In another case, a schoolteacher, age 30, a hard
worker and accomplished musician, has masturbated every night,
sometimes more than once a night, ever since he was at school,
without, so far as he knows, any bad results; he has never had
connection with a woman, and seldom touches wine or tobacco.
Curschmann knew a young and able author who, from the age of 11
had masturbated excessively, but who retained physical and mental
freshness. It would be very easy to refer to other examples, and
I may remark that, as regards the histories recorded in various
volumes of these _Studies_, a notable proportion of those in
which excessive masturbation is admitted, are of persons of
eminent and recognized ability.
It is often possible to trace the precise mechanism of the relationship
between auto-erotic excitement and intellectual activity. Brown-Sequard,
in old age, considered that to induce a certain amount of sexual
excitement, not proceeding to emission, was an aid to mental work. Raymond
and Janet knew a man considering himself a poet, who, in order to attain
the excitation necessary to compose his ideal verses, would write with one
hand while with the other he caressed his penis, though not to the extent
of producing ejaculation.[344] We must not believe, however, that this is
by any means the method of workers who deserve to be accepted seriously;
it would be felt, to say the least, as unworthy.
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