Medical Era Volume 2 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1885 edition. Excerpt: ...teaching of scientific medicine to-day. One of the worst cases of epilepsy we were ever called upon to treat occurred in a girl only five years of age, and it was not until after two years of the closest watchfulness that we were convinced that morbid and precocious sexual instinct was at the foundation of the whole trouble. Discovery of the cause led at once to the remedy and a cure. We have advocated and practiced circumcision in suitable cases for many years; not because we realized its importance as a prophylactic or cure of many obscure nervous disorders, but from sanitary and hygienic considerations and as a preventive of masturbation. Some eight or ten years ago we addressed letters of enquiry to a number of Jewish physicians of this city asking them their opinion of the relative frequency of masturbation among the circumcised and the uncircumcised. In reply we received some very interesting and valuable1 facts and statistics bearing on the subject, which we embodied in a paper read before the Chicago Academy of Homoeopathic Physicians and Surgeons. About this same time Dr. Lewis A. Sayre, Dr. Hammond and others published papers detailing cases of more or less grave nervous disorders, which were directly traced to their cause in the sexual sphere. Many of these facts are gathered together in Dr. Comstock's monograph which lies before us. He gives a long list of maladies which may be produced in this way. "The following affections of children," he says, "may result from phimosis: enuresis, paralysis of the bladder, wetting of the bed at night, balanitis, lithuria, pyelitis, prostatic enlargements, cystitis, night terrors, sleeplessness, fretfulness, indigestion, priapism tending to masturbation, epilepsy and...