A Solemn Appeal

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IT INFLAMES THE WHOLE SYSTEM

“But, great as is the evil, especially to growing youth, consequent on this drain of vitality, that inflammation, always and necessarily consequent on excessive indulgence in all its forms, is much more prolific of both disease and suffering. Whoever indulges often, and weekly is often, in wedlock or out of it, will experience an unnatural heat, tension, tenderness, irritation, swelling, perhaps soreness, in these organs, of course resulting from their inflammation. SOAP 204.2

“The immediate cause of this inflammation is twofold. First, intense action, in its very nature, engenders inflammation, and what action more intense and inflammatory than this? Secondly, in order to insure intense action in this function, so as thereby highly to endow its product, a larger amount of nervous tissue is found ramified upon those parts of this apparatus more immediately brought into action, than upon almost any other portion of the body. This contrivance is indispensable to pleasure, and this, to the endowment of offspring. Nerve alone gives pleasure, but inflamed nerve gives pain, and pain proportionate to its quantity, and the degree of inflammation. Now, frequent action necessarily inflames, and this both weakens these organs, and engenders disease in them, and throughout the system. It fills the whole being, mental and physical, full of wild, excited, preternatural, irregular, abnormal, painful action. And inflammation thus caused, is harder to be reached, and more difficult to be subdued, than disease of any other portion of the body; because, while inflammation of the lungs, of the heart, of the stomach, of the bowels, muscles, head, etc., can easily be reached through the intestinal canal, or else by external application, diseases of these organs, especially in women, can be reached or cured only with great difficulty. SOAP 205.1

“We have seen that excess produces inflammation, particularly in these organs. Now, inflammation, in its very nature, proportionally weakens and destroys. This law of organization is too well known to require proof or illustration. Excessive indulgence, of whatever kind, necessarily inflames, and therefore weakens and diseases the sexual apparatus; and hence that falling of the womb, fluor albus, and other common female complaints, as well as prostration, or pendency, or irritation, or priapism, or gonorrhoea, etc., of males, which excessive indulgence always and necessarily creates. Nor, once effectually impaired, does this apparatus ever fully regain its former tone and power. As with a dislocated joint, or affection of the stomach, or lungs, slighter, and still slighter, occasions of disease renew the chronic complaint, so indulgence, otherwise not injurious, now renews the disease, and re-impairs the health, besides enfeebling both this function and its product. SOAP 206.1

“Allow here a single remark relative to the effect of indulgence, whether promiscuous, matrimonial, or solitary, upon offspring. It has been seen that power of sexual passion contributes to the endowment of offspring, and its feebleness leaves them proportionally the less endowed. Now nature has provided for the retention of this secretion till the action and pleasure of this function rise higher and higher, and become most exalted prior to its discharge, in order that this condensation of energy and function may be imparted to offspring. SOAP 206.2

“Now frequent indulgence allows it to escape prematurely, or before this action rises to its highest pitch, and thus prevents that pleasure of its subject so essential to the endowment of offspring. Indulgence even goes so far sometimes as to cause involuntary emissions, or at least on slight incentives, which of course weakens both the pleasure and the product of this function. Thus excessive indulgence cuts off the very pleasure sought, by diseasing its apparatus. SOAP 207.1