Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners

He is carried along the current of life, and becomes the slave of his strongest desire for the time being. The undefined hopes and promises of the future—the dawning strength of intellect—the vigorous flow of passion—the very exchange of home ties and protected joys for free and manly pleasures, give to this period an interest and excitement unfelt, perhaps, at any other. The only inconvenience of the dropping of the womb is, that the womb presses more on the bladder, and sometimes causes an irritability of that organ, inducing a frequent desire to make water. Outside of this frightful mortality, how many children are born, inheriting eruptions of the skin, foul ulcerations, swelling of the bones, weak eyes or blindness, scrofula, idiocy, stunted growth, and finally insanity, all on account of the father's early vices.