Scientists and physicians once believed masturbation was a “heinous sin” of “self-pollution” that caused madness, disease, and early death. In 1745, Doctor Robert James, a noted and respectable physician, claimed in a medicinal dictionary that masturbation was responsible for “the most deplorable and generally incurable disorders.” A prominent and respected physician claimed in A Medicinal Dictionary that onanism was to blame for “the most deplorable and generally incurable disorders.”
A medical book published in 1830, titled ‘Le livre sans titer’, detailed in gory color illustrations the horrors were awaiting the self-polluter. He was a young boy (his mother’s pride and joy, no less.) who fell victim to self-abuse and died at seventeen.
The reason Tom Sawyer didn’t want to whitewash Aunt Polly’s fence must have been this.
I understand now where Oscar Wilde got the idea for The Picture of Dorian Gray.
Back then, correlation and causality were horrible.
It’s no wonder all his teeth rotted from eating all that armpit kielbasa.
He had tuberculosis.