ONAN ESCHEWED - Rick Grunder

This ignoble production is a tawdry
and cynical American take-off of the
Perrys' physically & textually more
elegant Silent Friend published in
London (see item 82).
MASTURBATION, pp. 69-77 with illustrations
of its effects re-engraved
from the British counterpart. The
author conveniently offers a Cordial
Balm (of Syracuem, here, instead of
the Perrys' Syriacum) to overcome the
fearsome effects of self pollution . . .
As time passes, the victim becomes
worse and worse. The genital
organs often get inflamed and
otherwise diseased; so that they
become insensible to the pleasurable
feeling induced by the passage of
semen in a healthy state; the patient
wakes in the morning to find the
clothes wet by the involuntary
discharge; also, the semen passes
off every time he urinates or goes to stool, without a consciousness of it on his
part. Often he becomes completely impotent; he could not have connection if he
would—sometimes there is no desire for this, the very sight of a female being
disagreeable. The emissions finally give not the slightest pleasure; but the
miserable victim having contracted a habit, he unconsciously practices selfpollution
in his sleep, and has to have his hands confined to prevent his
manipulations.
. . . the patient is haunted with the distressing thought that everybody knows his
condition, and that they scorn and despise him. He has ideas of suicide!—he is
beset, as it were, by a thousand demons, from whom he cannot escape. He is
troubled with pains in various parts; his vision is dim; his mind is confused; his
head is full of ringing sounds; his constitution gives way, and he is landed into
the grave of the consumptive, or the dungeon of the mad-house! The confessions
of the miserable victims of masturbation and involuntary seminal emissions
inform us of all this, and much more! [p. 72]
I shall conclude this subject by referring the sufferer to my own remedy for the
cure of this distressing affliction, and would say that its compound is no haphazard
mixture of vegetable and botanical extracts, but each component part has
been (35 years ago) subjected to the most careful analytical and experimental tests,
and is now daily performing cures of Seminal Weakness and Impotency . . . [p. 75]
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