Psychology of sex - Total No. of Records in System :: 2032

THE SEXUAL IMPULSE IN YOUTHhebephrenia or hysteria in which an effect is taken for thecause. Christian, during twenty years' experience in hospitals,asylums, and private practice in town and country,found no seriously evil effects from masturbation. Hethought, indeed, that itmay be a more serious evil inwomen than in men. But Yellowlees considers that inwomen "it is possibly less exhausting and injurious thanin the other sex," which was also the opinion o Hammond,as well as of Guttceit, though he found that womenpushed the practice much further than men, and Nacke,who gave special attention to this point, could not findthat masturbation is a definite cause of insanity in womenin a single case. Koch also reached a similar conclusion,as regards both sexes, though he admitted that masturbationmay cause some degree of psychopathic deterioration.Even in this respect, however, he pointed out that whenpracticed in moderation it is not injurious in the certainand exceptionless way in which it is believed to be inmany circles, while it is the people whose nervous systemsare already injured who masturbate most easily and practiceit more immoderately than others; the chief source ofthe evil is self-reproach and the struggle with the impulse.Maudsley, Marro, Spitzka, and Schule still recognized aspecific "masturbatory insanity," but Krafft-Ebing longsince rejectedit and Nacke decidedly opposedit. Kraepelinstated that excessive masturbation can only occur ina dangerous degree in predisposed subjects; so, also, Foreland Lowenfeld, as at an earlier period, Trousseau. Recentauthorities may, indeed, be said to be almost unanimousin rejecting masturbation as a cause of insanity.The testimony of expert witnesses with regard to theinfluence of masturbation in producing other forms ofpsychoses and neuroses is becoming equally decisive.Since West, many years ago, it isgenerally accepted that[127]