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DISEASES OF THE GENERATIVE SYSTEM. 409
yearning heart, demands the perpetuation ofour species.
No desire is so universal as that for offspring. It is
next to the love of life—often it exceeds it. It per
vades the whole organic world, vegetable and animal.
To procreate a being like ourselves, and formed of us,
is to imitate the Deity. It is to our own ex
prolong
istence. Not to have children is like the apprehension
of personal annihilation. As all healthy beings procre
ate, not to have the power of producing offspring is the
effect of disease.
Sterility
in men is the result of inaction of the testi
cles, by which the spermatic animalcules are not pro
duced ; or some abnormal condition, which prevents the
semen being conveyed to its destination. Exhaustion
may stop the secretion. The semen may pass off in
or into the blad
involuntary emissions, by night or day,
der, so as to be voided with the urine ; or there may be
impotence, or the lack of power to erect the organ, and
consummate the sexual act. These conditions may be
accompanied
with the subsidence of sexual desire, or a
state of complete eunuchism ; or the desire may exist
without the power. Where desire remains, there is
more prospect of recovery.
"Some are born eunuchs," the Apostle affirms. It
is true that many persons of both sexes are born with
out amative desire or power. Unfortunate victims of
ancestral vice, how can they ever obey the command,
father and mother."
" Honor thy
Masturbation leads directly to impotence in men and
women ; often to sterility in the former.
Barrenness in women is not, as in men, the result of
impotence. The organs, external and internal, may
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