ONAN ESCHEWED - Rick Grunder

MASTURBATION, pp. 291, 748-52 (women); 816-35. For more about this work, see
the 1895 edition described below. There were evidently substantial changes in
later editions, and the text was certainly reorganized and rearranged to a
considerable extent. Perhaps one of the most striking differences is that the later
edition is occupied with so many private testimonials, with the patients'
photographs – not present in this earlier version.
However, on page 834 here appears an illustration which is so outlandish that -
for whatever reason - it did not appear in the later version of this book offered
below. It purports to give an absolutely accurate view of the amazing recovery
of a badly debilitated masturbator within a period of less than one year; judge
for yourself (REPRODUCED ABOVE). "The two pictures of this man," ostensibly,
"taken only eight months apart, show not only to what a sad and physically
wrecked condition spermatorrhoea will reduce a man, but also what wonderful
restorative results can confidently be expected from scientific and skillfully
applied treatment." (p. 835)
84 [another edition] PIERCE, Ray Vaughn. THE PEOPLE'S COMMON SENSE
MEDICAL ADVISER in Plain English; Or, MEDICINE SIMPLIFIED, By Ray
Vaughn Pierce, M.D., Chief Consulting Physician to the Invalids' Hotel and Surgical
Institute and President of the World's Dispensary Medical Association. Thirty-First
Edition. 745th Thousand. Carefully Revised. Chicago and New York: F. Tennyson
Neely, Publisher, [c. 1895].
19½ cm. 1008 pp. + frontispiece portrait of the author and 3 colored plates
showing diseases of the skin, on glossy paper. Vocabulary, pp. 979-89; indices,
pp. 993-1008. Numerous illustrations in the text, including many photographs of
patients with their recommendations, in various categories of treatment.
"Preface to the Present Edition," p. 5, dated Buffalo, January 1895; "Preface to the
First Edition" was Buffalo, July 1875 (pp. 7-8). Report of a high (verbal) recommendation
of the author and his hospital, once expressed by the late President
Garfield, on p. 973.
ORIGINAL PRINTED WRAPPERS. Very good. Some wrapper edge wear and page
corner-tip creases, and a small chip from upper wrapper, but in all, surprisingly
well preserved for a paper cover on so thick a volume, with the text otherwise
nearly fine. $65
No example of this particular "thirty-first edition" is shown by OCLC, but it is
only fair to stipulate that there are almost endless entries for this book, in its
undoubted many other "editions" and "thousands," appearing in waves: first in
1875 with various re-issues, followed in prominence by this 1895 version, and
scattered later editions 1907-26, with a few in between.
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