bowels, when his case was considered to be hopeless by his physicians and friends. (See extract from his letter in accompanying paper on disease.) I may say I was not an M. D. at that time, only a chemist and druggist. However, I subsequently attended a course of lectures, etc., at Bellevue, N. Y., and also at the E. M. C., Cincinnati, O., which served to confirm me in the truth of my position-more particularly Prof. Flint, Jr.'s, lectures and experiments; also those of Prof. O. Doremus. I have glanced over that paper on "cholera" (Trans., 70 and 71), and the only alteration I would now suggest is on page 164, last line, for "gravity," read "ato-magnetism," and on page 166, seven lines from bottom, for "magnetic," read "ato-magnetic. Hoping to hear from you at your earliest convenience, I am Most respectfully, yours truly. THO. R. FRASER. SPERMATORRHEA. By E. B. FOOTE, M. D. [Copy-right secured 1878.] When one looks ont in the morning upon the streets and fields of a country borough after a snow storm, he sees the lone tracks of pedestrians, pursuing more or less devions directions, until some hours after, when the organized activities of the denizens proceeding, in well-defined routes, show that there is a common understanding and a disposition to pursue, harmoniously and methodically, the paths of industry. In looking out upon the fields of human suffering, so far, especially, as they relate to the diseases of the sexual organs, just such diverse foot-prints are observable as those which have been pictured in the foregoing at the dawn of day, and it is only with the eye of faith and hope looking forward to a more rational future that we prophetically discern the world's medical humanitarians uniting, with so much earnestness, truthfulness and accord, as to present to mankind well-defined paths which shall lead unmistakably from the slough of disease to the attractive hights of mental and physical soundness. In the few treatises on the subject of spermatorrhoea which have thus far been published, we find the lone tracks of some practitioners of all schools, but especially of the old, who tenaciously hold that the involuntary losses of the seminal secretions are but natural; that a life of continence necessarily causes their occasional emission; that if they do not happen oftener than once or twice a month no injurions results are liable to follow. In the same field of investigation we find foot-prints of a few practitioners of all schools, but largely of the new, who regard the involuntary losses of these vital fluids as evidence of disease of the sexual system which threatens, in time, to undermine both mind and body, unless this drain upon the nervous and vascular systems is arrested. Again, in the same field of honest research we discern the club-footed, bow-kneed and sharp-toed tracks of the unlearned and of the sharp predatory practitioner who may be called the alarmist, and who, from ignorance or mercenary motives, magnifies the symptoms of the disease, and makes any one who discovers a white sediment in his urinary deposits, or an exudation of clear, transparent mucus from the urethra, believe that he is a fit subject for medical treatment. Now, while I can hardly hope to lay out a path so clearly and cleanly cut that all will follow therein, I shall try to trace upon the almost pathless field of inexperience such lines as may, some time in the future, with the amendments which abler minds shall suggest, make safe paths for the feet of medical men when they go forth to extend a helping hand to those who have fallen victims to self-abuse or sexual excess. To attempt such a gigantic project in medical engineering with the meager material at hand, would, perhaps, be presumptuous, were it my intention to depend at all upon the little which has been already written upon the subject; but having been deeply interested in this department of medical science for the past fifteen years, having been consulted by thousands who were the real or imaginary victims of spermatorrhoea, having attentively listened to the recitals of their varied experiences, and, finally having succeeded in administering relief in the most of them, either by medical treatment or considerate counsel, I shall make mainly my own foot-prints just as a few others have made theirs, leaving it to the discrimination of the profession at large whether mine are the most direct and promising of satisfactory results, or the most devious and misleading. Time will determine whether they are worthy to become the well-marked paths which will be deepened and widened by the footsteps of other members of the profession. Let me further say that it is not so much my confidence in my abilities which leads me to act the part of a pioneer in this almost unexplored and vice-blighted wilderness, as it is my, perhaps, fool-hardy disposition to venture openly where many of infinitely greater ability steal forth so masked and muffled to evade the gaze of the prudish public that they render themselves practically blind and deaf, and as such, simply "blind leaders of the blind." To enter upon our inquiry let us first examine the reasons for asserting that INVOLUNTARY LOSSES ARE AN EVIDENCE OF DISEASE. In the first place, then, I shall remind the reader that if it be claimed that their occasional occurrence is but natural, we find no analogous function in the human system, male or female. If they were found in a majority of cases to occur with some degree of uniformity and regularity once in twenty-eight days, like the catamenia of women, examples of which, in a limited number, have never presented themselves in my practice, it would be entirely admissible to call attention to the dissimilarity in point of vital quality of the discharges, the one freighted with cells capable, if distributed under favorable conditions, of creating hundreds of human beings, and the other of a material which, if retained, or if it could be returned, would poison the crimson currents of the vascular system and sow the seed of death rather than of life. Where, let me ask, is the parallel? It is conceded by the profession that the menstrual product is entirely unlike the blood circulating in the arteries and veins of the human body, so much so, indeed, that the former might be designated by some other name more appropriate than that of blood, a term which at once suggests to the mind all those vital elements which go to build up the wonderful machinery of the human system. The actual fact is that involuntary discharges of semen only have their analogy in the human economy in what are known as hemorrhages. There are those who have frequent attacks of nose bleed, some indeed who have them with an approximate measure of regularity, but no one would think of attributing them to any other causes than those resulting from physical injury or diseased action. There are, however, cases in which epistaxis seems to give relief- - some in which the attacks are invited rather than dreaded. So, too, there are rare instances in which involuntary seminal losses seem to make the head feel clearer and the spirits more buoyant. Albeit such examples of either are not numerous and diseased conditions are the cause in one case as much as in the other. Involuntary seminal losses really have their analogy more in uterine than in other hemor rhages, the organs involved in the latter corresponding in character with those which are effected with the former and the debilitating effects resulting from either being more uniformly certain though by no means precisely similar. And here we may again recur to the dissimilarity between menstrual blood and that which comes from hemorrhage. The physician finds no difficulty in distinguishing between the natural menstrual flow and the weakening discharge attending uterine hemorrhage; nor does the patient herself, if ordinarily intelligent. When, then, the occasional loss of pure blood is so readily recognized by its characteristic appearance and still more by the characteristic effects attending that loss, shall we higgle over the question whether the occasional involuntary losses of the most vital elements of the body are less injurious than the losses of those which are less vital? Shall we say that that form of protoplasm which is capable of imparting nutriment to the already living body is richer in material than that which is freighted with the germs capable of actually creating life? Certainly no one will say this. Nor will the majority of those subject to hemorrhages find by comparing experiences with the mass of those who have involuntary seminal losses, that they are the greater sufferers. And here we approach the climax of our argument. Here we come to the injurious effects of involuntary losses which must stamp them as the final witnesses against those who would consider them lightly and pass them by as unworthy of the earnest investigation of the humane physician. And what are the symptoms that rise up like phantoms and shadows distorting the imagination and darkening the pathway of life to those who suffer such losses? The voices of millions answer: hypochondriasis, with its army of imps whispering words of despair and painting to the imagination pictures as weird and woeful as those which came from the pencil of Gustave Doré, when he sketched the blood-curdling designs of Dante's Inferno; loss of nerve power if not of nerve substance, rendering the mind fickle, the memory feeble, and the resolution unstable; general physical depression with its concomitants of morning lassitude; absence of both mental and bodily energy, with circulation impaired. And here let me digress sufficiently to say that it is noteworthy that all diseases of the sexual system seem to invariably affect the mind, giving rise to peculiar mental manifestations. It has been observed that well-marked affections of the lungs render the patient cheerful and hopeful, but equally so it is an indisputable fact that all diseases of the sexual organs, in male or female, produce directly opposite results, and frequently cause the sufferers not only to be despairing, but irritable, capricious and unreasonable. Dr. Lewis A. Sayre who, in his surgical practice has been, perhaps, more observing of the effects of congenital phymosis than many, published a pamphlet some time since giving remarkable illustrations of how simply elongated, constricted or adhering fore-skins have produced idiocy, insanity and all species of mental unsoundness, and how SO simple an operation as circumcision has cured a majority of those upon whom he has operated, which facts all go to prove how slight a departure from the normal condition of these organs may disturb the mental equilibrium. The same monograph, if I remember rightly, gives examples of cures of mental disorders in cases of women, by some minor surgical operation upon mal-formed organs of the sexual system. Every physician who has had much experience in the treatment of what are popularly called the "diseases of women," must have observed their effects upon the minds of such patients. The writer certainly has, and many marked instances rise in his memory, while he is penning these lines. Just as the brain seems to be the nerve center of all intellectual impressions, so the sexual system seems to be the nerve center which at least reflects all feeling and emotion, and gives to either a light or somber hue, according to its healthy or diseased condition. It is not necessary, however, to dwell upon these facts, for I question if any medical man or woman of experience, will deny their correctness. Conceding them, how can any one escape the logical conclusion that involuntary losses of semen are the results of diseased action, when a class of disorders almost identical, in many cases precisely so, with those which present themselves in recognized diseases of the sexual organs, are almost invariably found to exist in well-marked cases of spermatorrhoea ? Leaving such hard-shelled shack for those to crack who have heavier hammers, we will proceed to consider THE PATHOLOGICAL CONDITIONS WHICH ARE THE PREDISPOSING CAUSES. I think I have been the first to attribute nocturnal involuntary emissions of the most marked character primarily to a too active condition of the testes; that form of spermatorrhoea, which is characterized by diurnal involuntary exudations of the spermatic secretions being pretty well understood to result mainly from relaxation of the fibers and tissues which control the outlets of the spermatic vessels. In support of the first proposition, we have before us the physiological fact that all the organs of the body may be thrown out of their normal balance by causes which may induce either undue activity or apathy; there is no valid reason for believing that the testicular glands are alone an exception to this rule. Conceding that they are governed by the same unvarying law, there is no way in which these peculiar nocturnal explosions, sometimes accompanied with amorous dreams, and sometinies not, according probably to the recollection of the patient, can be so clearly accounted for; at least the mind of the writer is so impressed after giving much thought and attention to |