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1857:  Acton Cures Masturbatory Diseases

William Acton, a respected English physician, described the diagnosis and treatment of male sexual diseases in The Functions and Disorders of the Reproductive Organs in 1857.  In accord with earlier thinkers like Tissot, Acton warned that the loss of semen is dangerous to health, whether from wet dreams, masturbation, or spermatorrhea, an entirely imaginary disease in which men lose their sperm involuntarily.  Acton's treatments for the disorders he described were excruciatingly painful, and just as fanciful as the diseases themselves.
		Apparatus for    burning the    inside of the    penis

The illustration is reproduced from Acton, William, 1857.  The Functions and Disorders of the Reproductive Organs in Youth, in Adult Age, and in Advanced Life.   London:  John Churchill. p. 87.
© 1999
Andrew Wikholm
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