Young men and women living in shared accommodation at Otago University must exercise constant vigilance for signs of the most terrible vice of self pollution. Alerting authorities to the evil indulgences of a friend may save his future and his life.
The following article on self-abuse should be in the hands of every young person as it would be the means of saving many bright intellects from becoming stupid or imbeciles, or lunatics or from filling premature graves and be worth to them more than Aster’s millions.
How to detect and prevent secret vice: examination of the linen is usually conclusive evidence in the case of boys; the genital organs, too, receive an undue share of attention. The patient should be constantly watched during the day until he falls asleep at night, and be required to arise directly when he wakes in the morning. In confirmed cases the night-dress should be so arranged that the hands cannot touch the genital organs.
In the city of Chicago in one school, an investigation proved that over sixty children under thirteen years of age were habitually practising the degrading health and life destroying habit, while among the older ones the habit was even worse, though not so easily detected.
In a country school in Black Hawk Co., Iowa, one bad boy secretly taught all the rest until the entire school practised this private vice during the noon hour when the teacher was away.
In case of a so, perhaps the better way will be for the services of the family physician to be engaged. He can portray to the misguided young man the horrors and evils of the habit in their bearing, and his caution and advice will have weight.
Under no circumstances should nurses ever be permitted unnecessarily to handle or expose the genital organs. Children should be taught in the very earliest periods that it is immodest and even wrong to handle the parts. The regular daily use of the sponge bath conduces greatly to the cure or prevention of self-abuse. The too free use of meat, highly-seasoned dishes, coffee, wine, late suppers, etc., strongly tend to excite animal propensities, which directly predisposes to vice.
*This information was taken from Vitalogy, a real medical book published in 1923. This column is for entertainment only and should not be taken as advice by anyone, ever.