Plain Facts for Old and Young | Page 3

vice--Cultivate
chastity--Timely warning--Curative treatment of the effects of
self-abuse--Cure of the habit--How may a person help

himself?--Hopeful courage--General regimen and treatment--Mental
and moral treatment-- Exercise--Never overeat--Eat but twice a
day--Discard all stimulating food--Stimulating
drinks--Sleeping--Dreams--Can dreams be controlled?--
Bathing--Improvement of general health--Prostitution as a remedy--
Marriage--Local treatment--Cool sitz bath--Ascending
douche--Abdominal bandage--Wet compress--Hot and cold
applications to the spine--Local fomentations--Local cold
bathing--Enemata--Electricity--Internal applications--Use of
electricity--Circumcision--Impotence--Varicocele--
Drugs--Rings--Quacks--Closing advice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 315
A CHAPTER FOR BOYS.
Who are boys?--What are boys for?--Boys the hope of the world--Man
the masterpiece--How a noble character is ruined--The marvelous
human machine--The two objects of human existence--The nutritive
apparatus-- The moving apparatus--The thinking and feeling
apparatus--The purifying apparatus--The reproductive apparatus--How
a noble character and a sound body must be formed--The downhill
road--Self-abuse--A dreadful sin-- Self-murderers--What makes boys
dwarfs--Scrawny and hollow-eyed boys-- Old boys--What makes
idiots--Young dyspeptics--The race ruined by boys-- Cases illustrating
the effects of self-abuse--Two young wrecks--A prodigal youth--Barely
escaped--A lost soul--The results of one transgression--A hospital
case--An old offender--The sad end of a young victim--From bad to
worse--An indignant father--Disgusted with life--Bad company--Bad
language--Bad books--Vile pictures--Evil thoughts-- Influence of other
bad habits--Closing advice to boys and young men. 419
A CHAPTER FOR GIRLS.
Girlhood--How to develop beauty and loveliness--The human form
divine--A wonderful process--Human buds--How beauty is marred--A
beauty-destroying vice--Terrible effects of secret vice--Remote
effects--Causes which lead girls astray--Vicious companions--Whom to
avoid--Sentimental books-- Various causes--Modesty woman's
safeguard--A few sad cases--A pitiful case--A mind dethroned--A

penitent victim--A ruined girl--The danger of boarding-schools--A
desperate case--A last word--A few words to boys and
girls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 470

INTRODUCTION.
Books almost without number have been written upon the subject
treated in this work. Unfortunately, most of these works are utterly
unreliable, being filled with gross misrepresentations and exaggerations,
and being designed as advertising mediums for ignorant and
unscrupulous charlatans, or worse than worthless patent nostrums. To
add to their power for evil, many of them abound with pictorial
illustrations which are in no way conducive to virtue or morality, but
rather stimulate the animal propensities and excite lewd imaginations.
Books of this character are usually widely circulated; and their
pernicious influence is fully as great as that of works of a more grossly
obscene character. In most of the few instances in which the evident
motive of the author is not of an unworthy character, the manner of
presenting the subject is unfortunately such that it more frequently than
otherwise has a strong tendency in a direction exactly the opposite of
that intended and desired. The writer of this work has endeavored to
avoid the latter evil by adopting a style of presentation quite different
from that generally pursued. Instead of restricting the reader's attention
rigidly to the sexual function in man, his mind is diverted by frequent
references to corresponding functions in lower animals and in the
vegetable kingdom. By this means, not only is an additional fund of
information imparted, but the sexual function in man is divested of its
sensuality. It is viewed as a fact of natural history, and is associated
with the innocence of animal life and the chaste loveliness of flowers.
Thus the subject comes to be regarded from a purely physiological
standpoint, and is liberated from the gross animal instinct which is the
active cause of sensuality.
There are so many well-meaning individuals who object to the agitation
of this subject in any manner whatever, that it may be profitable to
consider in this connection some of the principal objections which are

urged against imparting information on sexual subjects, especially
against giving knowledge to the young.
I. Sexual matters improper to be spoken of to the young.
This objection is often raised, it being urged that these matters are too
delicate to be even suggested to children; that they ought to be kept in
total ignorance of all sexual matters and relations until nature indicates
that they are fit to receive them. It is doubtless true that children raised
in a perfectly natural way would have no sexual thoughts until puberty,
at least, and it would be better if it might be so; but from facts pointed
out in succeeding portions of this work, it is certain that at the present
time children nearly always do have some vague ideas of sexual
relations long before puberty, and often at a very early age. It is thus
apparent that by speaking to children of sexual matters in a proper
manner, a new subject is not introduced to them, but it is merely
presenting to them in a true light a subject of which they