Note 306 — THIRD SECTION. Relation of the Physician to Diseases consequent upon the Use or Misuse of the Genital Organs.

Actuarius, Method. med. bk. I ch. 22., Priapismus vero est permanens constansque colis extensio.—Corripit hic affectus cum calidus crassusque spiritus in colem decumbit, qui ubi non facile egredi permittitur, penem vi extendit. Hi exiguum vel nihil seminis eiaculantur, sentiunt tamen quod spiritus una excludatur et levari quidem aegri ita quadamtenus videntur: verum denuo eodem malo corripiuntur, donec intensionis causa fuerit sublata. Coles resolvitur, aut quod nervi illius aliqua intemperie debilitentur aut quod spiritus confluens deficiat vel meatus eius obstruantur dissecenturve. (Now priapism is a permanent and chronic state of erection of the member.—This complaint attacks a patient, when a hot and heavy spirit descends into the member, which not being suffered to readily escape, violently erects the penis. Such patients ejaculate little or no semen, yet feel that the spirit is voided along with it, and so far as there is any emission, appear to be relieved thereby; but they are again attacked afresh by the same evil, until the cause of the tension has been removed. Then the member is relaxed, either because its muscles are weakened by some morbid condition, or because the spirit converging to it fails or its passages are blocked and become dried up).