[i]

A
TREATISE
ON
The Crime of ONAN;
Illustrated with
A VARIETY of CASES,
Together with
The METHOD of CURE.

By M. TISSOT, M. D.

Author of
Advice to the People in general with regard to
their Health.

Translated from
The Third Edition of the Original.

LONDON,
Printed for B. Thomas, in the Strand.
MDCCLXVI.

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PREFACE.

While I was composing in Latinthe Original of this small Production,I was sensible of its defects, and, inthe Preface to it, made my apology for them.But, after the Performance appeared in print,they struck me much more forcibly; and whenI came to examine the French translation of it,which I had been desired to revise, I judgedthem intolerable.

Besides a number of new observations necessarilyto be added, there were faults to beremedied, in the method, and some articleswhich, being no more than the first outline, insufficientto convey what I had to say, requireda fuller extent to be given them.

So many corrections rendered the Workalmost a new one, and made it considerablylonger. The difficulty of carrying on thisundertaking in a living language, and all thedisagreeable circumstances that must cleave toit, did not escape me. Nothing could have determinedme to engage in it, but the prospectof the utility to mankind of such an undertaking[iv]well executed, which is, however,what I dare not boast of. It is only my intentionthat I can warrant. The crimes ofone’s fellow creatures afford but a melancholicobject to concern one’s self with: the considerationof them can only afflict and mortifyone: a sentiment ballanced by no pleasure butthat of hoping to contribute to the diminutionof their frequency, and to alleviate the sufferingswhich are the consequences of them.

But what has given me much more trouble,in this Work, than if I had written it inLatin, is the embarrassment of expressingimages, of which the terms and descriptionsare declared indecent by use. A dispensation,however, from a due attention to these scrupleswould have been very disagreeable to myown disposition, with which I could neverhave reconciled any labor at the expence ofwhat I pride myself on, a due regard for thelaws of decency. Yet to this duty it is thatare owing the great difficulties that stoppedme at every step. I dare aver, then, that Ihave neglected no precaution for giving tothis Work all the modesty in the expressionsthat the subject would admit. There are,indeed, certain objectionable images inseparablefrom this matter; but how could I avoidthem? Was it fit for me, on such importantobjects, to keep silence? Doubtless not. Thesacred Authors, the Fathers of the Church,who almost all wrote in living languages;[v]the Theological Writers, have not thoughtthemselves obliged to pass over in silence thecrimes of obscenity, because they could not bepointed out without naming them, witho