Plain Facts for Old and Young

1. Never overeat. If too much food is taken at one meal, fast the next meal to give the system a chance to recover itself and to serve as a barrier against future transgressions of the same kind. Gluttony is fatal to chastity; and overeating will be certain to cause emissions, with other evils, in one whose organs are weakened by abuse.

2. Eat but twice a day, or, if supper is eaten, let it be very light, and of the most simple food, as fruit, or fruit and bread. Nothing should be eaten within four or five hours of bed-time, and it is much better to eat nothing after three o'clock. The ancients ate but two meals a day; why should moderns eat three or four? If the stomach contains undigested food, the sleep will be disturbed, dreams will be more abundant, and emissions will be frequent. A most imperative rule of life should be, "Never go to bed with a loaded stomach." The violation of this rule is the great cause of horrid dreams and nightmare.

3. Discard all stimulating food. Under this head must be included, spices, pepper, ginger, mustard, cinnamon, cloves, essences, all condiments, salt, pickles, etc., together with animal food of all kinds, not excepting fish, fowl, oysters, eggs, and milk. It is hardly to be expected that all who have been accustomed to use these articles all their lives will discard them wholly at once, nor, perhaps, that many will ever discard them entirely; but it would be better for them to do so, nevertheless. The only ones which should be tolerated under any circumstances should be lean beef or mutton, salt in very moderate quantities, and a moderate use of milk. Use as little of these as possible—the less the better.

4. Stimulating drinks should be abstained from with still greater strictness. Wine, beer, tea, and coffee should be taken under no circumstances. The influence of coffee in stimulating the genital organs is notorious. Chocolate should be discarded also. It is recommended by some who suppose it to be harmless, being ignorant of the fact that it contains a poison practically identical with that of tea and coffee.

5. In place of such articles as have been condemned, eat fruits, grains, and vegetables. There is a rich variety of these kinds of food, and they are wholesome and unstimulating. Graham flour, oatmeal, and ripe fruit are the indispensables of a dietary for those who are suffering from sexual excesses.

Further remarks upon diet, with a few useful recipes for preparing healthful food, will be found in works devoted to the subject of diet.[54] The patient must carefully comply with all the rules of a healthy diet if he would be sure of recovery.

Sleeping.—It is from accidents which happen during sleep that the great majority of sufferers complain; hence there is no little importance attaching to this subject. The following suggestions present in a very brief manner some of the more practical ideas connected with this part of the subject:—

3. If insufficient sleep is taken at night, sleep a few minutes just before dinner. Half an hour's rest at this time is remarkably refreshing; and even fifteen minutes spent in sleep will be found very reviving. Do not sleep after dinner, as a pollution will be very likely to occur, and, as a rule, after-dinner naps are unrefreshing and productive of indigestion.

5. The position in sleeping is of some importance. Sleeping upon the back or upon the abdomen favors the occurrence of emissions; hence, it is preferable to sleep on one side. If supper has been taken, the right side is preferable, as that position will favor the passage of food from the stomach into the intestines in undergoing digestion.

Various devices are employed, sometimes with advantage, to prevent the patient from turning upon his back while asleep. The most simple is that recommended by Acton, and consists in tying a knot in the middle of a towel and then fastening the towel about the body in such a way that the knot will come upon the small of the back. The unpleasant sensations arising from pressure of the knot, if the sleeper turn upon his back, will often serve as a complete preventive. Others fasten a piece of wood upon the back for a similar purpose. Still others practice tying one hand to the bedpost. None of these remedies should be depended upon, but they may be tried in connection with other means of treatment.

6. Soft beds and pillows must be carefully avoided. Feather-beds should not be employed when possible to find a harder bed; the floor, with a single folded blanket beneath the sleeper, would be preferable. Soft pillows heat the head, as soft beds produce heat in other parts. A hair mattress, or a bed of corn husks, oat straw, or excelsior—covered with two or three blankets or a quilted cotton mattress—makes a very healthy and comfortable bed.

8. Thorough ventilation of the sleeping-room, both while occupied and during the day-time, must not be neglected. It should be located in a position to admit the sunshine during the morning hours. It is a good plan to keep in it a number of house plants, as they will help to purify the air, besides adding to its cheerfulness.

9. If wakeful at night, instead of lying in bed trying to go to sleep, get up at once, open the bed, air the sheets, remove the night clothing and walk about the room for a few minutes, rubbing the body briskly with the bare hand at the same time. A tepid sponge bath, followed by a vigorous rubbing kept up until really tired, will conduce to sleep in many cases. Sometimes a change of bed, or pulling the bed to pieces and arranging it again, is just the thing needed to bring sleep.

In perfectly natural sleep, there are no dreams; consciousness is entirely suspended. In the ordinary stage of dreaming, there is a peculiar sort of consciousness, many of the faculties of the mind being more or less active while the power of volition is wholly dormant. Carpenter describes another stage of consciousness between that of ordinary dreaming and wakefulness, a condition "in which the dreamer has a consciousness that he is dreaming, being aware of the unreliability of the images which present themselves before his mind. He may even make a voluntary and successful effort to prolong them if agreeable, or to dissipate them if unpleasing; thus evincing a certain degree of that directing power, the entire want of which is characteristic of the true state of dreams."

Can Dreams Be Controlled?—Facts prove that they can be, and to a remarkable extent. A large share of emissions occur in the state described by Dr. Carpenter, in which a certain amount of control by the will is possible. This is the usual condition of the mind during morning naps; and if a person resolutely determines to combat unchaste thoughts whenever they come to him, whether asleep or awake, he will find it possible to control himself not only during this semi-conscious state, but even during more profound sleep.

"He had been inconvenienced five years before with frequent emissions, which totally unnerved him. He determined resolutely that the very instant the image of a woman or any libidinous idea presented itself to his imagination, he would wake; and to insure his doing so, dwelt in his thoughts on his resolution for a long time before going to sleep. The remedy, applied by a vigorous will, had the most happy results. The idea, the remembrance of its being a danger, and the determination to wake, closely united the evening before, were never dissociated even in sleep, and he awoke in time; and this reiterated precaution, repeated during some evenings, absolutely cured the complaint."

"Patients will tell you that they cannot control their dreams. This is not true. Those who have studied the connection between thoughts during waking hours and dreams during sleep know that they are closely connected. The character is the same sleeping or waking. It is not surprising that, if a man has allowed his thoughts during the day to rest upon libidinous subjects, he should find his mind at night full of lascivious dreams—the one is a consequence of the other, and the nocturnal pollution is a natural consequence, particularly when diurnal indulgence has produced an irritability of the generative organs. A will which in our waking hours we have not exercised in repressing sexual desires, will not, when we fall asleep, preserve us from carrying the sleeping echo of our waking thought farther than we dared to do in the day-time."

Bathing.—A daily bath is indispensable to health under almost all circumstances; for patients of this class, it is especially necessary. A general bath should be taken every morning immediately upon rising. General cold bathing is not good for any person, especially in the morning, though some may tolerate it remarkably well, being of exceptionally hardy constitutions; but the advice to try "cold bathing" often given to sufferers from seminal weakness, is very pernicious, for most of them have been reduced so low in vitality by their disease that they cannot endure such violent treatment.

Sun baths, electric baths, spray, plunge, and other forms of bath, are of greatest value to those suffering from the effects of indiscretions. These are described, with additional observations concerning temperature of baths, etc., etc., in works devoted to this subject.

Improvement of General Health.—Patients suffering from emissions and other forms of seminal weakness are almost always dyspeptic, and most of them present other constitutional affections which require careful and thorough treatment according to the particular indications of the case. The wise physician will not neglect these if he desires to cure his patient and make his recovery as complete as possible.

Prostitution as a Remedy.—Said a leading physician in New York to us when interrogated as to his special treatment of spermatorrhoea, "When a young man comes to me suffering from nocturnal emissions, I give him tonics and send him to a woman." That this is not an unusual method of treatment, even among regular physicians, is a fact as true as it is deplorable. There are hundreds of young men whose morals have been ruined by such advice. Having been educated to virtuous habits, at least so far as illicit intercourse is concerned, they resist all temptations in this direction, even though their inclinations are very strong; but when advised by a physician to commit fornication as a remedial measure, they yield their virtue, far too readily sometimes, and begin a life of sin from which they might have been prevented. There are good grounds for believing that many young men purposely seek advice from physicians whom they know are in the habit of prescribing this kind of remedy.

Few know how commonly this course is recommended, and not by quacks, but by members of the regular profession. A medical friend informed us that he knew a case in which a country physician advised a young man of continent habits to go to a neighboring large city and spend a year or so with prostitutes, which advice he followed. Of his subsequent history we know nothing; but it is most probable that, like most other young men who adopt this remedy, he soon contracted diseases which rendered his condition ten times worse than at first, without at all improving his former state. In pursuing this course, one form of emission is only substituted for another, at the best; but more than this, an involuntary result of disease is converted into a voluntary sin of the blackest character, a crime in which two participate, and which is not only an outrage upon nature, but against morality as well.

"The vexed question of connection is one which may be decided out of hand.... It has no power of curing bad spermatorrhoea; it may cause a diminution in the number of emissions, but this is only a delusion; the semen is still thrown off; the frame still continues to be exhausted; the genital organs and nervous system generally are still harassed by the incessant tax, and the patient is all the while laying the foundation of impotence."[56]