ONAN ESCHEWED - Rick Grunder

79 NYSTRÖM, Anton [Kristen]. THE NATURAL LAWS OF SEXUAL LIFE.
Medical-Sociological Researches. By Dr. Anton Nystrom, Stockholm. Authorized
Translation From the Third Swedish Edition, by Carl Sandzen, A.M., M.D., PH.D.,
Professor of Physical Therapeutics, University of Kansas School of Medicine; author of
Massage, Swedish Movements, and Allied Physical Therapeutical Methods. St. Louis:
C. V. Mosby Company, 1919 [c. 1908 by C. V. Mosby Company].
21½ cm. [1]f.; 5-260 pp. Orig. light green cloth, lettered in black on the spine.
Very good. $40
Apparently first published 1904 in Stockholm, as Könslifvet och dess Lagar;
Medicinsksociala Undersökningar. Curiously, all English editions found by OCLC
were printed in the American Midwest (either St. Louis or Kansas City), 1906-
1923 (URMC has a 1908 edition). Of the 1919 edition offered here, OCLC locates
only two copies, both outside the United States (National Library of China;
University of Haifa, Israel).
Masturbation, pp. 21, 49-55 (particularly case studies of women), and likely
elsewhere. The author is more reserved and scholarly in his language than many
writers on the subject, but some of his examples are quite interesting. "If
onanism is practiced only temporarily," he opines,
or for a short time only, it usually does not lead to dangerous consequences, and
thus many popular books on the subject cause irreparable harm by frightening
the poor anxious victims of the habit, as they never picture the difference
between a temporary and habitual onanism, merely describe the horrible
consequences of masturbation. They, of course, often cause hypochondria and
despair.
Occasional onanism can be practiced by necessity, so to say, when no occasion
of coition offers itself and the sexual desire becomes overpowering. In such
cases, one has even considered onanism as physiological or a natural reaction, in
which case it cannot be spoken of as a vice. One must nevertheless not say that
such onanism cannot be injurious, for it may become a habit. Often the risk is
small, if people who are forced to onanism possess a strong character and
masturbate only to be free from unbearable sexual irritation or the temptation of
infidelity toward a wife or lover . I have heard of many similar cases.
It is a known fact that habitual onanism is very dangerous, and often ruins both
mind and body. [p. 53]
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