The Disease of Masturbation

A detailed Summary of The Disease of Masturbation

The Disease of Masturbation: Values and the concept of Disease by Engelhardt

Englhardt's article The Disease Of Masturbation is an example of the ways in which values impact society's definition of disease. I agree that it is possible that science is being, or has been, limited by the values within society. For science to conclude that masturbation causes such aliments as blindness and epilepsy it appears evident that science is being misguided by values of the time. I believe that science also realizes that values play a part in research conducted, otherwise there would be no need for blind and double blind studies. Blind studies are used to help eliminate bias brought on by the experimenter or the test subject.

In the eighteenth and nineteenth century masturbation was thought to produce the signs and symptoms of a dangerous disease: "Disease is neither an objective entity nor a concept of a single definition, there is not, nor need be, one concept of disease (UWO, p.241)." The problem with Englehardt's article is our health system is that of the biomedical model. The biomedical model does not recognize masturbation as a disease. It states that "disease is a biological deviation from the norm that can be explained scientif

There was a struggle to develop a workable nosology it was placed under various categories and numerous nomenclatures called onanism and, onanysmus. Initally masturbation was under the heading of male disease of generative organs, then it had many other headings until 1906 when it changed to genito-urinary system diseases. The name changes probably indicate hesitation on the part of recorders as to nature of disease, recorders who were drawn in by the obviously psychological parts of the phenomenon to classify it as a functional disturbance. Through an examination of the parallels between what is good for one's soul and what is good for one's health, one would expect to find that disease correlates with immoral sexual behaviour. Also, people's inclinations to translate a moral issue into medical terms and relieve them. Jonathon Hutchinson described the etiological mechanism of the habit in question as one that may be injurious to the nerve-tone and likely originates and sustains illness which without it might have been avoided or cured. Effects were magnified during youth when such "shocks" threaten normal development. Freud wrote that sexual exhaustion could provoke neurasthenia. If sexual exhaustion fails to be achieved by it self it has an effect in the disposition of the nervous system, causing physical illness and depressive effects to be overworked and can

bring on the symptoms that people reported to be associated with masturbation. Masturbation is the best possible example of the role of society's values on health and disease. It, however, is not a realistic example because masturbation does not fit into the biomedical model's definition of a disease. I do not feel that masturbation has been scientifically proven to cause all of the ailments listed in Englehardt's article. Mast

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Approximate Word count = 1214
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)

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