Chapter II – The Genital Apparatus. Now we must examine the organs to which these vices pertain, so that we may study them first in their normal state, before morbid changes occur due to “unnatural” behavior. He lists the various genital components for males and females, and how they are all connected.
First, the males. In the midst of describing the organs and their functions, he makes sure to provide details of the consequences of jacking it. Do it too much, and the head of the penis becomes less sensitive, and your foreskin will fall backward and get wrinkly. (Of course, he presumes that every male is uncircumcised; Jews don’t count). Also, the veins of the penis become enlarged, and the skin yellows and wrinkles. Your prostate gland will also be affected; if the doctor can press on it and get fluid to come out, you will be marked as a chronic case. Your testicles will become soft and flabby, hardly what one could consider “healthy.”
Women do not escape Dr. H’s wrath, either. Here we have the first mention of women using household objects for masturbatory use, as well as objects made specifically for such an activity. Of course, he does not condone any of that. In women, the reasons for not masturbating are also extensive: the clitoris will become less sensitive, or even hypersensitive, and it will become elongated and hang down over the front of the vulva. The inner lips will hang out over the outer lips; he claims to have seen a hospital case wherein the labial lips resembled a spaniel’s ears! And if one is a virgin, the hymen will not close as tightly as it does in “healthy” women who don’t dare to indulge in such sinful self-pleasure.
