SOLITARY VICE. 

If illicit commerce of the sexes is a heinous sin, self-pollution, or 

masturbation, is a crime doubly abominable. As a sin against nature, 

it has no parallel except in sodomy (see Gen. 19:5, Judges 19:22). It 

is the most dangerous of all sexual abuses, because the most extensively 

practiced. The vice consists in any excitement of the genital organs 

produced otherwise than in the natural way. It is known by the terms, 

self-pollution, self-abuse, masturbation, onanism, manustupration, 

voluntary pollution, solitary or secret vice, and other names 

sufficiently explanatory. The vice is the more extensive because there 

are no bounds to its indulgence. Its frequent repetition fastens it 

upon the victim with a fascination almost irresistible. It may be begun 

in earliest infancy, and may continue through life. 

Even though no warning may have been given, the transgressor seems to 

know, instinctively, that he is committing a great wrong, for he 

carefully hides his practice from observation. In solitude he pollutes 

himself, and with his own hand blights all his prospects for both this 

world and the next. Even after being solemnly warned, he will often 

continue this worse than beastly practice, deliberately forfeiting his 

right to health and happiness for a moment's mad sensuality. 

Alarming Prevalence of the Vice.--The habit is by no means confined 

to boys; girls also indulge in it, though, it is to be hoped, to a less 

fearful extent than boys, at least in this country. A Russian physician, 

quoted by an eminent medical professor in New York, states that the 

habit is universal among girls in Russia. It seems impossible that such 

a statement should be credible; and yet we have not seen it contradicted. 

It is more than probable that the practice is far more nearly universal 

everywhere than even medical men are willing to admit. Many young men 

who have been addicted to the vice, have, in their confessions, declared 

that they found it universal in the schools in which they learned the 

practice. 

Dr. Gardner speaks of it as "the secret cause of much that is perverting 

the energies and demoralizing the minds of many of our fairest and 

best." He further says:-- 

"Much of the worthlessness, lassitude, and physical and mental 

feebleness attributable to the modern woman are to be ascribed to these 

habits as their initial cause." "Foreigners are especially struck with 

this fact as the cause of much of the physical disease of our young 

women. They recognize it in the physique, in the sodden, colorless 

countenance, the lack-luster eye, in the dreamy indolence, the general 

carriage, the constant demeanor indicative of distrust, mingled 

boldness and timidity, and a series of anomalous combinations which 

mark this genus of physical and moral decay." 

The extent to which the vice is practiced by an individual is in some 

cases appalling. Three or four repetitions of the act daily are not 

uncommon; and the following from Dr. Copland is evidence of much deeper 

depravity:-- 

"There can be no doubt that the individual who has once devoted himself