"[332] Gowers speaks somewhat less
positively, but regards masturbation as not so much a cause of true
epilepsy as of atypical attacks, sometimes of a character intermediate
between the hysteroid and the epileptoid form; this relationship he has
frequently seen in boys.[333] Leyden, among the causes of diseases of the
spinal cord, does not include any form of sexual excess. "In moderation,"
Erb remarks, "masturbation is not more dangerous to the spinal cord than
natural coitus, and has no bad effects";[334] it makes no difference, Erb
considers, whether the orgasm is effected normally or in solitude. This is
also the opinion of Toulouse, of Fuerbringer, and of Curschmann, as at an
earlier period it was of Roubaud.
While these authorities are doubtless justified in refusing to ascribe to
masturbation any part in the production of psychic or nervous diseases, it
seems to me that they are going somewhat beyond their province when they
assert that masturbation has no more injurious effect than coitus. If
sexual coitus were a purely physiological phenomenon, this position would
be sound. But the sexual orgasm is normally bound up with a mass of
powerful emotions aroused by a person of the opposite sex. It is in the
joy caused by the play of these emotions, as well as in the discharge of
the sexual orgasm, that the satisfaction of coitus resides. In the absence
of the desired partner the orgasm, whatever relief it may give, must be
followed by a sense of dissatisfaction, perhaps of depression, even of
exhaustion, often of shame and remorse.
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