continence article from Tridandi Sannyasa conf.

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(Special thanks to Rasananda Swami for putting this one up)

 

 

SCIENCE DISCOVERS THE PHYSIOLOGICAL VALUE OF CONTINENCE

 

By Dr. R. W. Bernard, A.B., M.A., Ph.D.

 

HEALTH RESEARCH, MOKELUMNE HILL, CALIFORNIA 95245

 

An opinion has gained ground in modern times, not only among the

general public, but also among physicians, that the belief in the

physiological value of continence belongs to the dark ages of religious

superstitions and scientific ignorance, and is incompatible with

physiological knowledge.

 

Certain pseudosexologists, have exploited this idea to their

commercial advantage and have created in the public mind a phobia in

regards to continence, which is regarded as a cause of nervous and mental

diseases and a positive health danger. On the basis of this belief,

physicians and psychoanalysts have looked on continence for the cause of the

nervous ailments of youth and have advised young men to visit prostitutes

and risk venereal infection as a lesser evil than the assumed hazards of

abstinence.

 

A careful reading should, however, convince any open-minded

reader that the above view is false, and that continence per se can never do

harm, but is always beneficial; and that when trouble occurs in an

individual not practicing normal sex relations, the fault is not continence

but some vicarious means of sex expression, excessive nocturnal emissions,

etc. In view of the richness of the semen in lecithin, cholesterol,

phosphorus and other constituents of nervous nd brain tissue it is clear

that it is incontinence, or loss of these valuable nerve- nourishing

substances which, by promoting undernutrition, is responsible for disturbed

functioning of the nervous system and brain, and never true continence,

contrary to the unscientific views of the psychoanalysts.

 

We have seen that the internal secretions of the sex glands

stand at the basis of the individual's physical and mental vitality and that

sex hormones are present in the external as well as in the internal

secretions of the gonads. Many of the effects attributed to such hormones,

as we have seen, are due to the physiological effect of resorbed semen.

Conservation of semen means conservation of sex hormones and increased

vigor, while loss of semen means loss of hormones and diminished vitality;

also chronic deficiency of such hormones leads to the symptoms of senility,

which Voronoff and Steinach strove to overcome by increasing the amount of

sex hormones in the blood.

 

The semen is a viscid albuminous fluid, alkaline in reaction,

which is very rich in calcium and phosphorus, also in lecithin, cholesterol,

albumen, nucleoproteins, iron, vitamin E, etc. In the ejaculation of the

normal man, about 226 million spermatozoa are given off; these are rich in

phosphorized fats (lecithin), cholesterol (the parent-source of sex

hormones), nucleoproteins and iron. An ounce of semen is considered to be

equal in value to sixty ounces of blood, of which it constitutes an extract

of some of its most valuable of constituents, as far as its vitalizing power

is concerned. Dr. Frederick McCann remarks on this point, "From what has

been stated it must be admitted that the spermatic fluid does possess

potentialities justifying the belief of ancient writers concerning its vital

properties.