For those who question the accuracy of these claims, William Acton uses the classic response in The Functions and Disorders of the Reproductive Organs... Says Acton, "That insanity is a consequence of this habit is now beyond a doubt." Therefore, the claims need no longer be challenged.
Many of the arguments skipped the pseudoscience and went straight to pseudotheology. Reverend Spencer Elliott in What Makes a Man: a Straight Talk to Boys (1917) explains, "God has decreed that the powers of sex must be rested entirely until manhood is reached. Otherwise manhood may never come at all." How he divined this is not clear.
Father Philip Salvatori provides a more "reasoned" yet frightening argument in Practical Instruction for New Confessors (1885). In a compelling bit of twisted logic, he first asks if you had to pay for this "shameful and brutal pleasure" by having to stick your hand in a fire for an hour, would that not cure you? Well then, "But holy faith! Have you not the assurance...that by indulging in any of those filthy pleasures, you deserve not merely to keep your hand in the fire, but to have your entire body plunged and buried in the midst of the flames of hell? And this not merely for a single hour...but for hundreds, for thousands, for millions of years... for all eternity... without the slightest hope of escape? Think of this, then, when the heat of your passions is luring you to sin." Well, as long as you put it that way...
Perhaps you believe somewhere between here and eternity God will forget your sin and let you out early. Don't count on it warns F. Arthur Sibley in Private Knowledge for Boys (1913). "Every sin, whether in thought or deed, is recorded in Nature's book, and will have to be paid for." Great. Now even if you resist but so much as think it you will be condemned. Take that, Jimmy Carter! Sibley cleverly accounts for the lack of any noticeable impact from the behavior by noting, "Not until the debts have long accumulated is payment sometimes demanded. Then the punishment is heavy and severe indeed."
While most of the authors of these works are not exactly household names, here is one you know: Dr. John Harvey Kellogg. Kellogg, in Man, the Masterpiece, or, Plain Truths Plainly Told, about Boyhood, Youth, and Manhood (1894) warns that such behavior shows on a person's face, and, "How few faces portray a character unstained by lust, unsoiled by moral filth!" Yes, this is the same Dr. James Kellogg who invented the cornflake.
We will finish with an appropriate concluding comment from the aforementioned Dr. Sibley in Youth and Sex: Dangers and Safeguards for Girls and Boys (1913). In a fit of melodrama, Dr. Sibley writes, "...when the hand that writes these lines has long been cold in death may the message which it speeds this day breathe peace and strength into many an eager heart." Sibley's hand has undoubtedly by now long since joined his brain in cold death, but his words live on, in this most unusual and interesting of catalogues.
High Bids Win Rare Books, Catalogs, Magazines and Machine Manuals December 24 to January 9
High Bids Win, Dec. 24 – Jan. 9: Ellis Smith Prints unsigned. 20” by 16”.
High Bids Win, Dec. 24 – Jan. 9: United typothetae of America presidents. Pictures of 37 UTA presidents 46th annual convention United typothetae of America Cincinnati 1932.
High Bids Win, Dec. 24 – Jan. 9: Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec signed Paper Impressionism Art Prints. MayMilton 9 1/2” by 13” Reine de Joie 9 1/2” by 13”.
High Bids Win Rare Books, Catalogs, Magazines and Machine Manuals December 24 to January 9
High Bids Win, Dec. 24 – Jan. 9: Aberle’ Ballet editions. 108th triumph, American season spring and summer 1944.
High Bids Win, Dec. 24 – Jan. 9: Puss ‘n Boots. 1994 Charles Perrult All four are signed by Andreas Deja
High Bids Win, Dec. 24 – Jan. 9: Specimen book of type faces. Job composition department, Philadelphia gazette publishing company .
High Bids Win Rare Books, Catalogs, Magazines and Machine Manuals December 24 to January 9
High Bids Win, Dec. 24 – Jan. 9: An exhibit of printed books, Bridwell library.
High Bids Win, Dec. 24 – Jan. 9: A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur Court By Mark Twain 1889.
High Bids Win, Dec. 24 – Jan. 9: 1963 Philadelphia Eagles official program.
High Bids Win Rare Books, Catalogs, Magazines and Machine Manuals December 24 to January 9
High Bids Win, Dec. 24 – Jan. 9: 8 - Esquire the magazine for men 1954.
High Bids Win, Dec. 24 – Jan. 9: The American printer, July 1910.
High Bids Win, Dec. 24 – Jan. 9: Leaves of grass 1855 by Walt Whitman.
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Institutional Collections & Deacccessioned Books
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Institutional Collections & Deacccessioned Books
RareBookBuyer.com We Buy Librairies & Rare Books Nationwide
RareBookBuyer.com Specialized in Purchasing
Institutional Collections & Deacccessioned Books
RareBookBuyer.com We Buy Librairies & Rare Books Nationwide
Case Antiques 2025 Winter Fine Art & Antiques Auction January 25-26, 2025
Case Antiques, Jan. 25-26: 1861 Civil War Personal Flag. $12,000 to $14,000.
Case Antiques, Jan. 25-26: Armory Show 1913 Exhibition Poster. $8,000 to $9,000.
Case Antiques, Jan. 25-26: Abraham Lincoln Signed Appointment, 1863. $4,000 to $5,000.
Case Antiques 2025 Winter Fine Art & Antiques Auction January 25-26, 2025
Case Antiques, Jan. 25-26: Cormac McCarthy, The Orchard Keeper, 1st Edition, Signed. $3,800 to $4,200.
Case Antiques, Jan. 25-26: Cormac McCarthy, Suttree, 1st Edition, Signed. $3,200 to $3,400.
Case Antiques, Jan. 25-26: Winston Churchill & Bernard Baruch Signed Letters Plus Photo. $1,400 to $1,600.
Case Antiques 2025 Winter Fine Art & Antiques Auction January 25-26, 2025
Case Antiques, Jan. 25-26: Mississippi Civil War Ambrotype, Dr. Bisland Shields with Saber and Hat. $1,400 to $1,600.
Case Antiques, Jan. 25-26: Custom 19th C. Lord Byron Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, 4 Vols w/ Over 350 Prints Incl. Ex-Joshua Reynolds. $1,200 to $1,400.
Case Antiques, Jan. 25-26: Four NASA Lunar Orbiter Survey Photos, 1966; Maestlin G Crater; Apollo. $600 to $700.
Case Antiques 2025 Winter Fine Art & Antiques Auction January 25-26, 2025
Case Antiques, Jan. 25-26: Three Margaret Mitchell Signed Books; Association Copies. $1,000 to $1,200.
Case Antiques, Jan. 25-26: Jimmie Rodgers Signed & Dated Photograph plus Record, Framed. $1,000 to $1,200.
Case Antiques, Jan. 25-26: Edward VIII Signed Letter Autograph. $500 to $600.
Sotheby's Fine Books, Manuscripts & More Available for Immediate Purchase
Sotheby’s: William Shakespeare. The Poems and Sonnets of William Shakespeare, 1960. 7,210 USD
Sotheby’s: Charles Dickens. A Christmas Carol, First Edition, 1843. 17,500 USD
Sotheby’s: William Golding. Lord of the Flies, First Edition, 1954. 5,400 USD
Sotheby's Fine Books, Manuscripts & More Available for Immediate Purchase
Sotheby’s: Lewis Carroll. Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There, Inscribed First Edition, 1872. 25,000 USD
Sotheby’s: J.R.R. Tolkien. The Hobbit, First Edition, 1937. 12,000 USD
Sotheby’s: John Milton. Paradise Lost, 1759. 5,400 USD