Marriage and disease : being an abridged edition of Hèalth and disease in relation to marriage and the married state / edited by H. Senator and S. Kaminer ; translated from the German by J. Dulberg.

  • Senator, H. (Hermann), 1834-1911.
Date:
1907
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Marriage and disease : being an abridged edition of Hèalth and disease in relation to marriage and the married state / edited by H. Senator and S. Kaminer ; translated from the German by J. Dulberg. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    27/472
    among married persons than among those livingsingly. The fact that monks and nuns do not generally show a materially higher mortality than the average of their respective ages does not seem to indicate that the frequent sexual intercourse of married life is beneficial to health in a marked degree. Among the lower classes the opinion prevails, and for easily comprehensible reasons is assiduously imparted by the husbands to their wives, that sexual intercourse, or the frequent discharge of semen, is of absolute necessity to the health of the man. Science, however, cannot subscribe to this. It is absurd to regard the seminal fluid as an injurious secretion which requires regulär evacuation like the urine. There is probably no doubt that part of the semen is not only reabsorbed during sexual abstemiousness, but that this reabsorption seems to have even a beneficial effect on the Constitution, if we may judge by the experiences of athletes, sportsmen, scholars, and artists, who feel most fit for work when refraining entirely from sexual intercourse. The development of later sexual characters, physical and psychical, is doubtless also due to the reabsorption of the secretion from the seminal glands. That this reabsorption acts favourably is shown by comparing normal men and women with castrated individuals. There consequently appears to be no doubt that the majority of normal men can, no lessthan women, permanent ly renounce sexual intercourse or the gratification of the sexual desire altogether without suffering any injury. Those who do not believe in the experiences of man referred to above may draw this conclusion from what we see in our domestic animals. Stallions and mares, male and female dogs, remain healthy though they are not allowed to copulate. It is, of course, necessarv that every intentional and artificial excitement of the sexual instinct be avoided, other- wise it is possible for the desire to assume the character of a forcible impulse. I have gone into the question of the injuriousness of