Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners Part 60

8. If the above remedies are not sufficient, a family physician should be consulted.

9. Never let children sleep together, if possible, to avoid it. Discourage the children of neighbors and friends from sleeping with your children.

10. Have your children rise early. It is the lying in bed in the morning that plays the mischief.

[Ill.u.s.tration: (l) Healthy s.e.m.e.n, Greatly Magnified. (r) The s.e.m.e.n of a Victim of Masturbation.]

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NOCTURNAL EMISSIONS

Involuntary emissions of s.e.m.e.n during amorous dreams at night is not at all uncommon among healthy men. When this occurs from one to three or four times a month, no anxiety or concern need be felt.

When the emissions take place without dreams, manifested only by stained spots in the morning on the linen, or take place at stool and are entirely beyond control, then the patient should at once seek for remedies or consult a competent physician. When blood stains are produced, then medical aid must be sought at once.

HOME TREATMENT FOR NOCTURNAL EMISSIONS.

Sleep in a hard bed, and rise early and take a sponge bath in cold water every morning. Eat light suppers and refrain from eating late in the evening. Empty the bladder thoroughly before retiring, bathe the spine and hips with a sponge dipped in cold water.

_Never sleep lying on the back._

Avoid all highly seasoned food and read good books, and keep the mind well employed. Take regular and vigorous outdoor exercise every day.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Healthy t.e.s.t.i.c.l.e.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: A t.e.s.t.i.c.l.e wasted by Masturbation.]

Avoid all coffee, tea, wine, beer and all alcoholic liquors. Don't use tobacco, and keep the bowels free.

PRESCRIPTION.--Ask your druggist to put you up a good Iron Tonic and take it regularly according to his directions.

BEWARE OF ADVERTISING QUACKS.

Beware of these advertising schemes that advertise a speedy cure for "Loss of Youth," "Lost Vitality," "A Cure for Impotency," "Renewing of Old Age,"

etc. Do not allow these circulating pamphlets and circulars to concern you the least. If you have a few _Nocturnal Emissions_, remember it is only a mark of vitality and health, and not a sign of a deathly disease, as many of these advertising quacks would lead you to believe.

Use your private organs only for what your Creator intended they should be used, and there will be no occasion for you to be frightened by the deception of quacks.

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[Ill.u.s.tration: THE TWO PATHS: WHAT WILL THE BOY BECOME?]

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Lost Manhood Restored.

1. RESOLUTE DESISTENCE.--The first step towards the restoration of lost manhood is a resolute desistence from these terrible sins. Each time the temptation is overcome, the power to resist becomes stronger, and the fierce fire declines. Each time the sin is committed, its hateful power strengthens, and the fire of l.u.s.t is increased. Remember, that you cannot commit these sins, and maintain health and strength.

2. AVOID BEING ALONE.--Avoid being alone when the temptation comes upon you to commit self-abuse. Change your thoughts at once; "keep the heart diligently, for out of it are the issues of life."

3. AVOID EVIL COMPANIONS.--Avoid evil companions, lewd conversation, bad pictures, corrupt and vicious novels, books, and papers. Abstain from all intoxicating drinks. These inflame the blood, excite the pa.s.sions, and stimulate sensuality; weakening the power of the brain, they always impair the power of self-restraint. Smoking is very undesirable. Keep away from the moral pesthouses. Remember that these houses are the great resort of fallen and depraved men and women. The music, singing, and dancing are simply a blind to cover the intemperance and l.u.s.t, which hold high carnival in these guilded h.e.l.ls. This, be it remembered, is equally true of the great majority of the theatres.

4. AVOID STRONG TEA, OR COFFEE.--Take freely of cocoa, milk, and bread and milk, or oatmeal porridge. Meats, such as beef and mutton, use moderately.

We would strongly recommend to young men of full habit, vegetarian diet.

Fruits in their season, partake liberally; also fresh vegetables. Brown bread and toast, as also rice, and similar puddings, are always suitable.

Avoid rich pastry and new bread.

5. THREE MEALS A DAY ARE ABUNDANT.--Avoid suppers, and be careful, if troubled with nightly emissions, not to take any liquid, not even water, after seven o'clock in the evening, at latest. This will diminish the secretions of the body, when asleep, and the consequent emissions, which in the early hours or the morning usually follow the taking of any kind of drink. Do not be anxious or troubled by an occasional emission, say, for example, once a fortnight.

6. REST ON A HARD MATTRESS.--Keep the body cool when asleep; heat arising from a load of bed-clothes is most {460} undesirable. Turn down the counterpane, and let the air have free course through the blankets.

7. RELIEVE THE SYSTEM.--As much as possible relieve the system of urine before going to sleep. On rising, bathe if practicable. If you cannot bear cold water, take the least possible chill off the water (cold water, however, is best). If bathing is not practicable, wash the body with cold water, and keep scrupulously clean. The reaction caused by cold water, is most desirable. Rub the body dry with a rough towel. Drink a good draught of cold water.

8. EXERCISE.--Get fifteen minutes' brisk walk, if possible before breakfast. If any sense of faintness exists, eat a crust of bread, or biscuit. Be regular in your meals, and do not fear to make a hearty breakfast. This lays a good foundation for the day. Take daily good, but not violent exercise. Walk until you can distinctly feel the tendency to perspiration. This will keep the pores of the skin open and in healthy condition.

9. MEDICINES.--Take the medicines, if used, regularly and carefully.

Bromide of Pota.s.sium is a most valuable remedy in allaying l.u.s.tful and heated pa.s.sions and appet.i.tes. Unless there is actual venereal disease, medicine should be very little resorted to.

10. AVOID THE STREETS AT NIGHT.--Beware of corrupt companions. Fast young men and women should be shunned everywhere. Cultivate a taste for good reading and evening studies. Home life with its gentle restraints, pure friends.h.i.+ps, and healthful discipline, should be highly valued. There is no liberty like that of a well-regulated home. To large numbers of young men in business houses, home life is impracticable.

11. BE OF GOOD CHEER AND COURAGE.--Recovery will be gradual, and not sudden; vital force is developed slowly from within. The object aimed at by medicine and counsel is to aid and increase nervous and physical vigor, and give tone to the demoralized system. Do not pay the slightest heed to the exaggerated statements of the wretched quack doctors, who advertise everywhere. Avoid them as you would a pestilence. Their great object is, through exciting your fears, to get you into their clutches, in order to oppress you with heavy and unjust payments. Be careful, not to indulge in fancies, or morbid thoughts and feelings. Be hopeful, and play the part of a man determined to overcome.

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Manhood Wrecked and Rescued.

1. THE n.o.bLEST FUNCTIONS OF MANHOOD.--The n.o.blest functions of manhood are brought into action in the office of the parent. It is here that man a.s.sumes the prerogative of a G.o.d and becomes a creator. How essential that every function of his physical system should be perfect, and every faculty of his mind free from that which would degrade; yet how many drag their purity through the filth of masturbation, revel in the orgies of the debauchee, and wors.h.i.+p at the shrine of the prost.i.tute, until, like a tree blighted by the livid lightning, they stand with all their outward form of men, but without life.

2. THRESHOLD OF HONOR.--Think of a man like that; in whom the pa.s.sions and vices have burned themselves out, putting on the airs of a saint and claiming to have reformed! Aye, reformed, when there is no longer sweetness in the indulgence of l.u.s.t. Think of such loathsome b.e.s.t.i.a.lity, dragging its slimy body across the threshold of honor and n.o.bility and asking a pure woman, with the love-light of heaven in her eyes, to pa.s.s her days with him; to accept him as her lord; to be satisfied with the burnt-out, shriveled forces of manhood left; to sacrifice her purity that he may be redeemed, and to respect in a husband what she would despise in the brute.

3. STOP.--If you are, then, on the highway to this state of degradation, stop. If already you have sounded the depths of lost manhood, then turn, and from the fountain of life regain your power, before you perpetrate the terrible crime of marriage, thus wrecking a woman's life and perhaps bringing into the world children who will live only to suffer and curse the day on which they were born and the father who begat them.

4. s.e.xUAL IMPOTENCY.--s.e.xual impotency means s.e.xual starvation, and drives many wives to ruin, while a similar lack among wives drives husbands to libertinism. Nothing so enhances the happiness of married couples as this full, life-abounding, s.e.xual vigor in the husband, thoroughly reciprocated by the wife, yet completely controlled by both.

5. TWO CLa.s.sES OF SUFFERERS.--There are two cla.s.ses of sufferers. First, those who have only practiced self-abuse and are suffering from emissions.

Second, those who by overindulgence in marital relations, or by dissipation with women, have ruined their forces.

6. THE REMEDY.--For self-abuse: When the young man has practiced self-abuse for some time, he finds, upon {462} quitting the habit, that he has nightly emissions. He becomes alarmed, reads every sensational advertis.e.m.e.nt in the papers, and at once comes to the conclusion that he must take something.

_Drugs are not necessary._

7. STOP THE CAUSE.--The one thing needful, above all others, is to stop the cause. I have found that young men are invariably mistaken as to what is the cause. When asked as to the first cause of their trouble, they invariably say it was self-abuse, etc., but it is not. _It is the thought._ This precedes the handling, and, like every other cause, must be removed in order to have right results.

8. STOP THE THOUGHT.--But remember, _stop the thought_! You must not look after every woman with l.u.s.tful thoughts, nor go courting girls who will allow you to hug, caress and kiss them, thus rousing your pa.s.sions almost to a climax. Do not keep the company of those whose only conversation is of a lewd and depraved character, but keep the company of those ladies who awaken your higher sentiments and n.o.bler impulses, who appeal to the intellect and rouse your aspiration, in whose presence you would no more feel your pa.s.sions aroused than in the presence of your own mother.

9. YOU WILL GET WELL.--Remember you will get well. Don't fear. Fear destroys strength and therefore increases the trouble. Many get downhearted, discouraged, despairing--the very worst thing that can happen, doing as much harm, and in many cases more, than their former dissipation.