Abstract
A PROMISING YOUNG MEDICAL STUDENT becomes reclusive, tearful, and despondent, neglecting his studies and spending his days in bed. 1 A banker becomes paranoid and aggressive, attacking a fellow businessman on the street for no reason and eventually going completely insane. 2 Desperate to stop masturbating and arrest his physical and mental deterioration, another man ties himself up. 3 If they had consulted their doctors, these men would have received treatments scarcely less frightening than the disease itself: they might find their penises encased in miniature iron maidens or have their testicles surgically removed. 4 These symptoms and responses are part of the panic over spermatorrhea, which we now know to be a nonexistent disease but which preoccupied surgeons and laymen alike for decades. 5 Defined as the excessive discharge of sperm caused by illicit or excessive sexual activity, especially masturbation, the disease was understood to cause anxiety, nervousness, lassitude, impotence, and, in its advanced stages, insanity and death. These tragic tales of ruined lives give a flavor of [End Page 365] the hysteria surrounding spermatorrhea. What led doctors to imagine this disease and patients to produce such symptoms? Why did both doctors and patients respond with such extraordinary and brutal interventions? Why, since it did not exist, did spermatorrhea have to be invented?
Published Version
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call