ONAN ESCHEWED - Rick Grunder

23 cm. [4]ff.; [1]-220, [2 (Index)] pp. including portrait of the author on recto of
first leaf. Original tan leather-grained stiff paper wrappers lettered in black on
front wrapper. Wrappers and some pages quite rumpled with some corner
creases. $60
OCLC shows three editions (1886, 1898, 1899), all published by the author. The
earliest edition shown there is much shorter (122 pp.), located in three copies
(including URMC), and according to OCLC, already a revised edition. The
expanded 1898 edition offered here is located at four institutions, including
URMC.
MASTURBATION, pp. 165-76. "The vice is so hideous a one, and the subject itself so
nauseous, that parents can not bear to allude to it or to warn their children of the
certain, sad results of its practice." With such an introductory sentence, we may
pretty well know what to expect of this book as it turns to "the crime of this filthy
practice" and "the secret, dark, nameless sin that may doom them to the madhouse;
. . . the abominable outrage to self that may, perhaps, bar them from
heaven and irretrievably doom them to hell." (p. 165)
"A FATHER SEEKS ADVICE." This entertaining story, however stylized on pages
165-167, mercifully leads to the author's conclusion "that fully one-half of all boys
masturbate at some period of their teens." (page 167). If he was at least halfright,
we may enjoy the portion of the consultation narrative (father and
nineteen-year-old patient both present) when it became apparent that the boy
had been indulging since age fourteen. When the father (a local deacon) began to
berate his son in front of the physician, the son was asked temporarily to leave
the room, and the following conversation ensued . . .
As soon as the boy was beyond hearing distance he said:
"Wait until I get him home and I will thrash him within an inch of his life."
[p. 166 ends]
"Why, how is this?" said I. "I thought you were a Christian man. If you whip
him for that which you never taught him was wrong, and for a practice you were
guilty of yourself when a boy, you will be doing a very unchristian act?"
"How do you know I did so myself?"
"Why, said I, "if the boy was never taught the practice he must have inherited
the vice."
"Well, said the father, "it is true. I was led into the act by a companion, but
after a few indulgences I became disgusted with the practice and by one
powerful effort I threw off the demon that was urging me on to further excesses
and successfully escaped the terrible consequences that have befallen my son.
But how could you tell, he asked again, "that I myself had been guilty of the
vice?"
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