from the sexual organs and their uses, let no parent delude himself with the idea that thoughts of these things can be entirely excluded. Too much of what goes on in the animal world, too much that is tolerated in the daily papers, comes under his notice, too many of his daily experiences are compared with those of his companions, to make it possible to exclude entirely from his mind questions that sooner or later will find their answers, perhaps in a way parents would not prefer. Boys will even make a competitive game of the simple emptying of their bladders, and in this act may easily begin a habit difficult enough to uproot.

A boy should be taught that the privates must not be handled except for washing and passing water. He can easily be shown that the urine is a fluid which carries impurities out of his body that would do him harm if retained, and that handling the privates may result in obstruction to the flow of urine, and thus make him sick. There is no need of teaching more till his questions demand it; but when his curiosity is aroused the safest course is to satisfy it with the wholesome article of truthful information, rather than run the risk of having the moral poison that circulates all too freely among the young, taken into the mind and accepted as sound teaching with regard to sexual relations.

Fuller information than this ought to be given a boy, regardless of his questions, not later than the advent of puberty. This crisis is signalized by the growth of hair at the lower part of the abdomen, and by the change of voice. At about the same time the organs of reproduction begin to secrete a fluid upon which depends their power to perform their part in the preservation of the species, and, as we shall see later, it is the accumulation of this fluid, and the consequent desire to empty the organ in which it is contained, that gives rise to the sexual instinct upon which the life of the race depends.

Henry Granger Hanchett
HENRY G. HANCHETT, M.D., F.A.A., (1853-1918)
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,