IMPOTENT OLD MEN—­ THE SEXUAL DECAY OF ADVANCING AGE.

We have thus far given briefly the most common causes of Seminal Disease.  There are a few that we have not mentioned:  Blows on the Head, Loins (Small of the Back), Testicles, &c.; Weakness caused by prolonged illness, fevers, &c.; Malaria, Consumption, &c.; the abuse of Tobacco, Opium, Alcohol and Chloral, &c., &c.; but these are less common and less important.  There is one condition, however, that we have only referred to incidentally, and that is the failure of Sexual Power in men past middle age.  No man (if he is reasonably careful and does not abuse himself) should find his powers decaying before he is seventy or eighty years of age.  Mind, we do not say “no man does,” but no man “should,” provided he is reasonably careful.

But here comes the fact.  Most men are not careful, and most men have abused themselves at some period.  Many believe and stoutly maintain that they “never had emissions or seminal disease, and it didn’t hurt them.”  But it did, and it is just now that they begin to feel it.  It is true they escaped the more acute and direful effects, but it told on them in after years.  There are many thousands to-day who are just now feeling the effects of early vices, now almost forgotten.  They can be restored to natural power by proper treatment, but they rarely are, because but few of them believe that early self-abuse or later Onanism has anything to do with it.  So they spend a fortune almost—­and uselessly too—­on Stimulants, Nervines, Tonic and the like, but still remain partly or wholly Impotent.  Foolish men!

CHAPTER II.

THE VITAL FLUID

What it Is, What it Does, and How it is allowed to Drain Away, Weakening, Emasculating and Dementing the Vicious and the Careless.  Diurnal (daily) Emissions.  Nocturnal (nightly) Emissions.  Impalpable Oozings.  Losses in the Urine.  Losses while at Stool.  Mistaken Gleet.

There are thousands of weak, nerveless men, who do not know what ails them; thousands of invalids whose physicians are puzzled and perplexed by their symptoms, and cannot account for the rapid waste of strength, energy and vitality, much less check it; and thousands of others, on the street, in the pulpit, on the bench, in the counting room, whose troubles, illness and misery are due to losses of vital fluid.  Some know it, many more do not.  Some are being properly or improperly treated for it; many are being dosed and drugged for Malaria, Neurasthenia, Consumption, Overwork, Brain Troubles, Paralysis and many equally as foolish and irrational complaints.  They sicken, die, destroy themselves in hopeless despair of ever getting well and strong again, verge into hopeless idiocy or go raving mad, simply because their trouble is not understood; because day by day and hour by hour there is draining from them in their urine, at stool and otherwise, that precious vital fluid that represents life, health and energy to them.