Spermatomania--the English response to Lallemand's disease

Abstract

Spermatorrhoea, the involuntary loss of semen, is in Western medicine a complaint peculiar to the 19th century. The disease was championed by Professor Claude-Francois Lallemand, from Montpellier. In 1835, citing masturbation as a major cause, he wrote that the condition 'degrades man, poisons the happiness of his best days, and ravages society'. In England, for fifty years, doctors, patients and social commentators alike took a frenzied interest in the condition. It was only at the end of the century, when the likes of Sir James Paget questioned the very existence of spermatorrhoea, that it faded from prominence.