application produce stricture, (not an uncommon occurrence), a disease often more difficult to cure than the spermatorrhoea itself. Dr. Dawson, a pupil of M. Lallemand, has introduced another application, which ne believes from long experience to possess many advantages over the nitrate of silver. He uses an ointment, composed of iodine and the chloride of zinc, which he applies directly to the surface of the prostate gland, by means of a bougie passed along the urethra. The advantages of this preparation are, that the application does not give the least pain, (while cauterization by the nitrate of silver is somewhat painful), and does not hinder the patient from going about as usual. It also produces a more satisfactory and lasting cure, by removing inflammation, and any swelling of the prostate gland, which may exist; and this swelling of the gland is, according to Dr. Dawson, very frequently present in bad spermatorrhoea. With regard to the natural remedy of sexual intercourse, it is of great consequence that it be duly followed. We must remember that the organs are in a very feeble state, and hence that an immoderate exercise at first, might have an effect directly contrary to our desires. Hence coition should at first be very moderate; once a week, or so; and should be gradually increased with the waxing powers. The signs of its favorable action are, an increase of tone both of mind and body, improved appetite, spirits, and self-confidence. The patient should not be much in the company of women at other times, if they excite venereal desires, which are not to be gratified. He should live in the open air, take enough of exercise, but not too much, which might weaken him and cause a seminal discharge.

Medicines will be found generally not only of little use, but of positive injury. Here, as in so many other complaints, they are often used as an excuse for doing nothing, and tend to take off the attention of the patient and physician from the one grand and really efficient remedy. Purgative medicines are almost always ill-borne in this disease, but a clyster of warm or cold water should be used frequently, if there be constipation, which has a very bad effect in promoting the diurnal discharges, by the exertions it causes at stool.

Wine, beer, vinegar, &c., are also bad, and should be avoided, especially if there be a stricture, when they should never be indulged in. Very great care must be taken that the patient in the progress of the treatment do not contract a venereal disease. In him it is ten-fold to be dreaded, for it arrests his cure, greatly complicates his case, and is dreadfully disheartening to one who has suffered so long. This risk is often made an objection to the sexual mode of treatment, but it is one which does not call in question its scientific truth, but merely its practical advisability. Of course the patient should be most earnestly cautioned against this danger; and unless a reliable connection can be obtained by him, which is unfortunately too rarely the case, he should sedulously use the preventive means I shall speak of under the head of venereal diseases. Still, even though such a disease be contracted, it will not often stand much in the way of a scientific treatment, which will ultimately conduct the patient to health.

The introduction of an elastic bougie, once every week or fortnight,

to give tone to the canal, is highly recommended by M. Lallemand; and even when this is not employed, the passage should always in this disease be explored by a bougie, which gives hardly any pain, to ascertain whether there be stricture, or unusual tenderness at any part.

He also recommends mineral baths in many cases, and I should advise much more strenuously the water cure, (though of course only as an accessory to the sexual treatment,) as by far the most concentrated and systematic hygienic treatment hitherto introduced. Were I to express, how much I admire and what results I hope for, from this immense addition to therapeutics, the praise might seem extravagant; though not to those, who know the paramount importance of the physiological or natural conditions of health, so ably explained in the works of Dr. Andrew Combe, Liebig, and many others.

It may seem strange, that men well conversant with the natural laws of health, should not admit, how admirably in most respects the hydropathic system, when skilfully applied, carries out these principles; being, as it were, the concentrated essence of the ordinary and natural means of health, upon which it is of such infinite importance that the minds of all of us, both in health and disease, should be fixed. How can those, who should know better, talk of this system, one of the greatest marks of the age's advancement, as in the same category with homoeopathy; from which it differs utterly, except in the single respect that its claims have been too arrogantly and exclusively asserted, as is always the case with new doctrines, which have to establish a position for themselves in our esteem? As for homoeopathy, it is quite different from our natural experiences of the influences, which produce health and disease; and as such,-(although it should not, now-a-days that it has so large a body of followers, be treated with neglect, but rather patiently investigated, and disproved, if found false,) it lies far from the beliefs and conceptions of the most of us. But the water cure is systematised common sense; exercise for weak and lazy muscles, pure country air for pining lungs; powerful, regular, and invigorating baths for skins, all their lives suffering from hydrophobia; cold water and plain food, for blood pampered by wine, and spiced dishes; may not these, which go to the very root of so many of the diseases of man, be expected to do more good in general, than courses of double-edged medicines, so often prescribed for effects, while the causes remain unremoved? If any one read the works of some of our best physicians, as Holland, Forbes, Andrew Combe, and many others, he will see how much an essentially hydropathic treatment enters into the most scientific medicine of the day, and be prepared for the desirable adoption of some of the most valuable hydropathic remedies, such as the wet sheet, (a cold water bandage, extended to the whole body), the douche, and vapour bath; and ultimately, (and at a period, it is to be hoped, not far distant,)—for the union and incorporation in one, of the two systems, without which hydropathy can exercise comparatively a slight influence on the health of society. At present however, it is rather homoeopathy and hydropathy, from their both being classed and run down together, that seem inclined to make common cause. To prevent this disease, like every other-a subject, whose vast im

portance is as yet only dimly conceived-we must seek to remove all the causes of it. Some of these consist in other diseases, as for instance, gonorrhea, a most important cause, which by producing stricture or chronic inflammation of the mucous membrane, is the ultimate origin of the spermatorrhoea.

The modes of preventing disuse, overuse, and abuse, of the genital organs, have been shortly considered above; and consist chiefly, as does the prevention of all diseases, in universally diffusing among all human beings, men and women, a knowledge of the laws and structure of the body, and of all its organs, and in affording them the power of obeying these laws. There is no other possible prevention of disease, than knowledge of the laws of health and the history of disease, and reverence for them, as universally spread as any branch of human knowledge may be.

In taking leave of this part of my subject, I must beg the reader, if he wish to obtain a further knowledge of it, and an insight into a field of moral and physical experiences, teeming with novelty and importance, that he read M. Lallemand's great work on involuntary seminal discharges, of which so imperfect an idea has been given in this essay.

VENEREAL DISEASES.

I NOW come to a class of diseases, much better known and almost more widely spread, than the true genital diseases, which I have been describing; nay, it may be said, than any other disease. For there is scarcely a corner of the globe in which they are not to be found, and they knot and gender most of all in the very heart of our civilization. Like the poison in the cup, they embitter all youthful love, and breed suspicion, hatred, and despair, among young and trusting minds. Like the dragon of the gardens of old, they bar the gate often of very salvation upon youth. Not only are the poor, wretched, friendless daughters of pleasure their victims, but the respected wife and hapless child are thus often rotted from the surface of the earth. They fall alike on the inexperienced and the most dissipated; and, like the old laws, have as severe a punishment for a first transgression, as for the old offender.

And who dares, in the present day of morbid morality, to take up the cause of these neglected. nay, often despised and abhorred victims, and contend with adequate energy against the ravager, that spreads corruption from the lowest to the highest ranks of society, so that there is scarcely a family, scarcely a constitution, untainted by it! No one among the fair-weather moralists will approach the subject, or if they do, it is only to make corruption and degradation ten-fold more overwhelming to the unfortunate sufferers. Nothing is done by society at large, nothing by any philanthropic individual heart, to try in the least to prevent this hideous evil; and thus is an incalculable amount of misery permitted to continue among us. Even for the very reason that others neglect, laugh at, or reproach the victims of these sexual diseases, especially when they are poor and friendless, and the voice of their bitter woe is dumb, should they claim double reverence and sympathy from every generous breast. Oh, ye poor ones! shall I not respect your desolation and shame, when the Levite passes by on the other side?

An immensity could be done to check these diseases, and great and laudable have been the efforts made in France to this end; although never, in any part of the world, have adequate means been taken to prevent any disease, nor will there be, till all men become deeply impressed

with the importance and sacred duty of this endeavour. There is scarcely any disease which does the same degree of mischief, physically and morally, to mankind. Can any of us still believe that physical evil can exist without necessarily causing moral degradation?

By putting a check upon these diseases, the axe would be laid to the very root of a great many of the most fearful evils that infest mankind, and of which they are the fountain-head. Scrofula, consumption, insanity, mercurial poisoning, stricture, and an innumerable host of other ills, may often be traced to this source. Does it not then become our sacred duty to arrest and nip in the bud these miseries? Let none of us. whether men or women, say, "It belongs not to me to attempt to remedy these evils, nor to meddle with such a subject." The commandments to love and to know, to benefit not ourselves only but all others, lie equally on all; and the generous heart is urged to advance the good, and repress the evil, on all subjects alike, which come within its comprehension.

The venereal diseases are divided into two great classes; the virulent, and the non-virulent. The first class consists of syphilis, the second of gonorrhoea and its modifications.

The non-virulent diseases, which I shall first describe, are those which are merely local, and do not in their progress contaminate the general system. Their effects are, therefore, for the most part, not so lamentable, as those of the virulent affections. The non-virulent diseases consist in an inflammation of the mucous membrane, which lines the glans and the urinary canal of the penis, excited by the contact of irritating matter deposited during sexual intercourse. This irritating matter is, in the immense majority of cases, the product of a venereal disease in the female, although in some few instances, it may arise from a. leucorrhoea, or white discharge, to which women are very subject (a simple inflammation of the vagina, not arising from any infectious source). Therefore, it must not be concluded, that a woman from whom a gonorrhoea is contracted, is necessarily labouring under a venereal dis-. ease; though this is the case in the vast majority of instances.

According to the different part of the mucous membrane of the penis, which is affected, the disease has received different names. Thus when the smooth surface of the glans, with the opposite surface of the foreskin, is inflamed, the complaint is called balanitis, (the termination, itis, always means inflammation of, and is applied to every organ in the body) or external gonorrhoea. When the interior of the urethra is affected, it is called simply gonorrhea, (commonly styled clap,) which is much the more common disease.