Medical textbooks prior to the 18th Century seldom mentioned masturbation at all. In 1758 a Swiss physician named Tissot published a treatise claiming that masturbation* was the principal cause of mental illness---a terrible sin to be avoided like the plague. In spite of many rebuttals and critiques by contemporaries, Tissot's views became a standard reference found in most all medical textbooks published until the early part of our century.
In 1834 Dr. Sylvester Graham wrote that the loss of semen during sex was injurious to health (a popular idea at the time); men, Graham believed, should not have intercourse more than twelve times a year. Masturbation was especially pernicious, he said. To reduce sexual cravings, Graham advised mild foods to decrease sexual appetites. The graham cracker was the result! In 1884, this curious connection between food and sex appeared in another guise. Dr. John Harvey Kellogg created cornflakes to curtail children's inclinations toward masturbation. Kellogg, who was quite a health eccentric, wrote:
"The use of the reproductive function is perhaps the highest physical act of which man is capable; its abuse is certainly one of the most grievous outrages against nature which it is possible for him to perpetrate."
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