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 THE 
 
 MEDICAL ADVISER 
 
 AXD 
 
 GUIDE TO HEALTH, 
 
 Designed to Illustrate the Author's 
 
 NEW SYSTEM OF TEACTICE, 
 
 IX THE CURE OF ALL SEXUAL DISEASES INCIDENT TO 
 EXPOSURE, EARLY INDISCRETIONS, ETC 
 
 By FREDERIC MORRILL, M. D., 
 
 CONSULTING PHYSICIAN OF THE PEOPLE'S MEDICAL 
 INSTITUTE, BOSTON, MASS. 
 
 jl New and Herts ed 2?dition< 
 
 10 
 
 (L PUBLISHED BY THE AUTHOR, 
 
 WHO MAY BE CONSULTED DAILY AT HIS OFFICE, 
 NO. 3 BULFINCH STREET, 
 
 BOSTON, MASS. 
 1870. 
 
^ 
 
 Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1870, by 
 FREDERIC MORRILL, M. D., 
 
 In the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the District 
 of Massachusetts. 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 TO THE SECOND EDITION. 
 
 The sale and circulation of nearly forty 
 thousand copies of this little work, since its 
 first publication in August last, a space of little 
 less than eight months, has satisfied me that, 
 notwithstanding its brevity and absence of detail, 
 or attempt at anything like display in the exhibi- 
 tion of medical lore, it struck a chord in the 
 minds of that large class of sufferers to whom it 
 was particularly addressed, who acknowledged 
 its general truthfulness, and the increasing de- 
 mand for it from every section of the country, 
 has been the most grateful tribute I could have 
 received, that my labors have been duly appre- 
 ciated. In numberless instances I have received 
 letters from almost every section of the country, 
 expressing the thanks and gratitude of my read- 
 
4 DR. MORRILL S 
 
 ers for the plainness and candor in which I had 
 addressed them. In one, received but a few 
 days since, the writer, evidently a gentleman of 
 education and culture, says, " I have read your 
 Medical Adviser and Guide to Health with 
 care, and have become much interested in its 
 contents. I think I can see my own case in it 
 as if seen in a mirror." Such encomiums, com- 
 ing from disinterested sources, are much more 
 grateful to my feelings, than would be the flat- 
 tering criticisms of the most learned. In the 
 outset I did not undertake to compile a medical 
 hand-book to serve as a vade mecum to the pro- 
 fessional practitioner, nor did I choose to put 
 into the hands of the numberless irregular doc- 
 tors who swarm in our midst, a treatise to ena- 
 ble them to obtain, in a cheap way, that knowl- 
 edge which I only obtained by long, laborious 
 and expensive study and experience. I intended 
 my book to be, as it professes, an adviser 
 merely, and if popular testimony be of any 
 value in a matter of this kind, I think I may 
 very safely congratulate myself upon the success 
 of my endeavor. 
 
 In preparing this second edition for the press, 
 
MEDICAL ADVISER. 5 
 
 I have complied with a wish, very generally 
 expressed by my friends and correspondents, 
 that I would add somewhat to the usefulness 
 and convenience of the book, as a work of ref- 
 erence, in cases where I could not readily be 
 /consulted, if I gave some more specific direc- 
 tions as to treatment, in cases of emergency, 
 with such simple formula, recipes, etc., for im- 
 mediate application as might arrest the progress 
 of disease until I might be communicated with 
 in reference to it. In yielding to these solicita- 
 tions I desire it to be distinctly understood that 
 I have no intention of departing from my gen- 
 eral line of professional conduct, nor the views 
 I have expressed as to the impropriety of self- 
 treatment in syphiletic complaints, — especially 
 paraphrasing the legal aphorism that " he 
 who (in law) argues his own case, has a fool for 
 his client." I am still of the opinion that the 
 man who doctors himself, has a fool for a patient, 
 even though he be a doctor, and generally suc- 
 cessful in his treatment of others. The many 
 inquiries made of me through the extensive cor- 
 respondence which has been opened up through 
 the instrumentality of the Adviser, has suggest- 
 
6 dr. morrill's 
 
 ed the idea that some few pages devoted to the 
 investigation of complaints germaine to those 
 chiefly discussed in the first edition, would be 
 generally acceptable. The confidence kindly 
 expressed by great numbers of my correspon- 
 dents that I could convey much useful informa- 
 tion and advice upon the diseases and complaints 
 most prevalent in New England especially, 
 hardly leaves me any alternative but to comply 
 with their request. In doing this, I agree with 
 them that I am, perhaps, whilst obliging them, 
 merely performing a duty which, it is said, 
 every man owes to his profession. 
 
 This book, thus enlarged both in matter and 
 in the sphere of its usefulness, will not lose any 
 of its distinctive features of extreme simplicity, 
 directness, and facility to be understood by in- 
 telligent common sense people, amongst whom, 
 I apprehend, it will chiefly circulate, and by 
 whom I prefer it should be read and judged. 
 My acceptance of the responsible position of 
 Medical Director and consulting physician of 
 the Peoples' Medical Institute, a new insti- 
 tution, located at No. 3 Bulfinch Street, Boston, 
 Mass., has opened to me a wide field for medical 
 
MEDICAL ADVISER. 7 
 
 investigation and usefulness, which I shall en- 
 deavor to improve to the best of my ability. 
 
 Hitherto, in my extensive private practice, for 
 reasons which can be readily understood, I 
 have committed as little to writing as possible ; 
 my numerous engagements precluding any ap- 
 propriation of time to that purpose. But now, 
 with the liberal allowance made to me by the 
 Directors of the Institute, I shall be enabled to 
 avail myself of any assistance I may require, 
 not only in keeping an exact record of cases, 
 and the variations in treatment which every 
 phase of disease may require, but materially aid 
 me in furthering the objects of the institution, 
 and simplifying, so far as is practicable, the 
 hitherto complicated practice and treatment of 
 diseases which so long have been the sport, and 
 constituted the chief income of scores of medi- 
 cal leeches who have lived only by drawing, as 
 it were, their life-blood from the unwary and 
 unfortunate. 
 
 In offering this second edition, I do not 
 claim for it either completion or perfection; 
 but it is all I consider necessary to be placed in 
 the hands of those for whom it is designed. 
 
8 dr. morrill's 
 
 Very few care about reading a dry, exclusively 
 medical treatise, however sound and correct it 
 may be ; such books are proper only for the 
 medical student and practitioner ; but a book 
 which mirrors forth to each reader facts and 
 symptoms, the truthfulness of which they recog- 
 nize, as coming within their own personal ex- 
 perience, is always sought for and read with 
 avidity. Whilst I adhere to the opinion which 
 formerly induced me to publish, in separate 
 and distinct treatises, my Gentleman's Medi- 
 cal Adviser, and The Ladies' Guide to 
 Health, I am only complying with the wishes 
 of many of my friends, by including, in this new 
 and revised edition, some general observations 
 and directions in regard to the pathology and 
 treatment of not only diseases kindred to, and 
 similar to those particularly alluded to in the 
 preceding pages, but such other diseases to 
 which females are peculiarly liable, and for the 
 proper treatment of which they ever find it 
 most advantageous to apply to some physician 
 well known as having made the subject of 
 female complaints one of especial study and 
 investigation. I may, I think, without vanity, 
 
MEDICAL ADVISER. \) 
 
 assert that, in this specialty, my varied and 
 extensive experience entitles me to a considera- 
 tion beyond that usually extended to a large 
 majority of my professional brethren; as during 
 an uninterrupted practice of over thirty years, by 
 far the greater number of my patients have been 
 females, suffering under some one or more of 
 the various forms of what are commonly termed 
 sexual or delicate diseases, or else difficulties 
 resulting from some organic or functional de- 
 rangement, about which the general run of the 
 " faculty" are as innocent of any practical 
 knowledge as the child unborn. I am free to 
 confess that the skill which I am supposed to 
 possess, and the great success I have met with 
 in this department of my profession, has been 
 attained fully as much, and probably more, 
 from my habits of close observation, compari- 
 son, and analysis, for the employment of which 
 I had ample scope in my large practice, than 
 from the perusal of books and authorities, no 
 matter by whom written or compiled. But, 
 whilst devoting myself to the study of disease 
 as displayed in the great book of Nature and 
 the living subject, I have by no mer.ns neglected 
 
10 dr. morrill's 
 
 the pages of standard authors, nor the lighter, 
 but no less valuable, emanations of the periodi- 
 cal press. It has ever been my pride to keep 
 " posted" in everything which is going on in 
 all the departments of medical learning and 
 science in every part of the world; and, although 
 I never fail to investigate each newly heralded 
 discovery or improvement, I very seldom find 
 anything to add to the knowledge I had not 
 already attained by my own experience, nor to 
 induce me very essentially to depart from my 
 system of treatment which has so long availed 
 me in my extensive practice. The attentive 
 reader of either sex must have noticed that I do 
 not spread before him or her pages of technical 
 lore, tedious and wearisome even to the most 
 devoted book-worm, nor a rehash of other men's 
 brains, filched from some foreign or antiquated 
 book now out of print, and seldom found, thus 
 rendering the plagiarism less likely to be de- 
 tected. My book, such as it is, is my own ; and 
 I am not ashamed to acknowledge its paternity. 
 It has been written from beginning to end with- 
 out reference to any similar work in existence ; 
 and I defy the world to point out a stolen sen- 
 
MEDICAL ADVISER. 11 
 
 tence in it. If it contains ought of truth and 
 consistency, if it embodies any knowledge of 
 facts or science worth the remembering, or use- 
 ful to the invalid and sufferer, the composition 
 is mine, and my own brain has alone guided 
 and directed me in my labors. Pseudo profess- 
 ors may pretend to criticise, and even go so far 
 as to attempt to sneer down, in their quack 
 advertisements, a production, the effects of 
 which they too sensibly feel in their declining 
 practice and mushroom popularity : but after 
 
 all, THE TRUTH WILL PREVAIL. 
 
 I have long been satisfied that a vast amount 
 of unnecessary pain and suffering is constantly 
 being inflicted, and borne, — too patiently borne, 
 I think, — by the mothers, wives, and daughters 
 of New England, from their quiet submission to 
 the old, threadbare, and everywhere else dis- 
 carded notions regarding the treatment of 
 themselves when in peculiar circumstances of 
 sickness and debility; by the antiquated and 
 effete systems usually pursued by the ordinary 
 country practitioner. Not that these men are 
 not, in their way and limited sphere, as good as 
 ought to be expected, but they have neither 
 
12 DR. 
 
 the inducements nor the opportunities to famil- 
 iarize themselves with either the new develop- 
 ments of disease, or modes of treatment neces- 
 sary to its successful management, which a 
 large city is constantly offering to the physician 
 of extensive practice. In the city, where com- 
 petition is sharp, professional rivalry compels 
 the aspirant after success to perfect himself by 
 every means within his reach, in every art 
 which has the least bearing toward success. 
 He reads, he studies, he examines and compares, 
 until every avenue is explored, and goes to his 
 work neither groping nor doubtful of his course, 
 but with that boldness and confidence which a 
 self-conscious ability always confers upon its 
 possessor. 
 
 Yv r ith these preliminary observations, I sub- 
 mit this new and revised edition, somewhat 
 changed as to its title, so as to render it con- 
 formable to the wider range of topics treated 
 upon, to the candid examination and criticism 
 of a discerning public. Unlike any other book 
 of the kind it will be found to contain nothing 
 which should exclude it from the family centre- 
 table, the school room, or the maiden's collec- 
 
MEDICAL ADVISER. 13 
 
 tion of choice reading. There is not a word or 
 sentence in it which should preclude its open 
 perusal at any time, in any place, or in any com- 
 pany, and all, from the boy and girl, to the father 
 and matron, may study its pages with the cer- 
 tainty that, by doing so they will be adding to 
 their stock of useful knowledge, which at some 
 period of their lives will be found of essential, 
 perhaps of vital service to them. 
 
 F. MORRILL, M. D. 
 No. 3 Bulfinch Street, Boston, Mass, 
 

 THE PEOPLE'S MEDICAL INSTITUTE, 
 
 LOCATED AT 
 
 No. 3 Bulfinch Street, 
 BOSTON, MASS., 
 
 FREDERIC MORRILL, M. D. 
 Chief Medical Director and Consulting Physician. 
 
 LADIES OR GENTLEMEN 
 
 SUFFERING under any form of bodily dis- 
 ease, will find this establishment amply 
 provided with every modern and scientific dis- 
 covery and improvement in the treatment of all 
 sexual complaints, which enables it to guarantee 
 to the afflicted more safe, speedy and certain 
 cures than any other similar establishment in 
 the world. Its charges are moderate, and its 
 intercourse with patients strictly confidential. 
 All communications should be plainly addressed 
 to 
 
 E. MORRILL, M. D., 
 
 No. 3 Bulfinch Street, 
 Boston, Mass. 
 (14) 
 
THE 
 
 MEDICAL ADVISEE 
 
 PART FIRST. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 MANY years ago, when I first entered upon 
 my professional career, in the city of Bos- 
 ton, as a new and comparatively unknown can- 
 didate for distinction and success, I found time to 
 compile several medical treatises bearing upon a 
 certain class of diseases always greatly prevalent 
 in our large cities. These works, the fruits of 
 careful study and investigation, contrary to any 
 expectations which I had dared to form, became 
 at once exceedingly popular, and edition after 
 edition was rapidly exhausted. Whilst they 
 served in part to give publicity to my name, as 
 one particularly devoted to the treatment of dis- 
 eases arising from imprudence and exposure, and 
 all other complaints of the genital organs, the 
 
16 
 
 extensive range of study and examination of au- 
 thorities and cases necessary to prepare me to 
 discuss the subject properly and intelligibly, 
 almost unconsciously to myself, created that in- 
 terest in my mind as to induce me to select that 
 branch of medical science as a specialty, and to 
 make it the leading object of my future investi- 
 gations. Finding myself thus theoretically and 
 practically prepared to combat these dread ene- 
 mies of man's pleasure and comforts as well, per- 
 haps, as any one of my age, I determined to break 
 away from those restraints which a false notion of 
 dignified professional propriety had imposed, and 
 at the risk of ostracism from the brotherhood, and 
 to be classed with those who are considered as 
 interlopers, I resolved to advertise my abilities 
 and to make myself useful in a sphere wherein I 
 felt satisfied that I could successfully compete 
 with any of my brethren. The consequence has 
 been that, instead of a limited and precarious 
 practice, extending only to a few personal friends, 
 I have, each succeeding year, seen added to my 
 list of patients persons from every section of the 
 country, as well as from the adjoining British 
 Provinces and foreign lands. Completely ab- 
 
MEDICAL ADVISER. 17 
 
 sorbed in the cares and duties imposed upon me 
 by this increase of patronage, I have not been 
 able to revise and republish those works to 
 which, I believe, I am in a great degree, indebt- 
 ed for my early success in obtaining so large 
 and remunerative a practice as I now enjoy. 
 
 These thirty years of close application to my 
 profession have yielded an experience which, 
 added to theoretical attainments, acquired when 
 professional calls did not press so heavily upon 
 me, have, I believe, fully qualified me now to 
 yield to the repeated solicitations of my friends 
 and patrons, to prepare, for their use, a manual 
 which shall serve them as a guide in those cases 
 of accident and exposure to which all are liable, 
 whatever may have been their training and cul- 
 ture, or however strong their sense of moral 
 and religious obligations, to avoid temptation 
 and excess, in whatever shape it may assail 
 them. 
 
 Amidst all of the vast catalogue of diseases 
 which afflict the human race, there are none 
 which reach so many, and sting so sharply, as 
 those denominated " sexual." From the strip- 
 ling, hardly arrived at the age of puberty, up to 
 
18 dr. morrill's 
 
 the hoary-headed patriarch of three score years 
 and ten, we find that none are exempt. Even 
 the infant, before it has been expelled from the 
 body of its mother, is too frequently tainted, its 
 blood corrupted, and its fair form mutilated by 
 a disease communicated to it by its erring parents. 
 Did this great social evil limit its effects merely 
 to a temporary disability of its immediate vic- 
 tims, and were it apparent only in the hospitals 
 and doctor's apartments, where it seeks to 
 assuage its pains, and find a cure for the evils 
 arising from it, though severe and often revolt- 
 ing, its consequences would be slight in compari- 
 son with what they really are. Were such dis- 
 eases merely local in their character, the actual 
 cautery, and the dissecting knife, might be relied 
 upon for their extirpation ; but, unhappily, this 
 is not so. When once the infection has gained 
 a foothold upon the human system, it is not 
 merely those parts most immediately exposed and 
 affected, but, like a fiery devil, it pervades every 
 part of the bodily organization. It seizes upon 
 the blood, the very life of man, and along its 
 currents it carries the infection through every 
 vein and tissue ; and coursing its way through 
 
MEDICAL ADVISER. 19 
 
 the spinal column it seizes upon the citadel of 
 man's power, the brain, and if unchecked and 
 unsubdued, paralyzes and enfeebles the organs 
 of thought as well as action. When the evidences 
 of such destruction are daily presented to our 
 view, can the physician overestimate the impor- 
 tance of the mission to which he is called, and 
 can he, if possessed of a spark of manly feeling, 
 shrink, through a false estimate of professional 
 pride, to give to such cases the very best efforts 
 of his professional skill ? Human health and life 
 are equally dear to all. The wealthy merchant, 
 the venerable clergyman, — the centre and delight 
 of a highly cultivated and fashionable congrega- 
 tion, — the millionaire, reclining at his ease 
 in his sumptuous " stone front," may, and 
 do, from their position and power of their wealth, 
 command the attendance and exercise of the best 
 skill the country can produce ; and the petted 
 favorite of such exalted patronage is looked up 
 to as particularly fortunate, and eminence is 
 awarded to him, simply because Croesus and 
 Dives head the list of his patrons. The equally, 
 and frequently more skilful physician, who, with 
 a strong and manly heart, and firm hand, nerves 
 
20 dr. morrill's 
 
 himself to a daily and hourly contest with dis- 
 ease, the result of libidinous desires and unholy 
 passions, is looked upon too frequently with 
 scorn, and treated as an empiric because he ad- 
 vertises to the world his ability and willingness 
 to treat those cases which his more delicate and 
 sensitive brethren regard with contempt. For 
 myself, I am ready to alleviate human misery 
 and distress wherever it may be found, and in 
 whatever form it may present itself. I have seen 
 as much sincere goodness, as much downright 
 honesty, elevated and high-toned principle and 
 friendship in the unhappy victims of venereal 
 and syphilitic diseases, as in any people I have 
 had to deal with. 
 
 For the rescue of the miserable victims of in- 
 temperance laws are enacted, which have en- 
 grossed the time and attention of legislators, ses- 
 sion after session ; bodies of executive officers, 
 costly to be maintained, are organized and set 
 in motion ; retreats and asylums are established, 
 and whole communities and states are convul- 
 sed, from center to circumference, with the ex- 
 citing questions of prohibition or non-prohibi- 
 tion, license or no license, and the advocates of 
 
MEDICAL ADVISER. 21 
 
 temperance are canonized as the apostles of all 
 good. Yet a social evil of far greater magni- 
 tude than any caused by mere intemperance in 
 the use of alcoholic and stimulating drinks, stalks 
 abroad in our midst at noon-day, at eventide, 
 and in the still watches of the night, selecting 
 its victims from the young, the beautiful, and the 
 lovely. The heart of society is cankered to its 
 core, and he who devotes himself to assuage, 
 eradicate, and stay this great evil, is denounced 
 as a quack, or perhaps shunned as an ignorant 
 pretender. For one I am willing to bear the im- 
 putation, so long as I know that I am benefitting 
 my fellow men. Thirty years of professional in- 
 tercourse and dealing with this unfortunate 
 class of patients, have taught me lessons which 
 neither books nor the more learned of my fel- 
 low men could furnish ; and the best tribute of 
 thanks which I can render them now, is that 
 whilst in the full meridian of life, with faculties 
 ripened and matured, and in the enjoyment of a 
 full and lucrative business, I devote the leisure 
 hours that may be afforded me, in furnishing to 
 them and all others who may be interested in 
 the subject, such advice, counsels, and direc- 
 
22 dr. morrill's 
 
 tions, as will enable them to avoid those danger- 
 ous strands and breakers upon which so many 
 have suffered shipwreck. 
 
 By this I do not wish to have it understood 
 that I design to furnish such a book as will 
 enable any one to " doctor himself." Very far 
 from it. Of all the mischiefs resulting from any 
 of the diseases incident to early imprudence, 
 excessive indulgence, or unclean sexual inter- 
 course, not the least are those consequent upon 
 the application of supposed remedies unadvised 
 by a competent physician. There can hardly 
 occur any degree of infection, however slight, 
 but at once demands the inspection and the 
 treatment of one able at a glance, to see the 
 extent of the danger, and restrain its further 
 ravages. Men are crippled, their features and 
 limbs distorted for life, simply because of some 
 self- application of corrosive and dangerous min- 
 eral preparations by those who have become in- 
 fected ; and who, in the first moments of alarm, 
 have, with the view to the concealment of their 
 condition, resorted to these poisonous and deadly 
 drugs for relief. Cases which, even if let alone 
 to pursue the work of destruction unmolested, 
 
MEDICAL ADVISER. 28 
 
 could not have assumed more dangerous or dis- 
 gusting forms, have, by a dangerous and unwise 
 meddling with, been driven into the system, dis- 
 tributing the virus to every vital part, until, 
 from what was at first a mild attack in its sim- 
 plest form, the victim is now enveloped in a 
 flame from which he can be rescued only by the 
 boldest and most courageous efforts. 
 
 Neither is it my intention to pander to a pru- 
 rient and debased curiosity and appetite, which 
 seeks gratification in the perusal of books de- 
 voted to subjects ordinarily supposed to come 
 within the range of the physician's or midwife's 
 care and attention exclusively. My design will 
 be simply to point out the various disorders and 
 complaints incident to youth and manhood, 
 through an abuse, over-indulgence, or unguarded 
 indulgence of the generative organs. To do this 
 I do not deem it at all necessary that I shall enter 
 into all the minutiae of their anatomical struc- 
 ture, nor into a pathological description and 
 inquiry as to the origin and character of the 
 diseases themselves. I am not writing for 
 doctors nor learned professors of physiological 
 and pathological science, but for those who, un- 
 
24 dr. morrill's 
 
 learned and unskilled in all these matters, are, 
 after once being satisfied that help is requisite in 
 their cases, to be restored 'to health, if at all, 
 by the counsels and guidance of another, and 
 that, the physician of their choice. 
 
 Setting aside for the present all allusions to 
 hereditary taint and disease, and addressing my- 
 self only to those presumed to have received 
 from their parents at least an ordinarily healthy 
 and strong constitution, I believe I do not err 
 in the opinion that, not one in fifty have escaped 
 the influence of evil example, or, through such 
 faultless physical training as not to have fre- 
 quently indulged in, if not become addicted to, 
 the habit of masturbation. I make use of this 
 term because I believe it to be generally under- 
 stood by the most artless and inexperienced. 
 The artificial forms of living, the universal use 
 of stimulating food and drinks, the intimate and 
 unguarded association of the sexes in all the va- 
 rious forms of social and fashionable life, have 
 been, and are such as to lead to a premature de- 
 velopment of the virile passions and desires 
 which, implanted in our natures for the sole pur- 
 poses of procreation and the perpetuation of the 
 
MEDICAL ADVISER. 25 
 
 human species, have, under this unnatural and 
 premature stimulus, suggested the artificial 
 and ready means of relief in self-pollution and 
 abuse. Whilst the boy has been tenderly and 
 carefully trained in everything else necessary 
 to the full and useful development of all his 
 faculties, J)y a fatal mistake, arising through 
 ignorance on the part of parents and guardians, 
 this great evil has been ignored, and left to pur- 
 sue its deadly ravages unchecked. Physiology 
 and the laws of life, the very uses of the organs 
 of procreation, other than for purposes of bodily 
 evacuation, have been studiously concealed from 
 our youth, and they have been left to acquire 
 from associates and evil example a knowledge 
 of vices and habits which, before they are aware 
 of it, and long ere their natural guardians have 
 any suspicions of it, have laid the foundation of 
 a train of evils and diseases which, if unchecked, 
 will inevitably lead to early decay and death. 
 How many of these victims have I known 
 whose broken down constitutions, indicated by 
 the faltering gait, the vacant stare, and almost 
 idiotic countenance, are pointed out as objects 
 of commiseration because of a supposed too 
 
2G dr. morrill's 
 
 close application to study and an overtasked 
 brain, and the cause of their failure in life 
 attributed to anything but the true one. I do 
 not now remember that out of the thousands of 
 cases in which I have been consulted, and where 
 this vice has been the chief, and perhaps the 
 only cause of disease and trouble, but it has 
 turned out in the course of my examination 
 that this habit has been indulged in innocently, 
 and from an entire ignorance of its deadly and 
 fearful consequences. " Had I have known, 
 had I have been forewarned, what a world of 
 misery and wretchedness I should have es- 
 caped," has been the invariable exclamation of 
 those from whom I have "wormed out," as it 
 were, the secret history of their past habits and 
 indulgences. My reader, let me put the ques- 
 tion to you. It is not necessary that I should 
 put you under a rigid examination and extort 
 from you, by an artful system of professional in- 
 quiry, whether you are faultless in this respect. 
 It is not necessary that I should inquire of you 
 whether the weakness in the back, the pains in 
 side and breast, the troubled sleep, the lascivi- 
 ous dreams, the fading and disordered vision, and 
 
MEDICAL ADVISER. 27 
 
 the wavering mind, the disinclination to society 
 and gradual failure of all manly power of which 
 you complain, are attributable to this vice or 
 not ! You know. Memory and reason have 
 not yet become unseated, and the past is open 
 before you ; and you may trace, as in an open 
 book, the records of those early indulgences and 
 youthful indiscretions which have, step by step, 
 conducted you to the precipice upon which you 
 now stand. It is to you these pages are ad- 
 dressed. You have long felt that you were on 
 untenable ground, and that everything before 
 you was dark and dreary as the grave to which 
 you looked forward as a last and almost wel- 
 come refuge from the pains and miseries of life. 
 Were the consequences limited only to yourself, 
 the pangs of remorse, as well as the pains 
 arising from your numerous ills, might be 
 patiently, even if hopelessly borne ; but if, as is 
 most likely to be the case, there is another in- 
 terested in your happiness, or what is equally 
 as unfortunate, whose happiness is dependent 
 upon your fulfilment of plighted vows for recip- 
 rocated affection, how wretched is your lot. By 
 your own hands you have placed a barrier be- 
 
28 
 
 tween yourself and the accomplishment of your 
 brightest earthly hopes. You know yourself 
 unequal to the performance of all the duties of 
 manhood in the interesting relation to which 
 you have pledged yourself, and you shrink hack 
 appalled at the very idea of exposing your im- 
 potency and lack of ability honorably to com- 
 plete the engagement you have contracted. 
 Evasion, despair, dishonor, suicide and death are 
 by turns contemplated, until, in the horrible con- 
 flict, the body becomes a weary burden, and 
 reason no longer guides you by its dictates. 
 You struggle on like the blind man in the 
 morass, and your every effort at escape only 
 sinks you deeper and deeper into the slough in 
 which you are engulfed. Young man, this is 
 no fancy sketch. It is the secret history of 
 thousands and tens of thousands, and among 
 whom you are perhaps numbered. If this is so, 
 then it is time, and more than time, that you 
 availed yourself of the helps which medical 
 science holds out to rescue you from the im- 
 pending destruction of your mental and physical 
 faculties, and restore you to yourself, to your 
 friends, and to society, a renovated, sound, and 
 saved human being. 
 
MEDICAL ADVISER. 29 
 
 I think it not needful for me to go through all 
 the details of the steps through which you were 
 gradually initiated into all the mysteries of un- 
 lawful pleasures, nor the symptoms of those dis- 
 eases which too surely are the ever-ready attend- 
 ants upon their votaries. I would not entirely 
 suppress the ardors of youth by ascetic rules nor 
 monastic vows. I understand human nature, 
 and take it as I find it, and hence I have a large 
 charity for those who, impelled by irresistible 
 desire and strong temptation, are led into dan- 
 ger. But I do most earnestly wish to benefit 
 them, nevertheless. 
 
 My desire to make myself thoroughly under- 
 stood, and not commit myself to the charge of 
 indelicacy, and the use of language which might 
 exclude this treatise from unconcealed and open 
 perusal, renders it somewhat difficult for me to 
 express myself upon all those interesting topics 
 embraced within the scope of the investigations 
 upon which we are now engaged. I have called 
 your attention to the great vice of solitary in- 
 dulgence, and have incidentally referred to it as 
 resulting in creating impediments to marriage, 
 dangerous to health, and difficult to be sur- 
 
30 
 
 mounted. I must go further, and instruct you 
 that, however great and serious these obstacles 
 are, that if they are properly attacked before 
 they culminate in entire impotency and imbe- 
 cility, there are remedies lately discovered by 
 myself which, in connection with proper diet 
 and regimen, the powers of the body thus pre- 
 maturely weakened and dormant, may be re- 
 stored to their former activity and strength ; and 
 that, too, without resorting to any of those offen- 
 sive mechanical means and appliances which 
 formerly were so much relied upon. Neither 
 am I an advocate of constant drugging, and the 
 administration of stimulating cordials, to effect 
 this object. I had tried all the usual and well- 
 known remedies hitherto regarded as infallible 
 and specific in their re-invigoration of prema- 
 turely exhausted manhood, and was pained to 
 find that with them, as with almost all tonics 
 and stimulating preparations which have a 
 direct tendency to, and action upon those parts 
 supposed the most to need their immediate ap- 
 plication and restoring qualities, the reaction 
 was too violent, and that their repeated use 
 gradually undermined the very foundation of 
 
MEDICAL ADVISER. 31 
 
 power, until finally there was nothing left to an- 
 imate and excite. During many years of my 
 practice I had this difficulty to contend with. 
 The medicinal virtues of every vegetable sub- 
 stance, embracing roots, barks, flowers, and 
 berries, were carefully investigated and ascer- 
 tained, and whilst they yielded many most valu- 
 able additions to my stock of remedies, and to 
 our national pharmacopoea, none of them came 
 up to my wishes in imparting, without the sub- 
 sequent reaction, those restoring and strength- 
 ening powers so desirable to be secured, and 
 without which no amount of care, careful nurs- 
 ing, diet, with all the adjuncts of well-timed and 
 regulated hours for sleep, exercise, and recrea- 
 tion, seemed to be available. Xot content with 
 ransacking the whole botanical kingdom of this 
 country, I expended thousands of dollars in 
 pushing my investigations to other and more 
 distant climes, until at length my persistence 
 and perseverence were rewarded in the discovery 
 of what I had so long sought, — a purely vegeta- 
 ble preparation of surpassing curative and tonic 
 properties, as healthful, soothing, and beneficial 
 in its operations upon the mind and nervous 
 
32 dr. morrill's 
 
 system as it is almost magically efficacious in its 
 healing powers when administered as a remedy 
 in the cases to which I have just alluded. 
 Alone, or its judicious mixture with other well- 
 known remedies, enabling it to produce its 
 effects, just in proportion to the nature and te- 
 nacity of the disease, has satisfied me that, in it 
 the great desideratum in accomplishing a per- 
 fect cure of almost ali the infirmities arising 
 from the indulgence of solitary vice, as well as 
 all nervous, sexual, and cutaneous diseases, has 
 been at last discovered. For many years, at 
 great expense, I have laid in my supplies of this 
 invaluable product of nature; and although I 
 have resorted to its use, in thousands of cases 
 where the genito-urinal organs were affected, or 
 where, through them, other parts of the system, 
 or the general health of the body has suffered, 
 I have rarely failed to find it accomplish all, and 
 even more, than I had hoped for; and here let 
 me remark, that in a general way I am no ad- 
 vocate for, nor do I countenance the use of, 
 strange and unfamiliar remedies. Neither do I 
 deal in or use such. But the fruits of my own 
 researches and discoveries in the botanical king- 
 
MEDICAL ADVISER. 33 
 
 dom, which is alike free to all, I must be allowed 
 to enjoy. If I have, prompted by a greater 
 zeal, and animated by a stronger desire for suc- 
 cess and professional distinction, and by the ex- 
 penditure of much valuable time, and large sums 
 of money, secured a valuable adjunct in the 
 cure of disease, I feel no compunctions what- 
 ever in retaining in my own hands, during my 
 lifetime, the exclusive use and emoluments 
 arising from my discovery. Certain I am, that 
 no human being, besides myself, possesses my 
 secret. The various forms and proportions in 
 which I have administered this invaluable rem- 
 edy, and the astonishing, as well as gratifying 
 results produced by it, have led me to still 
 farther prosecute my experiments with it in 
 almost every stage and grade of seminal and 
 sexual disease, where the propriety of tonic and 
 invigorating remedies are called for ; and having 
 used it now for many years, in both sexes, of 
 almost every age, am prepared to say that it is 
 far superior to any other remedy of which I 
 have any knowledge. . That most distressing 
 form of seminal debility, which results from an 
 involuntary and frequent discharge from the 
 
34 DR. MORRILL'S 
 
 urinary organs, is checked by it as if by the 
 hand of Omnipotence itself, whilst the cheerful 
 and exhilerating effects which it produces in all 
 the functions of life, especially upon the brain, 
 equalizing and moderating all the passions, and 
 allaying all the causes of undue excitement, 
 that those parts and organs, hitherto enfeebled 
 through excess and disease, have time to re- 
 cuperate, and are enabled to resume their 
 natural functions. Although I can well say, 
 with a distinguished writer upon these topics, 
 that I have found no royal plan of accomplish- 
 ing a speedy, or certain removal in all cases of 
 the maladies under consideration, without the 
 exercise of great patience and care, and that no 
 man who possesses true medical and surgical 
 skill will confine himself exclusively to a few 
 medicinal substances that may have acquired 
 notoriety as specifics, yet I can truly say that in 
 a more extended practice than has been vouch- 
 safed to the generality of the profession, since 
 my discovery of the remedy alluded to, I have 
 met with greater success, and fewer defeats in 
 subduing this form of disease, than I had before. 
 Its great recommendation is, that, under no 
 
MEDICAL ADVISER. 35 
 
 possible circumstances can it do any harm, and, 
 unlike the common and standard medicines, 
 almost always given and regarded as specifics, 
 especially by those charlatans who infest every 
 large city, it does not, and cannot, of itself, 
 create inflammation and apparent disease, to 
 enable an unscrupulous medical attendant to 
 excite the fears, and frighten the patient into a 
 protracted course of treatment, having for its 
 object only the creation of a heavy bill to the 
 pecuniary benefit of the practitioner. 
 
 Patients, however, must not be led into the 
 error that diseases of this kind are to be subdued 
 instanter. In a large majority of cases the 
 physician is not called upon until the patient, 
 especially if a novice in these matters, has not 
 taken some time to speculate upon the nature of 
 the complaint that is upon him ; and is often re- 
 strained by feelings of shame and mortification 
 from making his condition known, or has tried 
 his own skill, or some favorite remedy suggested 
 by a friendly companion, in expectation that he 
 will be spared the infliction as well as the ex- 
 pense of a professional consultation in regard to 
 it ; or, if he has resolved upon the latter course, 
 
36 BR. MORRILl/S 
 
 precious time is lost in solving his doubts as to 
 whom it will be most advantageous to apply. The 
 ordinary family physician, whose countenance 
 and ways are as familiar to him as one of his 
 " own folks," is not for a moment to be thought 
 of. His first promptings will be to call upon 
 some one whose exalted standing and reputa- 
 tion as a physician, and position in society as 
 a high-minded and honorable man, would be 
 all- sufficient, not only to ensure proper medical 
 treatment, but in whose keeping, his character 
 and reputation would be safe from exposure; 
 for, it is a painful truth, that the suspicion of 
 being the victim of secret disease is too often the 
 cause of exclusion from society, and the coolness 
 and neglect of former friends. The whole pro- 
 ceeding is the result, not only of inexperience, 
 but is imprudent and unwise from beginning to 
 end. In no other affair of importance do we 
 act with so little discretion, and are so little 
 guided by the prudential maxims of every day 
 life. Ordinarily we would not apply to a learned 
 and philosophic professor of speculative science, 
 however wide his fame, to repair our chronom- 
 eter, or to polish a diamond, simply, because he 
 
MEDICAL ADVISER. 37 
 
 is not supposed to possess the mechanical skill 
 and ingenuity necessary to the performance of 
 such a piece of work. We seek out our ship- 
 wright, or carpenter, tailor and other mechan- 
 ics, each according to their several trades, be- 
 cause as such they are known to be skilful and 
 reliable. Such should also be our course in 
 regard to our physician; and in the medical 
 and surgical treatment of those terrible and life- 
 destroying diseases of which we are now speak- 
 ing,' we should only resort to those who have 
 gained their knowledge of all the peculiarities 
 of these dread diseases by long" and careful study 
 and an exclusive attention to them, -enabling 
 them from experience, rather than books, to 
 conquer the destroyer, in all the varied forms it 
 is accustomed to present itself. 
 
 During the thirty years of my practice in this 
 city the records of my business will show a list 
 of nearly one hundred thousand patients, com- 
 prising those affected with every stage and 
 degree of private and sexual disease, and cer- 
 tainly not one of the many who are styled ad- 
 vertising doctors can boast of such voluminous 
 epistolary correspondence as I have been obliged 
 
38 dr. morrill's 
 
 to keep Tip in connection with this extensive 
 business. Although, as a general rule, I destroy 
 all communications, where it is evident that 
 the writer is particularly anxious for conceal- 
 ment, yet in many cases of especial interest, 
 where the letters only embrace matters con- 
 nected with the case and cure, I have preserved 
 them as grateful recollections of the benefits I 
 have conferred upon my fellow man, and as 
 honorable trophies of my success. Were not 
 the fashion a hackneyed one, and open to the 
 charge of fabrication for mere effect, I should 
 reproduce here more of this correspondence, to 
 confirm .what I have said in regard to the happy 
 and astonishing cures performed by me, chiefly 
 through those remedies known only to myself, 
 and discovered by me through years of sleepless 
 toil, self-denial, investigation, and unsparing 
 pecuniary outlay. But I forbear, well knowing 
 how liable such displays are to be misunder- 
 stood, and their truthfulness misrepresented by 
 the envious and unsuccessful. I shall freely 
 avail myself of this opportunity, however, before 
 I conclude these pages, to reproduce some of 
 the testimonials of the press, which at various 
 
MEDICAL ADVISER. 
 
 places, and at different times, has liberally and 
 generously commented upon the uniform great 
 success which has attended my practice. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THUS far I have limited my appeal chiefly to 
 the young, and have referred only to the 
 milder forms of secret disease, which, although 
 less fatal in their immediate effects, if promptly 
 and properly attended to, yet do, if neglected, 
 mismanaged, or tampered with, lead to most 
 distressing and often fatal consequences. I 
 shall now proceed a degree further, and ap- 
 proaching the full-grown man, speak of the more 
 terrific forms of this destroyer, such as it pre- 
 sents itself in all its power of evil and destruc- 
 tive might. If happily the youth has escaped, 
 " as by fire," and in the consciousness of renew- 
 ed powers and a purified body, has arrived at 
 manhood, and assumed the cares and responsi- 
 bilities of a husband and a father, he is still lia- 
 ble to the same temptations ; and whatever may 
 be said of the folly or guilt to be attached to his 
 
40 DR. MORRILL'S 
 
 conduct, is again the victim of unclean and dis- 
 eased sexual association. This time, however, 
 it comes upon him, not in the simple form of a 
 suspicious excretion of a viscid matter, staining 
 his apparel, and tormenting him in the perform- 
 ance of one of nature's offices, but has seized 
 upon him in some one of those formidable forms 
 which, if unrestrained, even at the moment of 
 attack, is most certain to eat its way to and 
 through every part and organ of the machinery 
 of life, until its hapless victim is laid out a poor 
 deformed and crippled wreck of humanity, a 
 loathing to himself, and a burden, and perhaps 
 scorn to all with whom he is connected. When 
 the individual finds himself in this condition, 
 the instinct of self-preservation at once prompts 
 him to fly to the first suggested means of relief; 
 and every country practitioner has ready at 
 hand a mercurial preparation of some kind, 
 found in the books ever since the art of printing 
 was invented, and the science of medicine and 
 surgery came out of the hands of barbers and 
 apothecaries, and assumed the character of a 
 separate and independent profession. It is use- 
 less to. say that, in ninety-nine cases out of the 
 
MEDICAL ADVISER. 41 
 
 hundred, these old stereotyped prescriptions and 
 remedies which, fifty years ago would occasion- 
 ally effect a cure, are now, owing to the constant 
 change which has been going on in the nature 
 of these diseases, as inert and ineffectual to pro- 
 duce a cure as simple as water itself; and any 
 one may now daily witness in the mutilated 
 figures of many a passer along the thronged 
 thoroughfares of our large cities, the horrid 
 effects of mercurial preparations which have 
 only succeeded in overpowering one disease by 
 the substitution of another, none the less fearful, 
 and equally as destructive as the first. As I 
 am not writing a pathological guide for the use 
 of the medical practitioner, it is not my design, 
 as before intimated, to confuse and embarrass 
 the general reader by a methodical classification 
 of symptoms and diseases. This is too often 
 attempted by those who, by the use of technical 
 and scientific terms, seek only to display their 
 own attainments, and to lead others to think 
 that they are wondrous wise. My effort will 
 be to make myself understood in plain, simple 
 language, so that the afflicted may readily com- 
 prehend the true nature of his situation, the evils 
 
42 dr. morrill's 
 
 with which he is threatened, and the proper 
 course to pursue in the painful emergency in 
 which he is placed. In the progress of this hor- 
 rible disease, to which I am now calling your 
 attention, no part of the human system escapes 
 contamination, nor fails to sympathize with the 
 local parts more immediately attacked. The 
 virus is almost immediately transferred by the 
 touch, by the irrepressible propensity felt to 
 handle and examine the diseased parts, to almost 
 every other portion of the body susceptible of 
 contagion or innoculation, until the lips, nose, 
 throat, eyes, and every opening and cavity of 
 the body is contaminated by the deadly virus, 
 whilst within, it is being circulated by the vital 
 current, the blood, into all parts of the system. 
 At this stage of the disease, no palliating nor 
 half-way measures can stop its ravages. * Self- 
 treatment, guided and directed as it may be, by 
 a consultation of the whole list of medical author- 
 ities, is utterly powerless. The caprices and 
 changes characteristic of the complaint, are such 
 that, only the experienced practitioner can de- 
 tect its true character, and direct with certainty 
 the artillery necessary to its overthrow. There 
 
 
MEDICAL ADVISER. 43 
 
 is hardly a day passes but I am consulted by 
 more or less of those who, neglecting the first 
 approaches of this insidious destroyer, are so far 
 enveloped in its embraces as to them it appears 
 almost impossible to be cured. But when I 
 have exhibited to them the incontestible eviden- 
 ces of the cures performed by me, of cases in 
 many instances as severe as their own, they have 
 manifested a joy which no pen can describe. 
 Certainly it would have been better for them, as 
 it would be more agreeable to me, had I have 
 been consulted at an earlier period ; but, never- 
 theless, whatever may have been the cause of 
 neglect or delay, I am positive that the disease 
 cannot long resist the almost immediate, power- 
 ful, and searching operation of the remedies 
 which I apply. So far from resorting to those 
 painful and severe caustic applications hitherto 
 so common, and usually regarded as indispensa- 
 ble, I proceed by mild, emolient, and soothing 
 preparations for external treatment, which, 
 aided by an internal administration of my great 
 remedy, prepared in just the proper proportion, 
 in connection with other healing and balsamic 
 productions of the vegetable kingdom, all in- 
 
44 dr. morrill's 
 
 flammatory action is at once quietly subdued. 
 The tonic properties of the medicine is at once 
 imparted to the system, the digestive organs 
 become cleansed and regulated, and perform all 
 their functions like a charm ; and the curative 
 and healing process goes on quite rapidly, and 
 in exact accordance with nature's laws. By a 
 strict adherence to the conditions necessary to 
 be observed in the process of treatment, it is 
 absolutely impossible that any failure or disap- 
 pointment should occur ; and what is most sin- 
 gular, where once this rare preparation has 
 taken an effectual hold upon the system, not 
 only does it drive off the loathsome disease, but 
 it fortifies and strengthens the parts hitherto 
 affected and enfeebled, so that in a wonderfully 
 short space of time they are restored to their 
 pristine vigor, and no traces remain of the 
 malady which so recently threatened so much 
 devastation and ruin. Of all ages and classes of 
 men upon whom the ravages of the sexual dis- 
 eases are to be feared, there are none to whom 
 it is so dangerous as to those in the meridian of 
 life. This is doubly the case when the individ- 
 ual is at the head of a family. Not limited to 
 
MEDICAL ADVISER. 45 
 
 himself, his wife, the lawful partner of his hosom 
 and the mother of his children, is in danger of 
 infection. Their natural protector and guardian, 
 he finds himself the bearer in his own body of a 
 virus more to be dreaded than that of the deadly- 
 upas. His social and domestic enjoyments are 
 broken in upon by this foul fiend, and if he once 
 yields to the solicitations of love, and in an un- 
 guarded moment gives way to its gratification, 
 the envenomed shaft has reached another victim, 
 and beings yet unborn are not only possibly, but 
 probably, made to share in his infection. There 
 is nothing more certain than that this disease is 
 thus propagated from sire to son, through many 
 generations, and that scrofula, in almost all the 
 hideous forms in which it developes itself, such 
 as tubercular consumption, weak, sore and in- 
 flamed eyes, the early falling off of the hair, 
 deafness, chronic and inflammatory rheumatism, 
 spinal diseases of all kinds, are more or less fre- 
 quently the direct consequences of the parent's 
 indiscretion and disease, years before his ill- 
 fated offspring ever saw the light of day. When 
 I have indicated such fearful results as spring- 
 ing from a single cause, it cannot be necessary 
 
46 dr. morrill's 
 
 that I should again urge upon my reader the 
 absolute necessity that, if he has unfortunately 
 "been caught," there should neither be delay 
 in his struggles to escape, but that his strength 
 should not be wasted in misguided and misdi- 
 rected efforts to attain that end. A single false 
 step may plunge him in irretrievable misery and 
 bodily ruin. No art can restore the mutilated 
 face, the palsied limb, the vivacious countenance, 
 or the sparkling eye, when once this disease has 
 passed over them, and has left the impress of 
 its poisonous seal. There is no rescue or salva- 
 tion except in the immediate application of cura- 
 tive means ; and all medical history and testimony 
 will tell you that, up to this time, with all ordinary 
 practising physicians, there has been no specific 
 remedy found for this disease upon which any 
 reliance could be placed, except in those rare 
 cases in which mercury, in some of its many 
 forms or combinations with other hardly less 
 deleterious substances, have been found effec- 
 tual, and then only in overpowering the disease 
 by substituting, in very many instances, another 
 and almost equally dangerous one in its stead. 
 Every person of common intelligence is aware 
 
MEDICAL ADVISER. 47 
 
 that what are generally termed mercurial dis- 
 eases are of themselves the most distressing, 
 troublesome, and protracted of those the physi- 
 cian is called upon to treat. Painful, and even 
 disgusting sores, eruptions, and discolorations 
 of the skin, extreme susceptibility to atmospheric 
 changes, sharp and shooting pains in the joints 
 and limbs, frequent recurrence of torpidity in 
 all the digestive organs, dyspepsia, with its long 
 catalogue of horrors, exfoliations of portions of 
 the bones, particularly in those parts especially 
 exposed to observation ; these, and many more, 
 too numerous to mention, are but a part of the 
 serious evils arising from the indiscriminate use 
 which has been made of this powerful drug in 
 the cure of private diseases. 
 
 With what joy and gratitude, then, should 
 mankind hail the discovery of a system of 
 thorough cure, unattended by any such dangers 
 as I have described. A system so mild, so posi- 
 tively certain in its effects, and withal so harm- 
 less as to be utterly incapable of doing injury in 
 any case whatever. And then, again, there are 
 other consequences, not less serious and regret- 
 able, entailing unhappiness and discontent in all 
 
48 
 
 subsequent life. Impotency, that bane of mar- 
 ried life, is not an infrequent consequence of 
 not only the diseases to which I have alluded, 
 but of the very remedies which have been un- 
 wisely and unskilfully administered for their 
 cure. How many there are who, in every other 
 respect seem admirably mated, and in every 
 way constituted to render each other happy, but 
 whose desolate households indicate, but too 
 surely, the cause of domestic disquietude, or an 
 aching void, which can only be filled by healthy 
 and beautiful offspring. 
 
 Whatever may be the worldly circumstances 
 of those who have entered into the marriage 
 relation, the perpetuation of themselves in their 
 children is one of the very first promptings of 
 their hearts; and failing in this, the domestic 
 hearthstone becomes cheerless, and the gifts of 
 fortune, however numerous, are comparitively 
 valueless and lightly esteemed. It is in cases of 
 this kind that my remedies have proved of price- 
 less and inestimable value. It matters not from 
 what cause the inability may arise, whether 
 from previous disease, or the injurious effects of 
 unwholesome and poisonous drugs, or the weak- 
 
MEDICAL ADVISER. 49 
 
 ening and disorganizing effects of early habits. 
 I have never .yet failed to reconstruct and re- 
 store the enfeebled powers to effective Vitality, 
 and to enable the husband to be in a condition 
 not only fully to enjoy all the pleasing concom- 
 itants of wedded life, but to realize his dearest 
 wishes in the ability to propagate his species, 
 and to raise up children to cheer, bless, and 
 comfort him in his old age. That this can be 
 done most happily and effectively, without re- 
 source to any painful surgical operation, with- 
 out resorting to those tonics and stimulants 
 which, after producing a momentary excitement, 
 leaves the patient more exhausted and enfeebled 
 than before, I know; and there are hundreds 
 now living within but a very narrow circuit of 
 the place I now write, who can bear joyful tes- 
 timony to the truth of my assertions. 
 
 Let no one despair of help, for I assure him 
 that, unless nature herself has been wanting in 
 her usual gifts, and some such unwonted calam- 
 ity as emasculation has taken place, I can most 
 certainly restore all his lost or waning powers, 
 and render him happy and hopeful in that home 
 where before he was cheerless and desponding. 
 
50 dr. morrill's 
 
 That this deficiency or loss of power may be- 
 come more obdurate, and less easy to overcome, 
 by omiting seasonably to resort to curative 
 means, is also certain ; hence the necessity of 
 attending to it as soon as the difficulty is known 
 to exist. Delay only renders its removal a more 
 protracted and aggravating process, whilst it 
 cuts short days and years of bliss which might 
 otherwise be enjoyed. Persons who find them- 
 selves incapaciated to a full fecundative exercise 
 of all the virile functions, should never rest 
 satisfied short of a complete restoration of all 
 their faculties; and to effect this through the 
 safest and surest means should be to them a 
 matter of the gravest consideration. Almost 
 every locality, and especially our large cities, 
 are literally crowded and overrun with unprin- 
 cipled adventurers, whose pretensions and abil- 
 ities are equally preposterous and absurd ; men 
 who like those who 
 
 '* Steal the livery of heaven to serve the devil in." 
 enshroud their former insignificance and obscur- 
 ity in some name, the possessor of which may 
 at one time have had some distinction as a med- 
 ical practitioner. These imposters and scourges 
 
MEDICAL ADVISER. 51 
 
 of society waylay and beset the invalid and the 
 suffering at every turn, and most unfortunate 
 is the credulous and unsophisticated wight who 
 suffers himself thus to be entrapped. Not one 
 in fifty of them can boast of a single degree of 
 medical knowledge or skill beyond that acquired 
 perhaps as servant to some invalid, or gained 
 from a superficial study of some old book of 
 useful receipts which has alone constituted his 
 whole medical library. Of this class of preten- 
 ders you cannot be too guarded, Of such it 
 may be truly said : ' ' They allure with a look, 
 a wink, a nod. Hell does not contain so foul a 
 fiend, nor earth so fell a foe ; the helpless and 
 unfortunate are their victims, murder is their 
 employment, and death their sport." I would 
 not lay such stress upon this caution against 
 empiricism and quackery, did not every day's 
 experience more fully demonstrate to me the 
 vast amount of mischief perpetrated by these 
 reckless adventurers. Cases in which, had a 
 thoroughly skilled specialist been consulted, in 
 the first instance, would, with but little loss of 
 time, and but moderate expense, been rapidly 
 made to give way to the proper medical treat- 
 
52 dr. morrill's 
 
 ment, have, through sheer ignorance, been 
 made to assume forms so disgusting, repulsive, 
 and dangerous, that I have long hesitated to as- 
 sume the responsibility of prescribing for them. 
 Intimately connected with those diseases hav- 
 ing their origin in impure sexual intercourse, 
 are others, which, though not traceable to the 
 same cause, are none the less troublesome and 
 very often the means not only of aggravating 
 the sexual diseases, but tending to complicate 
 them and perplex the medical attendant, as well 
 as to create greater distress and pain to the suf- 
 ferer himself. Watery collections in and be- 
 tween those parts constituting the genital or- 
 gans in man, are frequent ; and sometimes the 
 causes are so involved in obscurity that the 
 most skilful surgeons are often at a loss how to 
 account for them. This difficulty, known to 
 medical men under the name of hydrocele, has 
 ever been regarded by the profession as incur- 
 able by medical treatment, and only yielding to 
 a surgical operation. Palliatives are resorted 
 to, and the inconveniences arising from it ob- 
 viated in part by drawing off the contents of 
 the sac by a trocar, and by such other mechani- 
 
MEDICAL ADVISER. 53 
 
 cal appliances as the ingenuity of the practi- 
 tioner may suggest. The many aggravated 
 cases of this kind which I have met with in my 
 practice, the almost insuperable bar presented 
 by it to a successful treatment of a contagious 
 disease affecting the parts at the same time, the 
 reluctance with which the patient would listen to 
 any suggestions as to the employ of "instru- 
 ments " or mechanical appliances for his relief, 
 spurred me on to every effort in my power to 
 relieve this very painful and dangerous disease. 
 Nor have my researches been in vain. I have 
 discovered remedies, by the proper administra- 
 tion of which this complaint is made to disap- 
 pear almost as rapidly as mist before the morn- 
 ing sun. 
 
 The clumsy and expensive apparatus hitherto 
 applied, the dreaded trocar, the stimulating in- 
 jections of former days, are entirely dispensed 
 with, and by a medicine prepared only by my- 
 self, a process of absorption is engendered by 
 which the disease is radically cured, almost un- 
 consciously to the sufferer. And although I am 
 constantly prescribing for, and treating it with 
 the most signal success, and to the entire relief 
 
54 DR. MORRILL'S 
 
 and satisfaction of my patients, and hundreds of 
 my medical brethren are aware of the fact, yet, 
 if applied to, themselves, and enquired of as to 
 their ability to cure it, reply, that medical treat- 
 ment would be unavailing. In view of these 
 facts I feel impelled, from a sense of duty to 
 suffering humanity, to invite every one afflicted 
 with this complaint, to apply to me for relief. 
 I will not merely refer them to testimonials of 
 undoubted authenticity and credit as to what I 
 have accomplished in this respect, but will 
 convince them, by means easily to be compre- 
 hended, that this great desideratum in the heal- 
 ing art has at length been discovered. I know 
 to what extent I incur the liability to the charge 
 of egotism in making this assertion, and the 
 slowness of the public to give credit to claims of 
 extraordinary discoveries, especially in the treat- 
 ment of those complaints which have so long 
 baffled the skill of the most renowned physi- 
 cians ; but they must remember that such has 
 been the case in every age of the world, and 
 that Darwin and Harvey, and Jenher, are not 
 alone in having been the buts of ridicule and 
 persecution because of their discoveries and 
 
MEDICAL ADVISER. 55 
 
 efforts to benefit mankind by the introduction of 
 new modes of warding off and curing disease. 
 No dread of ridicule, nor the opposition of those 
 who consider themselves as exclusively author- 
 ized to prescribe for disease, shall ever deter me 
 from thus boldly making known my ability to 
 benefit my fellow-men. 
 
 In the foregoing, so far as I have addressed 
 myself to those of middle life, whose physical 
 organs have become matured, and in who'm few 
 or no organic changes are likely to occur for 
 many years at least, I have called attention 
 chiefly to such complaints and infirmities as im- 
 mediately accompany, or closely follow, those 
 self-engendered or contagious diseases, the re- 
 sults of careless and promiscuous connection 
 with those of the other sex. I have alluded 
 also to the impediments which it creates to the 
 formation of happy and permanent domestic 
 relations, and to the satisfactory performance of 
 all that is meant and intended in the marriage 
 rite ; and if I have not catalogued all the mis- 
 eries and evils flowing from the causes set forth, 
 it is not that I regard them as of minor impor- 
 tance, but it is that I have indulged the hope 
 
5G DR. 
 
 that no one in his sober senses, with such dan- 
 gers impending over him as those which I have 
 described, would, for a single hour, delay appli- 
 cation to the proper source for relief. Varied, 
 aggravated and accelerated as they are in the 
 different forms they assume, by reason of tem- 
 perament, diet, constitutional defects, and the 
 usual pursuits of business or amusements, there 
 is no perfect standard for measuring their in- 
 tensity, save in the long-tried skill of practical 
 experience ; and I do not here purpose to load 
 your mind with complicated details and nice 
 distinctions which to you would be entirely un- 
 intelligible, or, if understood, you would not be 
 able to derive from them any solution to the 
 difficulties and dangers which encompass you. 
 This can only be afforded you by competent 
 medical aid ; and I now, in the full confidence 
 in my ability to relieve you of every trouble 
 with which you are assailed, either now or in 
 the prospective, invite you to try those truly 
 healing remedies of which I am the discoverer 
 and only possessor. One of the greatest mis- 
 takes is that in which the victim imagines that 
 if he discontinues such violations of the laws of 
 
MEDICAL ADVISER. 57 
 
 his being, and becomes more temperate, regular, 
 and abstemious in the indulgence of his passions 
 and appetites, that disease will disappear, and 
 the recuperative powers of nature will remedy 
 every evil. But it must be borne in mind that 
 disease is not SELF-CURING. The causes 
 which have done the mischief and inflicted the 
 injury must be removed before anything in the 
 whole range of medical science can cure you. 
 So long as there remains lurking in the system 
 any relics of those fatal effects of the poison, 
 engendered either by disease itself, or the im- 
 proper remedies hitherto taken for your relief, 
 you are in danger. Not only protracted and 
 exquisitely painful complaints, such as chronic 
 rheumatism, spinal affections, and the develop- 
 ment of tubercular diseases, attack and threaten 
 you with all their untold horrors and dangers, 
 but death itself may warn you with its quick, 
 sharp, paralytic stroke, that it is nigh at hand, 
 and that the time for all earthly aid, with you, 
 has passed forever. I must not omit to name 
 another result of excessive sexual indulgence, 
 the diseases incident to it, and the maltreatment 
 to which they are so often subjected; prema- 
 
58 DR. MORRILl/S 
 
 ture exhaustion and decay ; and this leads me 
 to the third part of this little treatise, in which 
 I design to address a few words to those who, 
 having passed through the age of ripe manhood, 
 have entered upon that period of life when, in 
 the course of nature, the natural powers begin 
 to wane, and the passions and appetites become 
 less clamorous in their demands for gratifica- 
 tion, or if not, in whom the physical capacity 
 necessary to that purpose is diminished through 
 former excessive indulgence, or as a conse- 
 quence of the emasculating effects of the vile 
 compounds to which they have been subjected 
 through the ignorance and stupidity of those 
 whom they have consulted when requiring med- 
 ical treatment ; and I may as well remark here 
 as anywhere, that the early loss of sexual power 
 may very often be justly attributed to an exces- 
 sive indulgence in other than in the unrestrained 
 gratification of the desire for sexual intercourse. 
 The early and indiscriminate use of stimulating 
 and alcoholic drinks, an excessive use of to- 
 bacco, by which its nicotine qualities are ab- 
 sorbed and taken into the system, especially 
 with those who lead sedentary and inactive . 
 
MEDICAL ADVISER. 59 
 
 lives, are among the many causes of premature 
 decay; and when this period arrives, and full 
 consciousness is felt that such is really the case, 
 what can be more depressing to the mind, or 
 more calculated to inspire an aversion to life, ( 
 and to regard all its hitherto anticipated pleas- 
 ures and promised blessings as a base delusion 
 and a cheat ? 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 AFTER the attainment of the ages of fifty- 
 five or sixty years, in man, the generative 
 powers gradually diminish, and, declining with 
 increasing years, at the age of seventy and 
 thence onward, cease to be able to accomplish 
 the objects either of gratifying the passions or 
 the perpetuation of his species. The depriva- 
 tion, however, of these pleasures are not the 
 only loss which he feels, and over which he is 
 called to mourn. With the symptoms of ap- 
 proaching decay, and the waning forces of 
 manly power, he is sensible also of a decline in 
 those mental and executive faculties by the force 
 
60 DR. MORRILL'S 
 
 of which he has hitherto been enabled to over- 
 come obstacles to success, and to acquire wealth 
 and position in the world. It is true, that occa- 
 sionally we meet with men of even three score 
 years and ten and upwards, who display in all 
 their movements and calculations but few or no 
 evidences of senility, and who, up to a very ad- 
 vanced period in life, seem to enjoy almost un- 
 broken powers both of mind and body. I do 
 not refer to that class of old men, the fag end 
 of whose lives are devoted to the gratification 
 of the baser passions of avarice and gain, which 
 outlive every other sentiment, but to those whose 
 bodily powers, carefully husbanded and pre- 
 served, have suffered no untoward deteriora- 
 tion by the habits and practices of youthful in- 
 discretions nor the excesses of middle age. 
 These, having performed all the requirements 
 of life's duties well, justly, in the evening of 
 its journey pass calmly onward to its close, un- 
 interrupted and unassailed by any of those evils 
 which embitter the declining years of the great 
 majority of our fellow beings. 
 
 These last, unhappily, in almost every stage 
 of their progress, are constantly requiring the 
 
MEDICAL ADVISER. 61 
 
 fostering care of benevolent hearts and willing 
 hands to direct and lead them over the, perhaps, 
 too dreary and barren wastes spread out before 
 them, and to some extent the aids of science to 
 assist in reinvigorating their dormant faculties. 
 I have devoted much time to this interesting 
 study, how best to restore to its former posses- 
 sors the lost powers of virility, so as to enable 
 them at a comparitively advanced period of life 
 to enjoy again, to a rational extent, all the 
 pleasures of ripe manhood with those of the 
 opposite sex. Pursuing my investigations upon 
 strict scientific principles, and aided by the am- 
 ple means for experiment which my extensive 
 practice has afforded, I have arrived at results 
 as gratifying as they were new and astonishing. 
 "Without laying any claim to any such discovery 
 as that wonderful fountain of youth which 
 tempted the too credulous Ponce de Leon to 
 brave the dangers of an unknown sea, I may, 
 nevertheless, claim a discovery, which for cen- 
 turies has baffled the skill and research of the 
 most eminent philosophers and sages which the 
 world has ever produced. I have succeeded in 
 doing this without in any degree whatever draw- 
 
62 dr. morrill's 
 
 ing upon the reserved forces of life, so as to in- 
 duce exhaustion and prostration after each re- 
 curring effort ; but its effects are so gently and 
 gradually tonic and stimulating as to give per- 
 manent vigor and tone to every part of the sys- 
 tem. Old age is thus shorn of half its terrors, 
 and life, indeed, remains a perfect blessing to 
 its very close. Not only are all the procreative 
 faculties restored and invigorated by these won- 
 derful remedies, but every part of the body is 
 made to share in their healthful and life giving 
 properties. I would not thus speak so confi- 
 dently and assuringly had I not witnessed in 
 numberless instances the complete realization 
 of all which I have here described. It is not 
 yet three months since I was called upon by a 
 gentleman of over sixty years of age, whose 
 circumstances, in relation to property and 
 family affairs rendered it highly expedient that 
 he should take to himself a wife, after twice 
 having become a widower. Although he felt, 
 as he told me, in regard to that matter, the dan- 
 ger as well as what he considered the impro- 
 priety of uniting himself to one so many years 
 younger than himself, as was the lady for whom 
 
MEDICAL ADVISER. 63 
 
 he felt a decided preference, he could not well 
 resist the inclination he felt to be governed in 
 the matter by the motives of choice exclusively, 
 provided he could feel assured that subsequent 
 events, anticipated from conscious debility and 
 impotence by reason of his own advanced age, 
 could be so controlled by medical skill as would 
 obviate all danger of disagreement and infelicity 
 between them after the marriage ceremony. I 
 gave him the reasons of my strong conviction 
 that this could be satisfactorily accomplished 
 for him, and he immediately subjected himself 
 to the regimen and treatment which I imposed. 
 I found in him. a most submissive and docile pa- 
 tient, who unscrupulously and faithfully fol- 
 lowed the directions I gave him ; and I had the 
 gratification, as well as the pleasure of seeing 
 him, in less than three months from the time of 
 his first application to me, rejoicing in the pos- 
 session of the woman of his choice. He subse- 
 quently informed me, with a countenance beam- 
 ing with gratitude and thanks, that there was 
 not a happier or a more contented couple on the 
 face of the earth; and he attributed to me, and 
 the truly happy effects of the medicines I had 
 
64 
 
 prepared for him, the happiness which he then 
 enjoyed. Indeed, I might cite other cases 
 equally as interesting, but I do not feel at lib- 
 erty to particularize, lest I might wound the 
 sensitiveness of those who have confided to me, 
 in my professional capacity, those matters which 
 I cannot conscientiously nor honorably refer to, 
 even to encourage and benefit others in a simi- 
 lar way. Let every one, however, be assured 
 that age no longer forms any impediment to an 
 enjoyment of all the physical functions of our 
 being, and that wedlock, so far from being 
 shunned as a severe and unhappy test of the 
 virile forces, resulting only in failure and mor- 
 tification, may now be consummated with all 
 the assurance, hopefulness, and ardor of youth. 
 Thus far it will have been noted by the intel- 
 ligent reader, that I have addressed myself al- 
 most exclusively to gentlemen, and my obser- 
 vations respecting the evils arising from mas- 
 turbation, or self abuse, excessive and promis- 
 cuous indulgence, and the various evils result- 
 ing therefrom, have been directed chiefly to 
 those of the male sex, for whose benefit this 
 treatise was originally designed. I am quite 
 
MEDICAL ADVISER. 65 
 
 well aware however, of the fact, that its circu- 
 lation and perusal has not been entirely re- 
 stricted to them, and that it has found its way, 
 in no very limited degree, into the hands of 
 both married and single ladies. In order there- 
 fore, that they may find in it matter for their 
 especial consideration and benefit, I have 
 thought it advisable to discuss somewhat more 
 at large, and in accordance with their physiologi- 
 cal structure, the same topics, at least so far as 
 to render this work useful, as well as interesting 
 to them. What I have said in regard to early 
 habits, the undue exercise of the passions, and 
 the mischief arising from excess and indiscre- 
 tion, are as applicable to them as to those of the 
 male sex. It does not require that the female 
 should be learned in all the anatomical and 
 physiological knowledge which science can im- 
 part, concerning those things, that she should be 
 able to comprehend and appreciate the differ- 
 ence which exists between herself and her 
 brother in this respect. Instinct is far better 
 than books, and she knows better than books 
 can teach her, that only in model and form she 
 differs from her mate ; that she is moved by the 
 
€6 dr. morrill's 
 
 same passions, subject to the same infirmities, 
 and victim to the same diseases as he is ; that 
 like causes, so far as disease is concerned, pro- 
 duce in her the same effects as in him, varied 
 only by the difference in structure, and hence 
 submissive to the same remedial treatment. 
 But there are other and different classes of dis- 
 ease to which she is subject, and of which the 
 male cannot participate. More delicate in their 
 organization, and less robust, owing chiefly to 
 their seclusion, the female cannot resist the 
 changes of atmosphere, climate and circum- 
 stances, so firmly as can the hardier male, and 
 owing to various causes, well understood, she 
 often becomes, from her earliest years, the sub- 
 ject of pain and suffering, of a nature to which 
 he is an entire stranger. If, however, she un- 
 fortunately becomes afflicted with any of those 
 troublesome and offensive diseases affecting the 
 urino-genital organs which require medical 
 treatment (and there are very few which do 
 not), the same remedies, differing only in form of 
 exhibition, are in most cases applicable to both. 
 In gonorrhea, chancroids, chancres and syphilis, 
 in all its various stages, the same pharmaceuti- 
 
MEDICAL ADVISER. 67 
 
 cal agencies are resorted to, and no intelligent 
 person need be misled or confused in their appli- 
 cation or use, by reason of the difference of sex. 
 Except in those cases where a resort to in- 
 strumental agencies, such as the use of bougies 
 the catheter, and sometimes even syringes, are 
 called for, the administration of remedies for 
 the ordinary diseases of the procreative organs, 
 is as simple a matter as the taking a cathartic 
 pill, or a bowl of herb tea. In cases where 
 urethral injections are necessary, although it is 
 more advisable that they be administered under 
 the immediate supervision of the medical atten- 
 dant, yet with a little instruction from him, 
 carefully heeded and understood by the patient, 
 injections may be safely self-administered. It 
 now only remains for me to particularize the 
 various sexual complaints most generally prev- 
 alent, and which you may be permitted to treat 
 for yourselves, until proper medical assistance 
 can be procured. Of these, 
 
 . GONOKBHEA OR CLAP 
 
 Is the most common, and unfortunately the 
 most easily and readily taken, especially by the 
 
68 dr. morrill's 
 
 male. This is an affection confined exclusively 
 to the urethra, and makes its appearance in 
 from two to three, and sometimes four days after 
 exposure. It is produced solely by the intro- 
 duction of the virus into the meatus or opening 
 in the male organ, where, communicating with 
 the mucuous membrane, it infects the whole 
 passage, gradually progressing from the open- 
 ing downwards, until the whole is infected and 
 subjected to the inflammatory action of the poi- 
 son, producing in its course, the perulent dis- 
 charge, the chordee and painful erections, 
 gleet, etc., with all the distressing and annoying 
 accompaniments which invariably attend it if 
 left unchecked, or improperly treated. 
 
 The approach of the disease is unmistakeably 
 indicated by the slight inflammation at the meatus 
 or opening, the general uneasiness and pain in 
 the region of the hips and loins, the burning 
 and scalding sensation in passing the urine, 
 when the perulent discharge, staining the linen 
 to a dull yellow, tells the whole story, and as- 
 sures you that you have got the clap; At this 
 stage of the disease your course of action is 
 clear. You should not hesitate a moment ; do 
 
MEDICAL ADVISER. 69 
 
 not wait to make certainty more sure, by pre- 
 tending to doubt whether you are or not dis- 
 eased. But do not get frightened, nor become 
 excited; that would only add to your trouble 
 and augment the difficulties of an early sup- 
 pression of the disease. If you are not conve- 
 nient to a reliable physician, get a small glass, or 
 gutta percha syringe, and get from the apothe- 
 cary the following : Sulphate of zinc and 
 tanic acid, two grains each, dissolved in two 
 fluid ounces of pure soft water, putting the so- 
 lution into a wide open-mouthed vial, so as to 
 draw it up with the syringe directly from the 
 vial, rather than being under the necessity of 
 first pouring it out into a cup, and from thence 
 filling your syringe. The ordinary glass sy- 
 ringe, half filled, will be sufficient to begin with. 
 Having emptied the bladder, by passing your 
 urine, with the syringe in the right hand, work- 
 ing the piston with the fore-finger, insert the 
 pipe into the opening, and grasping the organ, 
 some two or three inches down, pressing the 
 the passage together, so as to prevent the injec- 
 tion from passing beyond, inject the solution 
 carefully and neatly, so as to fill the passage 
 
70 dr. morrill's 
 
 from the orifice downward, to where you have 
 closed it by the pressure of your left thumb and 
 fore-finger ; after withdrawing the syringe, close 
 the opening by your right thumb and fore-finger, 
 and with your left, gently work up and down for 
 a moment along the passage, so that the injected 
 solution shall fairly wash it on all sides; this 
 may be repeated once, so as to make sure that 
 the injection has been thorough. This opera- 
 tion may be gone through at least three times a 
 day, for three or four days, when, if the disease 
 does not subside, it is evident that this, as it is 
 termed, the abortive treatment, will not avail. 
 If it has not, you will in the meantime be re- 
 minded of it by an increase in the discharge 
 and violence of the inflammation, with, it may be, 
 a chordee, which is a consequence of a turgid 
 state of the lower division of the penis, which 
 prevents its expansion during erection, leaving 
 it bent downwards, and occasioning almost in- 
 conceivable pain and distress. This may be 
 alleviated by the application of ice, cold water, 
 or, what is just as well, throwing ones self down 
 upon the cold floor and exposing the parts to 
 the air. But when the disease has attained this 
 
MEDICAL ADVISER. 71 
 
 stage of its progress, the syringe becomes not 
 only useless, but positively dangerous in the 
 hands of one who is not an expert, and other 
 remedies must be resorted to. These are, first 
 the doctor, and always the doctor, but if the 
 doctor cannot be reached, then I should advise 
 palliative remedies, until he can be consulted. 
 Of those, I know of none better and safer than 
 the various preparations of copaiba and cubebs. 
 The following recipe can be put up by almost 
 any apothecary, and will be found efficacious : 
 
 Two ounces copaiba, one ounce powdered 
 cubebs, one-half drachm aluminis, and magne- 
 sia sufficient to compound a mass, divide into 
 pills of five grains each ; take four to six three 
 times a day ; or, if the patient is of weak habit, 
 and delicate stomach, take copaiba two ounces, 
 Magnesia one ounce, oil of peppermint twenty 
 drops, powdered cubebs and subnitrate of bis- 
 muth each two ounces ; divide into pills of 
 five grains each, and take three, three times a 
 day. 
 
 In case of severe chordee, camphor is the 
 very best remedy I know of, and when taken in 
 a liquid form, rarely fails to give relief. One 
 
72 dr. morrill's 
 
 drachm of the tincture, in a glass of water, 
 taken on going to bed, and every time you wake 
 up with chordee, will give effectual relief, and a 
 perseverance in the use of this remedy will 
 cause all tendency to chordee to disappear in 
 two or three nights. 
 
 I have not alluded to the use of nitrate of sil- 
 ver, as an abortive remedy in the early stage of 
 gonorrhea, although of all substances, it is un- 
 doubtedly the most efficacious and reliable, but in 
 inexperienced hands, is exceedingly dangerous, 
 and I would not advise its use, except under the 
 immediate direction of a physician. It is a well- 
 known fact, that the disease will often exhaust it- 
 self in time, but in running through its various 
 stages, it sometimes takes months ; in the mean- 
 time the victim suffers untold torments, which 
 the expenditure of a few dollars, and the timely 
 aid of a good physician, would have saved him. 
 
 The reader will have observed that in all the 
 foregoing pages I have carefully avoided enter- 
 ing into details, or giving way to that style of 
 composition which seems almost inseparable 
 from the medical profession. I have not, by a 
 prolix and confused use of medical and pharma- 
 
MEDICAL ADVISER. 73 
 
 ceutical terms, perplexed his mind, nor sought 
 to inspire an opinion of my skill, by an exhibi- 
 tion of professional and technical terms, only 
 understood by the regular student and philolo- 
 gist. I have rather sought to intimate, in plain 
 and readily understood language, matters and 
 subjects upon which a great deal of ignorance 
 unfortunately prevails. I have sought to point 
 out the dangers and perils arising from certain 
 causes, which are to-day working avast amount 
 of e\?il and distress throughout the whole country. 
 I have also called your attention to the ready 
 and certain means of cure which I possess, and 
 of which all may avail themselves at a moderate 
 expense, without incurring the least danger of 
 relapse or exposure. And finally, I invite you 
 to test an experience of thirty years' successful 
 practice, in which I have more successfully 
 treated every disease to which humanity is lia- 
 ble, than any other physician in New England. 
 My arrangements and provisions for this pur- 
 pose are most extensive, and peculiarly adapted 
 to suit and please the taste of the most delicate 
 and fastidious. My reception rooms are ample, 
 and even luxuriously furnished; and patients, 
 
74 br. morrill's 
 
 whilst waiting for, and during consultation, are 
 free from all inquisitive observation. My med- 
 icines, which are all prepared under my own 
 immediate supervision, are procured for me by 
 herbalists of rare skill, and imported for my ex- 
 clusive use ; and whilst I devote every faculty I 
 possess to the relief and cure of those who place 
 themselves under my care, I am particular, 
 also, to so regulate and apportion the price of 
 my services that none, however unfortunate, 
 may be driven away by the fear of excessive, 
 or exorbitant charges. My consultation rooms 
 and medical office are at No. 3 Bulfinch Street, 
 Boston, where I may be found at all hours 
 during the day, and to which all communica- 
 tions for advice and medicines should be par- 
 ticularly addressed. 
 
 FREDERICK MORRILL, M. D. 
 
 No. 3 Bulfinch Street, Boston. 
 
MEDICAL ADVISER. 75 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 I PRESUME that there are many who, on 
 opening this hook, expected to find a larger 
 number of prescriptions for the cure of diseases ; 
 also directions for taking the prescribed reme- 
 dies, and rules for diet, etc., etc., while taking 
 them. Here let me say, that whoever looks for 
 that, in any properly -prepared treatise of this 
 kind, will always be disappointed. I would 
 most cheerfully send prescriptions to sufferers, 
 but it would be utterly impracticable, for the 
 reason that the principal remedies, which I 
 use in curing diseases, are imported by myself, 
 from foreign countries, for my own practice; 
 and very many of them, the most efficacious, 
 cannot be obtained from any druggist in this 
 country. The reader will readily see that any 
 prescription, under such circumstances, would 
 be worthless to him. I not only import my 
 herbs, barks, roots, and medicinal plants, but I 
 myself, prepare them for use. I do this that I 
 may be sure, beyond all doubt, that my patients 
 get the pure article, without any adulteration, 
 or any possibility of mistake ; and to this fact I 
 
76 DR. MORRILL'S 
 
 attribute, in a great measure, my success in 
 treating and curing disease. The concentrated 
 form in which I prepare them, enables me to 
 send them to any part of the country, by mail, 
 or by express, at trifling expense ; so that there 
 would be really no reason for furnishing pre- 
 scriptions to my patients, even if they could get 
 them compounded by the druggist. 
 
 I have thought that I could not do a better 
 service to my readers than to give a selection 
 from the large correspondence I am daily re- 
 ceiving from persons seeking my advice, or such 
 as have been under my care, as somewhat illus- 
 trative of the peculiar cases I am most frequently 
 called upon to treat. These letters are not only 
 calculated to show the embarrassments under 
 which invalids frequently labor in regard to the 
 choice of a physician, when seeking to regain 
 lost health, but narrating, as they do, actual 
 cases attempted to be described by the sufferers 
 themselves, they may enable the reader to com- 
 pare his own with them, and to judge whether 
 he may not, with every hope of relief, resort to 
 the same means of cure. 
 
 Whilst as a general rule, I usually destroy all 
 
MEDICAL ADVISER. 77 
 
 correspondence of a private nature, especially- 
 all such as I consider that the writers would 
 prefer not to be in danger of a perusal by any 
 other than myself, there are cases which I con- 
 sider of too interesting a character, and which 
 required a degree of care, skill, and attention, 
 to perfect a cure, that I have, in the interest of 
 humanity, preserved such an outline of them as 
 would enable me to refer to, and recall what- 
 ever of importance might be connected with 
 them, for my future guidance in similar cases. 
 In such circumstances, I preserve only trans- 
 cripts of all the -correspondence, destroying the 
 original, whilst I erase all names and other 
 means of exposure, of matters which might 
 wound the sensibilities of the writers. 
 
 The subjoined letters I have selected because 
 they represent, better than I could otherwise do, 
 different grades and classes of physical disa- 
 bility produced by causes particularly treated 
 upon in this book, and which, more than any 
 other class of diseases, I have been called upon 
 to treat. From thousands of similar endorse- 
 ments of the happy results of my system of med- 
 ical treatment, I am emboldened in claiming for 
 
78 dr. morrill's 
 
 it a superiority over all others. The living 
 witnesses whom I daily meet and recognize as 
 of those who have, in their persons, experienced 
 the healing and life-preserving efficacy of my 
 remedies, and who, from being debilitated, 
 broken down, despairing invalids, looking for- 
 ward to death as the only termination of their 
 sufferings, are to-day in the enjoyment of all 
 the blessings which health can confer, and 
 amongst our most useful, active, and enterpris- 
 ing citizens. With such examples before them, 
 no one should hesitate or delay a single hour in 
 securing to himself the means of recovery and 
 restoration which I am fully prepared to offer 
 him. 
 
 From the fact that I have, in this little vol- 
 ume, called the reader's attention chiefly to 
 those disorders arising from an indiscreet and 
 overtasked indulgence of the sexual and pro- 
 creative faculties, some of my readers may be 
 led to infer that I limit my practice exclusively 
 to them. This would be a mistake. Being a 
 regularly-educated physician, my range of prac 
 tice is not restricted to any particular branch of 
 my profession, although I have devoted a large 
 
MEDICAL ADVISER. 79 
 
 share of my attention to the investigation and 
 study of the utero-genital organs, under the 
 belief that to them might be traced, much oftener 
 than is generally supposed, a large share of 
 those diseases which annually disables, and 
 eventually carries off, so many thousands of our 
 most promising and interesting young men. 
 Consumption, diseases of the heart and liver, 
 rheumatism, imperfections of sight and hearing, 
 baldness, and many other complaints intimately 
 connected with, and in a large degree owing 
 their early development to causes directly re- 
 sulting from a too-frequent violation of nature's 
 laws in this very thing, are subjects in which I 
 feel myself fully justified in recommending my 
 remedies, and in which I have been equally 
 successful in my treatment. To either sex, 
 male or female, requiring medical or surgical 
 treatment, I am prepared to offer every facility 
 and convenience whilst prescribing for every 
 case of disease or accident to which the human 
 frame is liable. Medicines carefully prepared 
 by myself, neatly and securely packed for trans- 
 portation to any part of the world, with every 
 needed direction for their use, as the case may 
 
80 dr. morrill's 
 
 require, will be promptly forwarded to such as 
 may wish to avail themselves of my professional 
 services. 
 
 [Letter from a gentleman.] 
 
 G , Me, Sept. — 
 
 Dr. Frederic Morrill : 
 
 Dear Sir — It is under feelings of the deepest 
 despondency and mortification that I address 
 you this letter. I have long contemplated do- 
 ing it, but my resolution has failed me when- 
 ever I have sat down to accomplish it. I am, 
 however, reduced to that degree of hopeless- 
 ness, and, I may add helplessness, that unless I 
 do something, and that most speedily, I shall be 
 so completely shorn of all energy and manhood 
 as to be utterly incapable of making myself un- 
 derstood by you or any one else. You already, 
 I imagine, comprehend the difficulty under 
 which I labor. I am now about eighteen years 
 of age, and have been, almost since I arrived 
 at the age of puberty, addicted to that most 
 horrible of all soul and body destroying vice, — 
 self abuse. First indulging in the practice at 
 
MEDICAL ADVISER. 81 
 
 rare intervals, it has grown upon me as I have 
 advanced in life, inflicting new tortures, and 
 throwing open before me vistas of future tor- 
 ments, which combine to render the present, 
 past, and future, in the endurance and anticipa- 
 tion, too terrible to bear or describe. I was 
 led into this vile habit, as all boys are, by bad 
 example and associations with those who, being 
 older than myself, ought to have known better. 
 I did not then, as I do now, attribute the many 
 painful and depressing ills to which I was sub- 
 ject, to the physical derangements occasioned 
 by this vice. I had, I think, a scrofulous taint, 
 inherited from my parents. This became quite 
 early developed, and for years I was afflicted 
 with a weakness and inflammation of the eyes, 
 which at times was almost insupportable. Cos- 
 tiveness, and constipation also, always rendered 
 it necessary that I should be taking some laxa- 
 tive and cathartic medicine. When I resorted 
 to medical advice, not one of the many physi- 
 cians whom I consulted ever made the inquiry 
 as to my habits, or suggested the possibility that 
 I was paying the penalty of solitary vice. Had 
 my occupation or pursuits been such as to af- 
 
82 DR. 
 
 ford me constant daily labor and exercise in the 
 open air, I have no doubt it would have been far 
 better for me ; but since my fourteenth year I 
 have been a student, either at home or abroad, 
 and although I have enjoyed every advantage 
 and opportunity, to-day feel myself utterly in- 
 competent and incapable of profiting by them. 
 A loss of memory and a lack of energy, inabili- 
 ty to any continuous exercise of the reasoning 
 powers, a want of tenacity of purpose, a confu- 
 sion of ideas, timidity, bashfulness, and a con- 
 stant apprehension of coming evil, so besets me 
 that I sometimes wish that I might die to escape 
 it. Indeed, I have often thought of suicide, 
 and am sometimes seriously tempted to resort 
 to it as a relief from my troubles. I have read 
 books and treatises upon the subject, and have, 
 times without number, resolved, nay, sworn, to 
 abandon the practice. But I find to my sorrow 
 that I have not got the strength of will and pur- 
 pose to do this. To such a state of debility am 
 I reduced that I find I am powerless to carry 
 into effect any resolution whatever ; and I am at 
 length satisfied that a man left alone, unaided, 
 in this condition, is entirely unable, of himself, 
 
MEDICAL ADVISER. 83 
 
 to emerge, from the depths into which he has 
 fallen. I have hitherto kept this to myself, 
 fearing, or rather ashamed, to make a confident 
 of any one. But I can do so no longer. The 
 continued drains upon my system, and the very 
 foundation of my powers of manhood, have 
 heen so long continued, that I have become the 
 involuntary victim of all those ruinous conse- 
 quences which flow from such a cause ; cold 
 night sweats, a troublesome cough, a burning 
 and feverish skin, disturbed sleep, and dreams 
 too horrid and too * * * * to narrate, admonish 
 me, that if I do not soon obtain relief, the at- 
 tempt to do so will be too late. I have there- 
 fore resolved to break through the reserve and 
 moody silence behind which I have hitherto 
 shrouded myself, and, cost what it may, throw 
 myself into the hands of some one in whom I 
 can place confidence, and submit entirely to his 
 guidance and direction until I am either restored 
 to my former self or laid at rest in the grave. I 
 have heard much of you, of your willingness to 
 undertake such cases as mine, and the great 
 success which attends your course of practice, 
 and the remedies you give. If you think you 
 
84: dr. morrill's 
 
 can cure me, consider me as your patient from 
 this moment. Not wishing to occupy your time 
 
 for nothing, I enclose dollars for which 
 
 please give me credit, and write to me at once 
 what I am to do. 
 
 I am, very respectfully, &c. 
 
 S W- . 
 
 Note. — The reader will clearly perceive from the fore- 
 going letter that this was not only a most distressing case, 
 but that, notwithstanding the writer had intended to give 
 me such a detailed statement as would enable me to pre- 
 scribe for him directly, yet, on a more carefrl examination, 
 he will eee that there was not that circumstantial detail of 
 particulars necessary for my guidance in a case of so much 
 importance. Apprised of the unhappy young gentleman's 
 inability at that time to visit me at my office, I wrote to him 
 some two or three times, suggesting topics upon which I de- 
 sired to be m< re fully informed. In the course of a fortnight 
 I had succeeded in perfecting quite a satisfactory diagnosis 
 of his case, and immediately put in active operation the 
 course of treatment I had marked out. It was not to be ex- 
 pected that habits so confirmed, and maladies so aggrava- 
 ted, could be at once broken up. Experience had too often 
 shown me that this class of patients, however determined 
 and resolved thev might express themselves to be in the 
 beginning, were not always to be relied upon in carrying 
 out your views in regard to them, and that not unfre 
 quently they defeated your best efforts in their behalf, by 
 
MEDICAL ADVISER. 85 
 
 but a half compliance with your directions. A temporary 
 relief, and a slight change for the better, would give rise to 
 a presumptuous desire to break through the rules you 
 had prescribed for their guidance, aud before you sus- 
 pected it, they would complain of the want of efficacy of 
 your treatment, and fall back into the old line of complaint 
 and despair. 
 
 But I am not in the practice of letting patients foil me in 
 my labors to effect their cure, in that way ; and it is at the 
 very moment of their greatest discouragement, that T feel 
 that I am beginning to get them well in hand, and that, 
 when they find they are past all hope, except through out- 
 side help, I am most certain that I have them on the sure 
 road to recovery and better days. And so it was with this 
 young man. By encouragemeut and persuasions I soon 
 won his entire confidence, and had the satisfaction of wit- 
 nessing his gradual progress from almost total prostration 
 to renewed vigor and health. I did not even resort to the 
 expedient of a change of residence, nor to his giving up his 
 books. My medical treatment was directed towards sub- 
 duing and soothing the nervous irritation which his habits 
 had engendered, and to strengthen and give tone to every 
 faculty which had felt the debilitating effects of his former 
 indigencies. From the constancy of my correspondence 
 with him, I did not allow the slightest change or symptom 
 to escape me ; and although I had never seen him, I felt as 
 assured of the beneficial changes which were taking place, 
 as though I had him daily in my presence. Gradually the 
 style of his correspondence, as well as the steadiness of his 
 hand and eye, indicated by his penmanship, plainly showed 
 
86 dr. morrill's 
 
 the great improvement going on, until at length I was sup- 
 prised by a call from him to thank me in person for what I 
 had done for him. 
 
 Let the reader imagine for himself, a hale, portly young 
 man, bearing about him every mark of a healthy and al- 
 most perfect manhood ; a frank, open, and ingenuous coun- 
 tenance, that shrinks from no scrutiny, and a bright, spark- 
 ling eye that almost fascinates you by its beaming lustre 
 and intelligence, and you have before you the patient 
 whose case I have just been describing. He was tho- 
 roughly cured. Every faculty of both soul and body ap- 
 peared to be fully adequate to all the exigencies of an hon- 
 orable and successful future, to which his means, and his 
 family and social relations, would justify him to aspire. I 
 am happy to say that, his subsequent career has realized 
 the highest expectations I had formed of him. Equally 
 distinguished at the bar of his adopted State, as in the na- 
 tional councils, he is, at this time, one of the most promis- 
 ing and rising men in the country. 
 
 The following letter is from a middle-aged 
 gentleman, whose early life had been marked by 
 misfortunes of no ordinary severity, which had 
 preyed upon his health to that extent as to oc- 
 casionally unfit him for all business occupations, 
 as also to render him incapable of any mental 
 enjoyments whatever. Strange as it may ap- 
 pear, this gentleman's appearance indicated in 
 
MEDICAL ADVISER. 87 
 
 no very marked degree, the infirmities of which 
 he complained. He was rather plethoric and 
 full in form, and his countenance was more like 
 that of a " bon vivant" than otherwise. To 
 one unaccustomed to read the " human face di- 
 vine," he would have been taken for almost any- 
 body else than one who was suffering under a 
 most complicated form of disease, having its 
 origin in a criminal indulgence so vile and sen- 
 sual as to excite our horror and aversion towards 
 one, who, in the form of man, could surrender 
 himself up to such gross and unnatural appe- 
 tites and desires : 
 
 B , 186—. 
 
 Dear Sir : 
 
 In the short interview which I had with you, 
 yesterday, I perceived that I staggered your 
 faith in my truthfulness when I stated to you 
 the troubles which oppress me, and which, not- 
 withstanding the fair and rosy blush of health I 
 wear, renders life almost an unsupportable bur- 
 den. You were correct in your opinion that my 
 case was an abnormal one, dependent upon 
 causes whicn required a frank avowal on my 
 
88 dr. morrill's 
 
 part before you could venture to prescribe for 
 me. Although not particularly troubled with 
 any excess of squeamishness in matters of this 
 kind, I must confess that I felt reluctant to ex- 
 pose to you, verbally, the true character of my 
 mental and physical deformities. Did I tell you 
 that I was a brute, I should come far short of 
 conveying to you any just idea of myself. I am 
 a brute, embodying every animal instinct, with 
 all the reasoning, cunning, planning, and exe- 
 cuting faculties of the human being in their 
 highest degree and perfection. A native of the 
 south of Europe, and inheriting all the hot and 
 fiery instincts of my race, I have ever sought 
 the gratification of every unholy and unlicensed 
 passion to which the creature, man, may be en- 
 slaved. 
 
 At a very early age, even in my boyhood, I 
 broke through every bound of religion, morality, 
 and blood itself, to gratify the intense desires 
 which overwhelmed me. This ever-consuming 
 fire seemed to derive new force and energy up- 
 on what it fed on, when satiety and disgust led 
 me to search out new sources of gratification, 
 until the most unnatural tastes and propensities 
 
MEDICAL ADVISER. 89 
 
 took possession of me. Consorting with men 
 and even animals, became far more preferable 
 than with the fairest and most enticing of the 
 opposite sex; and I became so addicted to it, 
 that I felt myself as, indeed, that "pestilence 
 which walketh at noon day," as, vampyre like, I 
 fattened upon the victims I destroyed. These 
 horrible and unnatural gratifications seems to 
 have had the effect of blending and incorpora- 
 ting their mischievous and deadening influence 
 throughout every faculty of my being ; shame, 
 morality, and virtue lost their distinctive quali- 
 ties in my mind, and gluttony, intemperance, 
 and excess of every kind have usurped complete 
 mastery over me. One who knows me well has 
 frequently intimated that I must look to moral 
 rather than medical influences to change me 
 from what I am. But I know letter. Moral 
 effort can hold no successful conflict with the 
 overwhelming physical clamorings of an organi- 
 zation like mine. " A sound mind in a sound 
 body," is a maxim of wisdom, but, the sound 
 body must come first. Insanity is, I presume, 
 the consequence of a diseased brain ; and al- 
 though a diseased brain requires the aid of moral 
 
90 dr. morrill's 
 
 forces to its proper readjustment, yet a nice 
 and just adaptation of sanitary appliances must 
 precede as well as accompany them, to render 
 them available. 
 
 Impotency, emasculation, and sterility admits 
 of a ready cure at *the hands of the skilful 
 physician, who, like yourself, has made this 
 branch of physiological science his particular 
 study. If excitants, tonics, and stimulants pro- 
 mote action in the one class of cases, why 
 should not antiphlogistics, anodynes, and kin- 
 dred remedies quench those fires which turn 
 man into a demon, and renders life one constant 
 rebellion against every thing pure and good. I 
 have great faith in you, doctor, hence this dis- 
 closure. Are you willing to try your skill in 
 this strange case ? I will submit to anything, 
 do anything, that I may once enjoy the tranquil- 
 ity and self-possession of perfectly cool-headed 
 manhood. My means are ample, and they are 
 at your disposal ; all I ask in return is, that I 
 may be enabled to go forth amongst my fellow- 
 men without that crushing sense of moral de- 
 gradation which is now more oppressive than any 
 "fearful looking for of fiery indignation, " in 
 
MEDICAL ADVISER. 91 
 
 the future, can possibly be. Any encourage- 
 ment you can give me will materially influence 
 my movements for the future, and I will most 
 gladly avail myself of your earliest intimation 
 that a call from me would be agreeable. 
 With great esteem, I am yours, etc. 
 
 L F . 
 
 Note. This gentleman had by no -means overstated his 
 case. At my suggestion he took appartments in my vicin- 
 ity where I could daily observe his conduct. It was clearly 
 evident that his misfortunes were chiefly owing to a mor- 
 bid state of the whole systen, similar to that which in some 
 persons manifests itself in a ravenous appetite, which can 
 only be appeased by devouring enormous quantities of tho 
 most indigestible and revolting substances for food. I felt 
 satisfied that the case w T as a fair one for medical treatment, 
 and governed myself accordingly. It would be useless for 
 me to attempt to describe to the nonprofessional reader 
 the course I adopted, and readily submitted to by my pa- 
 tient, to exorcise this "unclean spirit" which possessed 
 him. Suffice it to say, that, after an unusual degree of 
 application on my part, I had the satisfaction at length of 
 reducing the "fair proportions of his ruling passion," until 
 he sobered down into a rational human being. Bereft of 
 no quality, nor in anywise shorn of his proper manhood, he 
 has become a model of regularity, moderation, and of all 
 the gentler virtues. His striking manly beauty still marks 
 
92 
 
 him as a general favorite, whilst those coarser features 
 which formerly marred him, have disappeared forever. My 
 last letter from him, dated several years ago, informed me, 
 that at length he had settled down, rejoicing in the society 
 of an amiable companion, and with an undisturbed temper- 
 ament and tranquillity of soul which promised to compen- 
 sate him, in part, for the tumultuous and stormy past. 
 
 I have hesitated long before I could persuade myself to 
 give place to the foregoing in these pages. But on reflec- 
 tion I felt that, as it was a true record, and represented a 
 class by no means rare or uncommon, I would not withhold 
 it, from the apprehensions of the criticisms of the incredu- 
 lous or narrow-minded. Human nature is the same every- 
 where, beset by the same temptations, and destroyed by 
 the same vices; and the medical man, better than all 
 others, knows to what extent the justification exists for 
 calling attention to this gentleman's case. 
 
 [Letter Third.] 
 
 D , 186—. 
 
 Doctor Morrill, 
 
 Boston, Mass. : 
 
 Dear Sir : I enclose a gentleman's card, 
 with his endorsement upon the back of it, well 
 known to you, as my introduction. For some 
 months past I have been in search of a skilful 
 medical man, whom I might safely consult in a 
 
MEDICAL ADVISER. 93 
 
 matter involving not only my own happiness, but 
 the peace, health, and, possibly, the life itself of 
 my wife. For several years she has been an in- 
 valid. She is now thirty-three years of age, and 
 we have been married upwards of twelve years. 
 Shortly after the birth of our child, a son of 
 nearly eleven years of age, her health began to 
 decline, since which time, notwithstanding the 
 many physicians to whom she has applied, and 
 the various means resorted to for relief, she has 
 continued in. a state of debility so nearly border- 
 ing on downright sickness as to be seldom capa- 
 ble of attending to any of the duties, or enjoying 
 any of the comforts, much less the pleasures, of 
 society, or even of life itself. So repeated has 
 been her failures to obtain beneficial medical 
 aid, that, long since she gave up all hope of ob- 
 taining it at the hands of any of those physicians 
 whom we have been in the habit of regarding as 
 our oracles in all matters of this kind, She de- 
 clares herself disgusted, and wearied out by this 
 constant succession of potions, pills, and pow- 
 ders, tonics, stimulants, and alteratives, as they 
 are termed, and has about made up her mind to 
 resign herself to her fate, whatever that may be. 
 
94: 
 
 This is not so much to be wondered at when I 
 inform you that there is hardly a physician of 
 any note in the city with whom she has not con- 
 sulted, many of them repeatedly, but all of them 
 to little purpose. My friend, who so highly 
 recommends you, has endeavored to prevail upon 
 her to consult you ; but with a perversity, if not 
 peculiar to her sex, at least strongly character- 
 istic of her infirmities, she persists in her reso- 
 lution henceforth to let the doctors alone. This 
 all might do very well, if she alone was the suf- 
 ferer. But I, being a party quite as much 
 interested as she is, have resolved that no efforts 
 shall remain untried to enable her to regain her 
 health, and that I may have restored to me the 
 society and companionship of a wife to whom I 
 am most fondly attached. I cannot see her thus, 
 day by day, sinking into a premature grave, 
 whilst there remains the least earthly possibility 
 of rescuing her from her present perilous condi- 
 tion. I have, therefore, determined to give to 
 you, myself, such facts concerning her case as I 
 am conversant with; and as I have been for 
 many years past, to a great extent, her principal 
 nurse, I am not certain but that I can give you 
 
MEDICAL ADVISER. 95 
 
 all the description necessary to enable you to 
 form a pretty just opinion of whom you are to 
 treat, and the troubles you are expected to 
 eradicate. Soon after the birth of our child my 
 wife's health commenced gradually to give way, 
 and she filled, with difficulty, the offices of a 
 mother, against my remonstrances ; she declined 
 to resign her child to other hands during its in- 
 fancy, and, although no immediate consequences 
 were apparent, yet it was evident that her phy- 
 sical powers were not equal to the burden she 
 assumed. 
 
 Whatever may have been the causes, thence- 
 forward there seemed to be a general breaking 
 up and falling to pieces of her entire system. 
 Disorders of the womb, breasts, and a general 
 weakness of all the genital organs indicated but 
 too surely an enfeebled and relaxed condition 
 of the system, calling for the immediate applica- 
 tion of remedial measures of some sort. The 
 physician whom I called did not seem to under- 
 stand the case, or, if he did, he miserably failed 
 in his selection of remedies ; for, instead of 
 getting better, her maladies assumed a more 
 dangerous and complicated form. She ceased 
 
96 dr. morrill's 
 
 to become a mother, and seemed to be beset by 
 all those disorders which call so loudly for our 
 sympathy and aid. Labor and exercise of any 
 kind become too irksome to be borne, whilst 
 headaches, indigestion, pains in the abdomen, 
 great susceptibility to atmospheric changes, ex- 
 treme irregularity in all the natural functions, 
 bleedings, and other discharges, combined to 
 depress her spirits and undermine her strength, 
 until she is now but a wreck of her former self. 
 With this wearing away of the physical forces, 
 there is also a decay of the mental faculties still 
 more distressing to witness. She has fever to a 
 considerable degree, yet the absence of the 
 hectic flush of the cheek, or cough, or other 
 usual signs of consumption, leads me to indulge 
 the belief that her disease is not consumption in 
 any of its forms. 
 
 Physicians have repeatedly intimated con- 
 sumption, spinal disease, or some ovarian com- 
 plaint, and have, in turn, treated her for all 
 these; and yet, the same emaciation, loss of 
 appetite, discharges of blood and serum, disin- 
 clination to effort of any kind, and repugnance 
 to all society, continues as at first. Were I not 
 
MEDICAL ADVISER. 97 
 
 afraid to entertain the thought, or pronounce the 
 word, I should say that imbecility was the proper 
 term to employ as descriptive of the condition 
 to which she appears to be now fast tending. 
 She makes less complaint than formerly, and 
 manifests less solicitude for her restoration to 
 health ; and I fear there are grounds for this in 
 the almost passive state to which she is reduced. 
 I wish it were so that I could induce her to un- 
 dergo the journey necessary to see you, but 
 that is entirely out of the question. Prom what 
 I have written, can you form any just idea of 
 her disease, and would you venture to take her 
 case in hand? Could you do this, doctor, I 
 should consider myself fortunate in having se- 
 cured your services in her behalf. Enclosed 
 please find a fee, which I trust will be satisfac- 
 tory. 
 
 Your early reply will be awaited for with deep 
 anxiety, and gratefully appreciated by 
 
 Most respectfully, your ob't serv't, 
 
 If the reader has perused this book with any 
 degree of attention, and failed to recognize in 
 
98 br. morrill's 
 
 the above description, by her husband, of Mrs. 
 M.'s case, a clear and decided case of self- abuse, 
 then I cannot give him credit for ordinary pen- 
 etration and acuteness. 
 
 I introduce this letter, and the case it describes, 
 in order to show to the reader a peculiar char- 
 acteristic of this propensity, not alone confined 
 to females, but shared alike by both sexes. 
 Here was a lady who had lived under the same 
 roof, shared the same bed, and otherwise co- 
 habited with an affectionate, confiding, and 
 devoted husband for thirteen years ; and yet, all 
 this time, had been able to elude his watchful- 
 ness to that extent as to completely disarm sus- 
 picion itself; whilst he, hapless husband that he 
 was, in the supposition that his wife was the 
 victim of some deep-seated and occult disorder, 
 far beyond the reach of ordinary skill, and, as 
 it has been shown, not even thought of by the 
 many doctors who had attended her, was about 
 to surrender her to the grave, as past the possi- 
 bility of cure, never dreamed that his wife was 
 simply a masturbationist, and as such, as fit a 
 subject for medical treatment as though she was 
 simply affected by catarrh, or any other anala- 
 
MEDICAL ADVISER. 99 
 
 gous disease. 'Tis true that she had inflicted 
 serious and almost fatal injury upon herself; 
 but she was not yet past hope of restoration. 
 The striking feature of the case is the cunning, 
 secresy, and deception resorted to by the sub- 
 jects of this vice. Strange as may appear, the 
 habit seems to sharpen all the faculties of con- 
 cealment and duplicity, whilst it deadens and 
 paralyzes every moral sentiment, and leads its 
 votaries to deceive and to shun their best friends 
 and most intimate associates. Even the pros- 
 pects of relief are disregarded, and the kindest 
 purposes of the physician defeated by a conceal- 
 ment and evasion rarely resorted to under any 
 other circumstances. With this patient neither 
 stratagem nor circumlocution would be availa- 
 ble. My only course was to attack her with 
 plainness of speech and directness of inquiry. 
 With her husband's permission I wrote to her, 
 stating, not my suspicions merely, but charging 
 her directly with being addicted to solitary vices, 
 and attributing all her maladies and sufferings 
 to them alone. Whether she ever showed that 
 letter to her husband, is more than I can say. 
 But a short time afterwards I received a letter 
 
100 dr. morrill's 
 
 directly from herself, begging me to prescribe 
 for her, as she was " satisfied that I understood 
 her case, and would do for her better than any 
 one else." 
 
 Of course I immediately acceded to her re- 
 quest, and, carefully protecting myself against 
 any surprises or duplicity on her part, I sub- 
 jected her to a rigid and thorough course of 
 treatment, both medicinal and hygienic, until, 
 both from her own and her husband's state- 
 ments, she has completely regained her former 
 good health. Subsequently, on becoming per- 
 sonally acquainted with her, she informed me 
 that, up to that moment, her husband had re- 
 mained in entire ignorance of the true cause 
 and nature of her complaints ; and she thanked 
 me over and over again, not only for the decided 
 steps I had taken, but for the discreet, cautious, 
 as well as successful manner in which I had 
 treated her, and relieved her of all her troubles. 
 
 I might continue, with the materials in my 
 possession, to illustrate by letters and testimo- 
 nials without number, the great success which 
 has ever attended that system of treatment 
 which I have adopted in those cases usually 
 
MEDICAL ADVISER. 101 
 
 denominated " delicate," and which forms so 
 large a share of those which afflict mankind. 
 Notwithstanding the country, and our large 
 cities especially, is literally crowded "by those 
 who make large pretensions to extraordinary 
 skill, and style themselves " doctors," whose 
 only claim to that distinction is that they are 
 ahle to keep up a standing advertisement in 
 some of our newspapers, but whose real attain- 
 ments in medical science can be measured by 
 an 0. I have felt that in the open, liberal, and 
 faithful exercise of a specialty made honorable 
 by such names as Abercrombie, Hunter, Bell, 
 Ricord, Acton, and many others whose learned 
 investigations and writings upon this subject 
 have done so much to benefit mankind, I need 
 not fear, nor shrink from being placed on any 
 degree in the scale of " professional respecta- 
 bility," to which my professional brethren may 
 choose to assign me. My tribunal is the public 
 at large, and by its judgment I am content to 
 abide. It has been truly said that "nothing 
 succeeds so well as success." Judged by that 
 criterion, I do not hesitate to compare myself 
 with any of my compeers, certain as I am that, 
 in point of numbers cured, I excel them all. 
 
102 dr. morrill's 
 
 In conclusion, let me say that, although I do 
 not consider this book by any means as an ad- 
 vertising medium, but solely what it claims to 
 be, — A Medical Adviser, and Guide to 
 Health, — yet I believe my readers will concur 
 with me in the strict propriety of calling atten- 
 tion to the great facilities I possess for the care 
 and treatment of the sick at my extensive 
 establishment No. 3 Bulfinch Street, Boston, 
 Mass. Secluded from general observation, 
 in one of the pleasantest streets in the city, 
 with easy access to all public conveyances, and 
 in the immediate neighborhood of the chief ob- 
 jects of public interest, the Mall, the Common, 
 the Public Oar den, the Horticultural Rooms, 
 the Museum, the Reservoir, and the State 
 House, I claim for it advantages of location 
 possessed by no other private establishment in 
 the city. Good nursing, careful and faithful 
 attendance, and medical treatment under my 
 own immediate supervision, with all remedies 
 directly from my own laboratory, will ensure to 
 patients all that science, art, and skill can of- 
 fer for their comfort and relief. I prefer to con- 
 sult oracally with my patients, if possible. But 
 
MEDICAL ADVISER. 103 
 
 if that be impossible, or inconvenient, letters, 
 plainly and distinctly written, stating the nature 
 of the disease, the age and occupation of the 
 patient, addressed to me, containing two dol- 
 lars, consultation fee, will be promptly attend- 
 ed to. In order to avoid any mistakes and delay, 
 please direct letters as follows : — 
 
 F. MORRILL, M. D., 
 
 No. 3-Bulfinch Street, Boston, Mass. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 IN addition to the directions already given for 
 the treatment of the more common diseases 
 for which the aid of a physician is required and 
 most usually sought after, I have thought it best 
 to subjoin here a few of the most valuable and 
 reliable prescriptions, to which the sufferer may 
 safely resort in case of need. These prescrip- 
 tions are the result of a large experience, and 
 may be safely depended upon. With one or 
 two exceptions, they are such as can be put up 
 in any country apothecary's store, and may be 
 
104: dr. momull's 
 
 used, as directed, with perfect safety. All these 
 diseases have so many modifications, and pa- 
 tients differ so much in susceptibility to conta- 
 gion and inflammation, as well as in the resis- 
 tant powers of nature, that no two cases can be 
 properly treated alike. What might cure one 
 person in forty-eight hours of a slight attack, 
 might be as inert and powerless with another as 
 so much water. It is the physician alone, who 
 by his powers of discrimination and judgment, 
 derived from a long familiarity with the various 
 shades of these complaints, can with certainty 
 be relied upon. I have selected the following 
 prescriptions from among those I most fre- 
 quently use in my own practice, and can safely 
 recommend them : 
 
 A good wash for a simple Chancre : 
 
 R. Acid Tanici, 
 
 Zinc Sulph., each 2 grs. 
 Soft Water, 2 drs. 
 
 Saturate a bit of lint larger than the sore, so 
 as to keep it moist, and at the same time cover 
 the sore, to protect the opposite healthy surface. 
 
 Eicord's Anti- Syphilitic Pill is one of the best 
 
MEDICAL ADVISER. 105 
 
 remedies I know of, on the first appearance of a 
 Chancre, and is almost a perfect antidote to con- 
 stitutional infection : 
 
 R. Iodide of Mercury, 
 
 Extract of Lettuce, half a drachm each, 
 u Hemlock, one drachm. 
 
 Mix, and make thirty pills. 
 
 Dose. One at bed time, and, in urgent cases, 
 even three to six may be given daily, in which 
 case they should be divided up in doses morn- 
 ing, noon, and night. 
 
 Where injections of Nitrate of Silver, in case 
 of gonorrhoea may be objectionable, from any 
 cause whatever, the Chlorate of Potash may be 
 used with every assurance of success and safety. 
 It is not so prompt in its effects as the Mtrate 
 of Silver, and requires some degree of perse- 
 verance in its use to perfect a cure : 
 
 R. Chlorate of Potash, one drachm, 
 Water, eight ounces. 
 
 Mix. In the early stages use an injection, every 
 hour, for twelve hours ; then four, and finally 
 three times a day. All remedies for gonorrhoea 
 should be continued, in reduced doses, for a 
 week, at least, after the discharge ceases. 
 
106 dr. morrill's 
 
 In obstinate cases of gonorrhoea, and leucorr- 
 hosa in females, the following mixture of astrin- 
 gent of bark of Bazil is often found highly- 
 effective : 
 
 K. Decoct, cort. adstring. Brasil, 7 fluid ounces, 
 Copaib, cum vitelli ovi qs. subact, 
 Tinct. ferri pomati aa, seven drachms, 
 Syrup balsam, one fluid ounce. 
 Dose. A spoonful every two hours. 
 N. B. The above should only be put up by a 
 careful apothecary. 
 
 In the chronic stages of gonorrhoea and gleet, 
 Creasote is often found to be a very useful rem- 
 edy, taken in doses of two drops, with loaf-sugar 
 beaten into syrup with water, three or four times 
 a day. Ordinary cases of leucorrhoea, in fe- 
 males, may generally be cured in three or four 
 days by weak injections of Creasote, two drops 
 to the ounce of water, repeated twice, or thrice 
 daily, Copaiba should never be used at the 
 same time with Creasote. 
 
 I consider it quite unnecessary to multiply 
 prescriptions for the diseases above alluded to, 
 as they would only serve to embarrass and per- 
 
MEDICAL ADVISER. 107 
 
 plex the sufferer. Those now given are only 
 designed for his use, until he can have recourse 
 to some honest and skilful physician. Let him 
 avoid all patent and advertised remedies, and 
 quack humbugs, and he cannot fail to be better 
 off, and far safer, than in the hands of the 
 charlatan knave who is solely after his money. 
 In cases of syphilitic attacks, such as the ap- 
 pearance of a chancre, a simple water dressing 
 with lint, is all that is necessary until a physi- 
 cian can be consulted. In any case, a resort to 
 mercurial or potassiam, or any of the popular 
 remedies, should be avoided until prescribed by 
 him. Should the chancre have made much pro- 
 gress, sprinkling it with pure dry calomel is 
 often found very beneficial. In a large ma- 
 jority of cases, the alterative effects of mercury 
 can be better attained by using the common 
 blue ointment, (ungueutum) rubbing it upon the 
 inside of the thighs. Should the palate, or roof 
 of the mouth be attacked, the common black 
 wash, procured at any druggist's, may be care- 
 fully applied with a camePs hair pencil ; or, a 
 small bit of the nitrate of silver, carefully inser- 
 ted in a quill, may be drawn over and around 
 
108 
 
 the edges of the sore. By the aid of a small 
 mirror, the patient may do this for himself, as 
 effectually as the best surgeon in the world. 
 
 The reader will, I trust, constantly bear in 
 mind that these suggestions in regard to his use of 
 medical agencies, are only designed to aid him 
 when he cannot at once have the benefit of the 
 advice and direction of a good doctor. Persons 
 residing in villages and country towns, where 
 there are but one or two physicians, at most, 
 are very often quite reluctant to consult with 
 them, or to expose to them their condition, and 
 consequently prefer to run the risk of doctoring 
 themselves for awhile, until they can repair to 
 the city. There is prudence in this course for 
 more reasons than simply the dislike to make 
 the family, or neighborhood doctor, a confident 
 in your troubles. The country doctor seldom 
 knows anything about this class of diseases. 
 When a student, he may have read something 
 about them, and a general knowledge of them, 
 as derived from the books, may have been at- 
 tained as a part of his medical education ; but 
 who is there that does not know very well that 
 the treatment of all these diseases are now entire- 
 

 MEDICAL ADVISER. 109 
 
 ly different from what it was even ten years ago, 
 and that the writings of even such standard au- 
 thors as Thomas, the Bells, Copeland, and a 
 host of others whom I might name, are alto- 
 gether out of date, and entirely unreliable upon 
 these subjects. I do not mean to intimate that 
 there are not as good doctors in the country 
 towns as in the city; there are many country 
 doctors who would justly be regarded as orna- 
 ments to their profession anywhere. But the 
 country practitioner is not called up to exercise 
 his skill in private diseases, to that extent as to 
 prompt him to become an expert in their treat- 
 ment ; a case or two in a year, and perhaps not 
 even that, is generally the extent of his experi- 
 ence, and even that he touches reluctantly. If 
 he cures, well. If he fails, it is just as well to 
 him ; he knows that his patient will keep still 
 about it in either case. I knew a case some 
 years ago, where a young gentleman residing in 
 a country town, on his first visit to the city, was 
 so unfortunate as to contract for the first time, 
 a simple gonorrhoea. It did not develope itself 
 fully until his return home, when suspecting the 
 cause of his trouble, he applied to his friend the 
 
110 DR. 
 
 village doctor for relief. That gentleman was 
 considered one of the very best of physicians 
 and surgeons in the whole region around. His 
 large practice, and uniform success, made him 
 prominent as one of the safest and most reliable 
 medical counsellors, in all that section of coun- 
 try. Of course he readily undertook my young 
 friends case, and for months, and months, he 
 dosed, drugged, and tormented him, with all 
 the various compounds, and combinations of 
 copaiba, cubebs, nitre, various emulsions, &c, 
 &c, until the poor fellow was literally worn 
 down to skin and bone. He has often since 
 shown me the old doctor's account and bill of 
 items for that seige, as he termed it, and there, 
 runing through a period of over six months, is 
 put down, day and date, and item by item, a 
 list of medicines, in all, with services, amount- 
 ing to over two hundred dollars, for the treat- 
 ment, (not cure mind you) of a simple case 
 that I could have easily cured in a weeks time, 
 at a tenth part of the expense. Now-a-days 
 the treatment of urino genital diseases, and 
 all disorders of the generative organs, and their 
 functions, has settled down into a science as ex- 
 
MEDICAL ADVISER. Ill 
 
 act as that of any other; and in conformity 
 with a custom long established in European 
 capitals, the treatment of this class of diseases 
 is confined to a few, who are designated as 
 specialists, who have perfected themselves in 
 this particular branch of medical and surgical 
 science, by great aptitude for it, extensive 
 study and investigation, and the practical expe- 
 rience afforded by a varied and extensive prac- 
 tice. With them it is emphatically true that, 
 ''practice makes perfect," and as success is 
 about the best criterion of merit, the afflicted 
 have only to inquire who of them it is, that is 
 reputed to have the most extensive practice. 
 That fact ascertained, there need be no further 
 difficulty in making the selection of your medi- 
 cal adviser. 
 
112 dr. morrill's 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 SPERMATORRHEA, SEMINAL WEAKNESS AND NOC- 
 TURNAL EMISSIONS. 
 
 I CANNOT conclude this treatise without a 
 more particular allusion to a class of dis- 
 eases affecting the pro creative organs, which 
 are alarmingly prevalent, and gradually under- 
 mining the very foundations of our best man- 
 hood and womanhood in their most interesting 
 and important relations to society and domestic 
 life. Whether it is that, owing to a more gen- 
 eral dissemination of knowledge in this respect, 
 through an outspoken candor on the part of the 
 medical profession, or that the habits and ten- 
 dencies of society, as now constituted, tending 
 to that result, it is a most melancholy truth, 
 that at the present time, the disorders and infir- 
 mities coming under those named at the head of 
 this chapter are alarmingly prevalent, and appli- 
 cations fcr their treatment occupy no inconsid- 
 erable share of the time and attention of the 
 well-known specialist. In the whole range of 
 
MEDICAL ADVISER. 113 
 
 his duties as a medical adviser, does he find any 
 physical derangements, the successful treatment 
 of which are so difficult, and generally speaking, 
 unsatisfactory to himself and patient, as these. 
 This is not so much in consequence of any 
 difficulty or doubt attending the proper mode of 
 treatment to be observed, as in the difficulty of 
 securing the patient's strict observance of the 
 rules prescribed for his cure. 
 
 Tha common and vulgar notion which prevails, 
 especially among the uneducated, that wonder- 
 ful virtues are connected with excessive drug- 
 ging and dosing, that there is some magic power 
 contained in " a bottle of medicine," they can- 
 not relinquish the idea that health and constant 
 pill eating are inseparable. They imagine and 
 expect that the consequences of a life of indis- 
 cretion, excess, and, it may be bestiality, or 
 what is next thing to it, is to be overcome and 
 done away with in a few days or weeks at 
 farthest, by a twenty or thirty dollar bottle of 
 some compound which some cunning M. D. has 
 advertised, under the high-sounding title of 
 Panacea, Invigorator, Regenerator, Balsam of 
 Life, or something of the kind, the more far- 
 
114 DR. 
 
 fetched and nonsensical the better. It is hard 
 to convince such people that the stamina of a 
 constitution, sapped and undermined by years 
 of violence perpetrated on themselves, is to be 
 restored by the simple administration of a few- 
 tonics, and that a week or two of self-denial 
 will be all that is necessary to set them all right 
 again. That this idea is nattered and taken ad- 
 vantage of by most of the unprincipled quacks 
 who advocate their " specific" cures and won- 
 derful remedies, is notoriously true, and whilst 
 at the present day a few unsophisticated coun- 
 trymen, and simple-minded youth may be taken 
 by such " chaff," no reputable physician, whose 
 conscienscious regard to what he owes to his 
 profession, and to the welfare of his patient, 
 will for a moment countenance such downright 
 imposition upon the credulous and unsuspect- 
 ing. In the course of my long experience of 
 over thirty- three years, almost daily dealing 
 with this class of patients, and deriving no in - 
 considerable portion of my professional income 
 from their treatment, I have ever found candor, 
 truth and straight-forward dealing the most 
 successful and abiding in their results. I frankly 
 
MEDICAL ADVISER. 115 
 
 state to my patient the nature of his difficulties, 
 how they have been produced, the disorganizing 
 process which has long been going on, and the 
 need of moral and hygienic, as well as medical 
 treatment to his restoration. I convince him by 
 a reference to himself and his own experience, 
 that I understand his case as well as though I 
 had watched his every movement from his boy- 
 hood up, and instead of sending him away a 
 hopeless, desponding wretch, in his estimation 
 only fitted for the mad-house, or a suicide's 
 grave, I open to him new hopes, a new life, and 
 convince him that, there is yet in him the stuff 
 of which men, active, useful, noble men. are 
 made. I point out to him a method of relief 
 and cure, so certain, efficacious, and reliable, 
 that his common sense at once seconds all I say 
 to him. I at once strip aside the veil which has 
 been placed before his eyes by the cunning and 
 avaricious knaves who may have hitherto preyed 
 upon his weakness and his fears, and show him 
 how, with a few simple remedies, and a fair per- 
 severance in a course of treatment by no means 
 difficult to be followed, a knowledge of which is 
 of far greater value in gold than all the potions 
 
116 DR. 
 
 in the world ; he can be re-invigorated, re-juve- 
 nated, and restored without fear of relapse, or 
 doing violenee to any law of his being. 
 
 That masturbation is, in ninety-nine cases out 
 of a hundred, the direct cause of Spermatorrhea 
 is generally admitted ; but all seminal weakness 
 is not Spermatorrhea ; and although that com- 
 plaint is, as I have before stated, alarmingly 
 prevalent, and on the increase, yet it is only the 
 skilful diagnostician that can properly discrimi- 
 nate between it and many other complaints, 
 producing almost similar effects, such as noc- 
 turnal emissions, etc., that it would be extremely 
 improper, and often very unsafe for the patient 
 to attempt, unadvisedly, to treat himself. Gen- 
 eral rules may, however, with great propriety 
 be given, by the observance of which very sen- 
 sible relief may be obtained. In a conversation 
 held by myself many years ago, with the vener- 
 able Dr. Samuel Thompson, the father of the 
 Botanical school of medicine in this country, 
 speaking of some particular inflammatory dis- 
 ease then under consideration, the old doctor, 
 in reply to an inquiry as to the best mode of 
 treatment, threw out in his terse, common sense 
 
MEDICAL ADVISER. 117 
 
 way, this hint : " take off the wood and the fire 
 will go out," an aphorism which contains a world 
 of wisdom, and in no sense more applicable than 
 to the subject under consideration. No med- 
 ication, however skilfully devised, no moral, or 
 hygienic treatment, however perseveringly fol- 
 lowed, can avail anything, so long as the miser- 
 able practice which has given rise to the disease' 
 is indulged in. To effect its entire and instant 
 abandonment should be the first care of the 
 medical adviser. He should be plain and out- 
 spoken in his expression of the evils of the prac- 
 tice, and, assuming the privilege which is justly 
 considered as the duty of every upright physi- 
 cian, point out to the transgressor that his sin 
 is one against the laws of God, as well as against 
 his own well-being, and that for strength to aid 
 him in his efforts for recovery, he should look 
 higher than to mere professional skill for assis- 
 tance and support. " Lead us not into tempta- 
 tion, but deliver us from all evil," should be his 
 constant prayer. In this frame of mind, and 
 taught that masturbation is " a cowardly, selfish 
 and debasing habit," he may with confidence rely 
 upon the efforts of the surgeon to remedy the 
 
118 dr. morrill's 
 
 mischiefs which have been done by previous 
 excesses. If he understands his business, these 
 remedies will not be confined to any one set of 
 prescriptions, but adapted to the age, constitu- 
 tion, habits, peculiarities, and temperament of 
 the patient. Whilst in some cases, the simple 
 abstinence from late suppers, tea, coffee and 
 tobacco, the use of straw mattresses to lie upon 
 instead of feather beds, the use of the shower- 
 bath every morning, regular exercise short of 
 fatigue, such as boating, riding, boxing, or walk- 
 ing, will accomplish wonders, and preclude the 
 necessity of a resort to more active measures, 
 the use of tonics, very nutricious food, and sea- 
 air, will be indicated as necessary to re-invigo- 
 rate the system at a later stage of the complaint ; 
 and when the victim has been a sufferer for 
 years, nothing short of a complete surrender of 
 himself into the hands of his medical adviser, 
 can save him from the consequences of his 
 follies. 
 
 My reader will have seen, if he possesses a 
 particle of common sense, how inadequate any 
 prescriptions would be, laid indiscriminately 
 before him, to assist him in combatting the " foul 
 
MEDICAL ADVISER. 119 
 
 fiend " with which he has to deal. Aside from 
 masturbation, his difficulty may have been en- 
 gendered and stimulated by other causes, which 
 the practiced eye and matured experience of the 
 specialist, in this department of medical science, 
 can only detect. Organic lesions, a morbid 
 sensitiveness of the parts, arising from urethral 
 diseases, such as strictures, granular or fungoid 
 vegetations, or even animalcula, which can only 
 be detected by microscopic examination, may 
 indicate both surgical, as well as medical appli- 
 cations to effect a cure. Such being the case, 
 applicants for relief should well remember the 
 importance of personal consultation, in order to 
 obtain the full benefit of the surgeon's skill, and 
 how much it is they ask of him, when, in a care- 
 lessly composed letter, omitting almost every 
 detail, they ask of him ' ' how much he will 
 charge them to cure," and " how long it will 
 take." And here I am led to observe, how diffi- 
 cult it is to contend against the prevalent vulgar 
 idea, that the greater the quantity of medicine 
 administered, the more likely of quick relief. 
 The inordinate passion for drugging is charac- 
 teristic of anything but a correct idea of the 
 
120 dr. morrill's 
 
 proper uses of medicine, and made to subserve 
 the purposes of the most venal and unprincipled 
 of those whose only aim is money, in the exer- 
 cise of a profession which they disgrace. How 
 many bottles of colored water, or powders of 
 magnesia are directed to be taken " ut fecisse 
 aliquid videamur," that something may be done 
 which shall be seen, in order to satisfy this 
 appetite for drugs, which seems to possess so 
 many. People hardly reflect that in the critical 
 and careful investigation of a disease, and form- 
 ing a proper estimate of its causes, and the 
 proper means of arresting its further progress ; 
 the rallying powers of nature are weighed with 
 almost countless circumstances, go to make up 
 the physician's prescription, and that he who 
 succeeds with the least resort to exterior aid, 
 is incomparably more skilful than him, who, 
 hap-hazard, begins to stuff his patient with the 
 nauseating and vile compounds which, for the 
 most part, compose our materia medica. In- 
 fluenced by these views, I have latterly directed 
 my researches towards a reduction to the least 
 available quantity of such drugs, etc., as I find 
 it necessary to administer, and those put up in 
 
MEDICAL ADVISER. 121 
 
 that form in which their active qualities are con- 
 centrated to the smallest possible space, and I 
 have hopes, that ere long I shall be enabled to 
 send through the mails, in the smallest sized 
 pill-box, medicines more efficacious, and less 
 repulsive than in the form hitherto administered ; 
 which shall be certain and reliable in all those 
 cases in which my prescriptions are sought for. 
 I have but a word or two more to add. My 
 education, researches and investigations into 
 these subjects have cost me much valuable time 
 and money. In order to satisfy the large de- 
 mands of thought and reflection called for by 
 my extensive correspondence, I must necessarily 
 confide to assistants some portion of the manual 
 labor incident to my business. All this costs 
 money. Therefore correspondents and others 
 should remember that, as my time is valuable, 
 it is but just that those who ask me to appro- 
 priate it to their benefit, should render me a fair 
 remuneration for doing so. Letters therefore 
 should always contain a liberal consultation fee, 
 in order to insure prompt and full answers. 
 
122 DR. 
 
 N. B. I deem it proper to warn the reader, 
 and such as may desire to call upon me, at my 
 office and place of business, that The Peoples' 
 Medical Institute is at No. 3 Bulfinch 
 Street, a few doors out of Bowdoin Square, 
 and directly opposite the east front of the Revere 
 House. The Institute will be recognized at 
 once by its bow front, and the bronze dogs on 
 each side of the front entrance. I am thus par- 
 ticular in describing the building, as patients 
 from the country desiring to call at the Institute 
 having come to the city for that very purpose, 
 have frequently been inveighled into other es- 
 tablishments of doubtful reputation either for 
 skill or honesty, and have been treated there 
 under the impression and assurance that they 
 were receiving the attention of Dr. Morrill ! ! 
 
 BE CAREFUL THEN TO REMEMBER 
 that Dr. Morrill's place is at No. 3 Buxfinch 
 Street, and don't be deceived by any represen- 
 tations whatever, but, as the late Davy Crockett 
 would say, " Be sure you are right and then go 
 ahead." 
 
MEDICAL ADVISER. 123 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 PERSONAL AND PROFESSIONAL. 
 
 IN taking charge of The Peoples' Medical 
 Institute, Doctor Morrill would avtiil 
 himself of the opportunity afforded by the pub- 
 lication of this new and revised edition of The 
 Medical Adviser, to express his sincere grati- 
 tude and thanks to a large circle of personal 
 friends and patrons, as also to a liberal and dis- 
 cerning public, for the encouragement, confi- 
 dence, and extensive patronage hitherto bestowed 
 upon him, and reaching now nearly a period of 
 thirty-three years, during which time he has 
 resided and practised his profession in this city. 
 Coming here almost the third of a century ago, 
 an entire stranger, young in years, with but the 
 slight experience of a few months of country 
 practice, and profoundly ignorant of the wiles, 
 competitions and struggles of a city life, he has, 
 through the encouragement which an earnest 
 endeavor to attain success has inspired, been 
 fortunate in securing the patronage of thousands 
 
124: 
 
 of intelligent men and women, whose confidence 
 and good opinion could only be attained by 
 some degree of merit ; and has been enabled to 
 acquire a permanence, position, and professional 
 standing of which he may well be proud, and 
 which should satisfy any reasonable ambition. 
 In the course of this long period of time he has 
 witnessed the debut, progress, and alas, also the 
 decline and obscuration of an almost countless 
 multitude of Doctors, Specialists, and " Pro- 
 fessors " of the healing art, who have swarmed 
 around him, and sought to tide themselves over 
 the rough channels of a metropolitan struggle 
 for prominence and success, and watching them 
 from the prologue to the epilogue of their brief 
 play, he has often been led to thank God that, 
 He had endowed him with a persistency, forti- 
 tude and ability which has enabled him to sur- 
 mount difficulties and opposition which had 
 crippled and disheartened so many. To day, as 
 in the past, there are those who would captivate 
 the public by grand pretensions of great attain- 
 ments, lofty titles, and conferred dignities ; who 
 claim to have exercised their skill in hospitals, 
 and upon the tented field, and as authors 
 
MEDICAL ADVISER. 125 
 
 excited wonderment and admiration at home 
 and abroad; thus throwing out their baits to 
 catch the credulous and allure the unwary. 
 But I have learned to estimate such persons at 
 pretty near their true value ; and that, the non- 
 combative system, if strictly adhered to, would, 
 in a short time, rid me of all such opposition. 
 If not outspoken, my course has resolved itself 
 into that inspired by Uncle Toby's treatment of 
 the fly which buzzed about his ears, " Go poor 
 insect, I will not kill thee ; the world has room 
 enough for thee and me." In this frame of 
 mind I have resisted the many temptations to a 
 retirement from the arduous duties of a some- 
 what exacting profession, to the quiet enjoy- 
 ment of the fruits of my long and eminently suc- 
 cessful career as a medical practitioner. The 
 constantly growing necessity in this city for 
 some institution which would operate as a bar- 
 rier to the daily frauds, deceptions, impositions, 
 and extortions practised upon hundreds of un- 
 sophisticated and artless victims of city tempta- 
 tions having led to the establishment of The 
 Peoples' Medical Institute, I have been in- 
 duced to embark in the enterprize, and give to 
 
126 dr. morrill's 
 
 it my hearty sympathy and co-operation. Placed 
 at the head of it by the very flattering partiality 
 of its projectors and founders, I find myself 
 almost unexpectedly in a position where my 
 large experience, and habits of careful study 
 and investigation, will find ample scope for ex- 
 ercise as well as display. 
 
 In the prime of life, and in the enjoyment of 
 unimpaired vigor of both body and mind, I enter 
 upon the work assigned me, with all the eager- 
 ness and ardor of confident ability to discharge 
 every duty incumbent upon me with success and 
 credit to myself, and to the entire satisfaction of 
 my friends and patrons, amongst whom I am hap- 
 py to say that those of the female sex have con- 
 stituted a very large and interesting proportion. 
 Very early in my practice the circumstance of 
 being located in a section of country where I 
 had but few professional rivals, and constantly 
 called upon to attend to all the various cases 
 always arising in a country neighborhood, I 
 felt an ambition to excel, particularly in cases 
 where the ladies were to become the objects of 
 my solicitude and care. 
 
 In all female complaints arising from any 
 
MEDICAL ADVISER. 127 
 
 obstruction to the free operations of nature's 
 laws, my remedies are infallible; whilst in 
 cases where nature must be restrained, for 
 reasons of health, propriety, or expediency 
 even, if consulted in season, my remedies are 
 equally efficacious and certain. In a book de- 
 signed as this is for general circulation, topics 
 of this character can only be alluded to super- 
 ficially and in suppressed tones > lest the delicate 
 sensibilities of some, whose good opinion I 
 would conciliate, might be too rudely jarred. 
 Hence I can only say to them, as to all others, 
 that you will at all times find me a patient 
 listener to your complaints and troubles, and 
 may safely rely Upon my care, discretion, and 
 skill in ministering to your necessities, even if 
 arising through a faulty training, misplaced 
 confidence or unguarded intercourse, or any 
 other cause which may require the aid of medi- 
 cal advice and assistance. 
 
 fJJ*J/S. 
 
THE CELEBRATED PATENT 
 
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 simplicity adapts it to the use of children 
 or the family circle. 
 
 No physician should be without this 
 microscope, for it aids him in properly diag- 
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 the coat pocket or satchel, is simple and 
 cannot get out of order. Do not think that because the 
 price is low the instrument is of little practical value. 
 The secret of its low price and high power is because 
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 other microscopes. It reveals the globules of the blood, 
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 THE PEOPLE'S MEDICAL INSTITUTE, 
 
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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
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