SEXUAL EXCESS.

A VERY meagre account is given in medical works of the frequency or the effects of venereal excesses in the female. Venereal excesses are not, in this country, nearly so (prevalent a cause of disease in woman as venereal abstinence; and in this we see the great error of those, who are constantly declaiming on the evils of the former, while they never allude to the latter. In the pulpit, and among Christian moralists generally, we have fearful pictures given of the evils of sexual excess; but in reality they are very rarely seen, compared with those of abstinence. Men war with shadows, and neglect the dreadful realities under their eyes. Chastity or sexual abstinence causes more real disease and misery in one year, I believe, in this country, than sexual excesses in a century. We must not include venereal disease among the evils of excess, as it has nothing to do with it; it depends always on infection, not on over-use of the sexual organs.

However there is no doubt that sexual excess is capable of producing, and that in many cases it does produce, serious evils. Over stimulus of the sexual system will cause disease and exhaustion; and this not unfrequently results in newly-married women. Hysterical and chlorotic symptoms may be induced in this way by debility, and various organs may suffer in their functions. This is especially seen, when a weak and delicate girl marries a powerful man. Menorrhagia is apt to be induced from over stimulation of the ovaries, together with exhaustion and sexual apathy. In such cases the constitution should be allowed to regain its strength by separation of the parties for a time, and greater moderation must be used afterwards. have seen several cases, both in men and women, where sexual excesses after marriage were the cause of great enfeeblement; and there is in these cases far too much delicacy in the medical man about telling the parties of their error. Why should such scruples be allowed to interfere with the most important of all considerations-the health and happiness of the individuals?

But there is another aspect in which we should view the question of sexual excess. A moderate amount of sexual indulgence braces and ennobles body and mind, and heightens the virtue of each but to be

always thinking on amatory subjects, or constantly indulging in venereal pleasures, has a very bad effect on both man and woman, even though it do not produce tangible bodily disease. The mind becomes effeminate, and the nerves lose their tone; the power of thought becomes impaired, cloyed as it were by sweetness. Nature never meant that we should be absorbed in one set of feelings, nor steeped in sexual indulgences, as some of the southern nations are. The great object of our aims should be to cultivate all the different faculties we possess, and so to vary and perpetuate our enjoyments. Self-denial, although so much abused in this country, especially in sexual matters, is often a most valuable quality. But the very way to ensure the rank and morbid growth of the sexual passions, is to deny them any gratification. By so doing, let us not suppose that we become their masters; rather we become their slaves, and they tyrannise over our thoughts, and absorb us completely. There are no people who think so habitually on sexual matters, as those in whom love has been most repressed; the youth suffering from seminal weakness, the hysterical girl, the single woman, or the priest. Married people soon become accustomed to the pleasures of love, and learn to divide their thoughts and affections among the many objects around them; but to the young single woman love is all in all. This is in one way a true sexual excess, and shows the folly of imagining that we can defeat the purposes of nature. Among many of our poets and young female authoresses we can see the effects of this effeminating one-sidedness; they can write and talk of nothing but love, and if we analyse their works, we will find how much this absorption in one set of feelings interferes with their general developement and happiness. They cannot escape from the passion, because they have either been sexually unfortunate themselves, or because their sympathising eyes see so much sexual misery around them, that they can think of little else.

DISEASES OF MENSTRUATION.

THIS function which has been aptly called "the sign and the guardian of the female health," is so very frequently disordered to a greater or less degree, that its perfect health is the exception, instead of the rule, in our society. Dr. Tilt informs us, that in a large number of apparently healthy women taken indiscriminately, it was found on enquiry, that only in one-fourth of them, was menstruation perfectly free from morbid symptoms. In the others it was preceded or accompanied by more or less disturbance, pain, or uneasiness. Dr. Ashwell moreover, says of the ovaries, the organs which preside over the menstrual function, "No organs of the body seem to be so prone to disease as the ovaries, for I can truly say that I have seldom found them after death perfectly healthy." A fellow student once told me, that he was informed by a female friend, that among the young ladies of her acquaintance, there was scarcely one in whom menstruation continued healthy for many years, if they remained single. It was often healthy at first, but about the twentieth year or so, it gradually became painful, and more or less disordered.

These facts are exceedingly significant, and prove to demonstration, how very unhealthy must be the hygienic conditions, that surround the female sexual organs. Disordered menstruation, attended by more or less pain, is so common, that women look upon it as a natural and inevitable evil, and unless it be severe, pay little heed to it. But this is a very false and a very dangerous opinion. That menstruation was intended by nature to be quite free from pain and uneasiness is proved as well by our experience of the painless elimination of all the other secretions, when perfectly healthy, as by the complete absence of pain in many women, and in those who are otherwise in the most robust health. Why too are the ovaries so very frequently found diseased? Even though the pain might possibly be deemed natural, this cannot be. It must be concluded, that menstruation cannot be called typically healthy, where there is any pain or uneasiness attending it, although, in the present low standard of female health, very considerable disorder may pass current; and it is certain that serious menstrual disease is often induced, by disregarding the

common ana slighter symptoms at its commencement. The perfect condition of menstruation, which should be to woman so very valuable a criterion of health, is at present of little comparative use, if its warnings are so little heeded.

Child-birth, moreover, (which consists like menstruation in the discharge of an egg, and differs only in the fact that this egg has been fecundated, and has arrived at maturity) is a much more painful process in civilized woman than in the savage, and in some women than in others. This, which is also a sign of degeneration from the natural standard of health, is probably owing partly to the feeble developement of woman, and partly to the disproportionate size of the brain in civilized man.

I now proceed to the disorders of menstruation, which are so im. portant as to become serious diseases.

THIS signifies an absence of menstruation. and is a very common disease. It is classified under two kinds, the amenorrhoea of suppression, and of retention. By retention is meant that the catamenia have never appeared; by suppression that they have been stopped, after continuing for a time.

Retention of the menses may arise either from a congenital defect of the sexual organs, or from a want of power in the constitution to establish puberty, or to set agoing the menstrual functions. Congenital deficiency is very rare, although of all the organs in the body none are so frequently subject to malformations as the sexual organs, both in man and woman; nature seeming to find the perfect developement of these organs her most difficult task. There are some women in whom the ovaries, others in whom the womb, are naturally wanting. or imperfectly developed, and in such cases of course no menstruation can take place. In these cases the sexual desires are absent, and the appearance, tone of voice, &c., may have somewhat of a masculine character. However, according to Dr. Ashwell, who has seen a few such cases, the health is generally delicate, and the mind irritable. Of course there is no remedy in these cases, and all that can be done by those who have the misfortune to be born sexually imperfect, just as others are born deaf, dumb, or blind, is to console themselves with the reflection that there are many other blessings in the world besides those of sex; which indeed prove at present too often a curse instead of a blessing. There is one mode too, in which any natural defect like this, might be put to advantage, and used for the service of mankind. Every one who is born defective, stands in an exceptional position, the sexually neuter among the rest; and has experiences and perhaps opportunities of insight into nature, that others cannot have. All evil in one aspect may be viewed as good; and it is well known in pathology, that disease reveals to us important truths with regard to the nature of health, which we could not have learned in any other way; and in like manner all monstrosities and congenital deficiencies are now recognised by physiologists, as among the most valuable of all revelations of the operations of nature. Some of us in this life inherit