The Holy Scriptures inform us that unlawful relations with a bad woman have cast down many wounded; yea, many strong men have been slain by her, for her house is the way to Hell, going down to the chambers of Death.
These poor crazy souls in the insane asylums, who have become the victims of their own unnatural lust and passions, live, look and act as though they were in the clutches and chambers of the damned and that their souls were already fitted for the chambers of hell.
The scenes in some institutions where these poor wretches are kept like a criminal or murderer are certainly heart-rending, and they cannot but impress the most hardened mind as being pitiful in the extreme, for it must be considered that, in the majority of these cases, the poor victims were ignorant of the sin they were committing as well as its terrible effects on their souls, minds and bodies, and, as stated before, if you only knew and could see how these poor human beings are treated, you would never desire to take the least chance of becoming one of their number. There is this very day a custom which prevails in more than one insane asylum in this country where those who have become so addicted to this terrible habit that their minds dwell on no other thing, the only thought that comes to them being their mad desire to appease their passions, and to prevent their doing so their parts are treated to a liberal application of Tincture of Iodine, Cantharides (Spanish FlyJ, or some other drug that will set up a local inflammation and blister, causing such a soreness of these parts that they cannot touch them. Another custom is to cross the arms at the wrists and bind them in this condition, and fasten a plate on their crossed hands at meal time and make them eat like an animal, for if the hands were loosened they would instantly defile themselves. After their meal is eaten the hands are strapped securely behind their backs.
This, together with the strong drug that has been applied, keeps them from committing their baneful acts, for if their parts were not treated in this manner, they would rub themselves against the sides of their cells until they had satisfied their evil desires.
However, in the end it is a much mooted question whether this does any good, for, if the act is prevented during the day, when the victim at night has tossed himself to sleep on his uncomfortable bed, his filthy imagination and nocturnal dreams bring about the result anyway.