"Rough winds do shake the darling buds of may": A note on William Acton and the sexuality of the (male) child

Journal of Family History

Volumn 26, Issue 3, 2001, Pages 411-420

  Crozier, Ivan ^a  

^a WELLCOME TRUST SANGER INSTITUTE   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

ADOLESCENT; ARTICLE; CHILD; CHILD BEHAVIOR; CHILD PARENT RELATION; CHILD WELFARE; ECONOMICS; ETHNOLOGY; FAMILY HEALTH; HISTORY; HUMAN; LEGAL ASPECT; MALE; PATIENT; PHYSICIAN; PHYSIOLOGY; PSYCHOLOGICAL ASPECT; PUBLICATION; SEXUAL BEHAVIOR; SEXUAL DEVELOPMENT; SEXUAL EDUCATION; SEXUALITY; UNITED KINGDOM; WRITING;

ADOLESCENT; AUTHORSHIP; CHILD; CHILD BEHAVIOR; CHILD WELFARE; FAMILY HEALTH; GREAT BRITAIN; HISTORY, 19TH CENTURY; HUMANS; MALE; PARENT-CHILD RELATIONS; PATIENTS; PHYSICIANS; PUBLICATIONS; SEX EDUCATION; SEXUAL BEHAVIOR; SEXUAL DEVELOPMENT; SEXUALITY;

EID: 0035402470     PISSN: 03631990     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/036319900102600306     Document Type: Article

References (70)

1. Ivan Crozier, "William Acton and the History of Sexuality: The Medical and Professional Contexts, "Journal of Victorian Culture 5 (2000): 1-27; Steven Marcus, The Other Victorians (London, 1966).
2. Ivan Crozier, "William Acton and the History of Sexuality: The Medical and Professional Contexts, "Journal of Victorian Culture 5 (2000): 1-27; Steven Marcus, The Other Victorians (London, 1966).
3. Mary Spongberg, Feminizing Venereal Disease: The Body of the Prostitute in Nineteenth-Century Medical Discourses (New York, 1997); Patrician Anderson, When Passion Reigned: Sex and the Victorians (New York, 1995), 87-8; Linda Grant, Sexing the Millennium (London, 1993), 252; Thomas Laquent, Making Sex (Cambridge, MA, 1990), 190, 196. I have more to say on female sexuality and its treatment in "William Acton and the History of Sexuality."
4. Mary Spongberg, Feminizing Venereal Disease: The Body of the Prostitute in Nineteenth-Century Medical Discourses (New York, 1997); Patrician Anderson, When Passion Reigned: Sex and the Victorians (New York, 1995), 87-8; Linda Grant, Sexing the Millennium (London, 1993), 252; Thomas Laquent, Making Sex (Cambridge, MA, 1990), 190, 196. I have more to say on female sexuality and its treatment in "William Acton and the History of Sexuality."
5. Mary Spongberg, Feminizing Venereal Disease: The Body of the Prostitute in Nineteenth-Century Medical Discourses (New York, 1997); Patrician Anderson, When Passion Reigned: Sex and the Victorians (New York, 1995), 87-8; Linda Grant, Sexing the Millennium (London, 1993), 252; Thomas Laquent, Making Sex (Cambridge, MA, 1990), 190, 196. I have more to say on female sexuality and its treatment in "William Acton and the History of Sexuality."
6. Mary Spongberg, Feminizing Venereal Disease: The Body of the Prostitute in Nineteenth-Century Medical Discourses (New York, 1997); Patrician Anderson, When Passion Reigned: Sex and the Victorians (New York, 1995), 87-8; Linda Grant, Sexing the Millennium (London, 1993), 252; Thomas Laquent, Making Sex (Cambridge, MA, 1990), 190, 196. I have more to say on female sexuality and its treatment in "William Acton and the History of Sexuality."
7. M. J. Peterson, "'Dr.' Acton's Enemy: Medicine, Sex and Society in Victorian England, "Victorian Studies 29 (1986): 569-90.
8. See new work on Victorian sexual morality by Peter Gay, The Bourgeois Experience: Education of the Senses (Oxford, 1985); Michael Mason, The Making of Victorian Sexual Attitudes (Oxford, 1994); and Françoise Barrett-Ducrocq, Love in the Time of Victoria (London, 1991). Barry Smith, "Sexuality in Britain, 1800-1900: Some Suggested Revisions, "in A Widening Sphere: Changing Roles of Victorian Women, ed. Martha Vicinus (Bloomington, 1977), has since questioned the simplistic approach to Victorian sexual morality that was promulgated by people since Havelock Ellis and Lytton Strachey, both of whom wrote for political reasons, which is apparent in their historiographies.
9. See new work on Victorian sexual morality by Peter Gay, The Bourgeois Experience: Education of the Senses (Oxford, 1985); Michael Mason, The Making of Victorian Sexual Attitudes (Oxford, 1994); and Françoise Barrett-Ducrocq, Love in the Time of Victoria (London, 1991). Barry Smith, "Sexuality in Britain, 1800-1900: Some Suggested Revisions, "in A Widening Sphere: Changing Roles of Victorian Women, ed. Martha Vicinus (Bloomington, 1977), has since questioned the simplistic approach to Victorian sexual morality that was promulgated by people since Havelock Ellis and Lytton Strachey, both of whom wrote for political reasons, which is apparent in their historiographies.
10. See new work on Victorian sexual morality by Peter Gay, The Bourgeois Experience: Education of the Senses (Oxford, 1985); Michael Mason, The Making of Victorian Sexual Attitudes (Oxford, 1994); and Françoise Barrett-Ducrocq, Love in the Time of Victoria (London, 1991). Barry Smith, "Sexuality in Britain, 1800-1900: Some Suggested Revisions, "in A Widening Sphere: Changing Roles of Victorian Women, ed. Martha Vicinus (Bloomington, 1977), has since questioned the simplistic approach to Victorian sexual morality that was promulgated by people since Havelock Ellis and Lytton Strachey, both of whom wrote for political reasons, which is apparent in their historiographies.
11. See new work on Victorian sexual morality by Peter Gay, The Bourgeois Experience: Education of the Senses (Oxford, 1985); Michael Mason, The Making of Victorian Sexual Attitudes (Oxford, 1994); and Françoise Barrett-Ducrocq, Love in the Time of Victoria (London, 1991). Barry Smith, "Sexuality in Britain, 1800-1900: Some Suggested Revisions, "in A Widening Sphere: Changing Roles of Victorian Women, ed. Martha Vicinus (Bloomington, 1977), has since questioned the simplistic approach to Victorian sexual morality that was promulgated by people since Havelock Ellis and Lytton Strachey, both of whom wrote for political reasons, which is apparent in their historiographies.
12. See Porter and Lesley Hall, The Facts of Life (New Haven, 1995); Lesley Hall, "'The English Have Hot Water Bottles': The Morganatic Marriage between Sexology and Medicine in Britain since William Acton, "in Sexual Knowledge, Sexual Science, ed. Porter and Teich (Cambridge, 1994); and Lesley Hall, "From Self Preservation to Love without Fear: Medical and Lay Writers of Sex Advice from William Acton to Eustace Chesser, "Bulletin for the Society for the Social History of Medicine, no. 39 (December 1986).
13. See Porter and Lesley Hall, The Facts of Life (New Haven, 1995); Lesley Hall, "'The English Have Hot Water Bottles': The Morganatic Marriage between Sexology and Medicine in Britain since William Acton, "in Sexual Knowledge, Sexual Science, ed. Porter and Teich (Cambridge, 1994); and Lesley Hall, "From Self Preservation to Love without Fear: Medical and Lay Writers of Sex Advice from William Acton to Eustace Chesser, "Bulletin for the Society for the Social History of Medicine, no. 39 (December 1986).
14. See Porter and Lesley Hall, The Facts of Life (New Haven, 1995); Lesley Hall, "'The English Have Hot Water Bottles': The Morganatic Marriage between Sexology and Medicine in Britain since William Acton, "in Sexual Knowledge, Sexual Science, ed. Porter and Teich (Cambridge, 1994); and Lesley Hall, "From Self Preservation to Love without Fear: Medical and Lay Writers of Sex Advice from William Acton to Eustace Chesser, "Bulletin for the Society for the Social History of Medicine, no. 39 (December 1986).
15. See [George Drysdale], Elements of Social Science (1854; reprint, London, 1900).
16. Michael Mason, as an appendix to The Making of Victorian Sexuality, provides a useful survey of elite English medical responses to spermatorrhea, demonstrating how medical professionals like Acton addressed what was essentially a disease in the province of quackery. See also Lesley Hall, "Forbidden by God, Despised by Men: Masturbation, Medical Warnings, Moral Panic and Manhood in Great Britain, 1850-1950, "Journal of the History of Sexuality 2 (1992): 365-87.
17. Acton was particularly vocal about the treatment and regulation of prostitutes; see his On Prostitution, 2d ed. (London, 1870). I deal with Acton's writing on prostitution more extensively in "William Acton and the History of Sexuality."
18. François Lallemand, A Practical Treatise on the Causes, Symptoms and Treatment of Spermatorrhœa, trans. Henry McDougallin (London, 1851), 20.
19. Ibid., 179-80. George Drysdale followed Lallemand in this opinion in his Elements of Social Science.
20. Ibid., 179-80. George Drysdale followed Lallemand in this opinion in his Elements of Social Science.
21. Lallemand, Spermatorrhœa, 369
22. Richard Dawson, An Essay on Spermatorrhœa, and Urinary Deposits, with Observations of the Nature, Causes, and Treatment of Various Disorders of the Generative System, 6th ed. (1840; reprint, London, 1852), vi. Dawson was the self-proclaimed first importer of Lallemand's ideas to Great Britain.
23. Ibid., 30.
24. Ibid., 30.
25. Ibid., 32.
26. F. B. Courtenay, On Spermatorrhœa: How to Treat and Cure It: With Practical Observations on the Professional Fallacies and Popular Delusions Which Prevail in Relation to Its Nature, 7th ed. (1857; reprint, London, 186?); Marris Wilson, On Diseases of the Vesiculae Seminales and Their Associated Organs, with Special Reference to the Morbid Secretions of the Prostatic and Urethral Mucous Membrane (London, 1856); T. B. Curling, A Practical Treatise on the Diseases of the Testis and of the Spermatic Cord and Scrotum, 4th ed. (London, 1878); J. L. Milton, On Spermatorrhœa: Its Results and Complications, 9th ed. (London, 1872). For more on these figures and on medical attitudes to spermatorrhea, see Porter and Hall, Facts of Life, and Mason, The Making of Victorian Sexuality, especially the appendix on spermatorrhea.
27. F. B. Courtenay, On Spermatorrhœa: How to Treat and Cure It: With Practical Observations on the Professional Fallacies and Popular Delusions Which Prevail in Relation to Its Nature, 7th ed. (1857; reprint, London, 186?); Marris Wilson, On Diseases of the Vesiculae Seminales and Their Associated Organs, with Special Reference to the Morbid Secretions of the Prostatic and Urethral Mucous Membrane (London, 1856); T. B. Curling, A Practical Treatise on the Diseases of the Testis and of the Spermatic Cord and Scrotum, 4th ed. (London, 1878); J. L. Milton, On Spermatorrhœa: Its Results and Complications, 9th ed. (London, 1872). For more on these figures and on medical attitudes to spermatorrhea, see Porter and Hall, Facts of Life, and Mason, The Making of Victorian Sexuality, especially the appendix on spermatorrhea.
28. F. B. Courtenay, On Spermatorrhœa: How to Treat and Cure It: With Practical Observations on the Professional Fallacies and Popular Delusions Which Prevail in Relation to Its Nature, 7th ed. (1857; reprint, London, 186?); Marris Wilson, On Diseases of the Vesiculae Seminales and Their Associated Organs, with Special Reference to the Morbid Secretions of the Prostatic and Urethral Mucous Membrane (London, 1856); T. B. Curling, A Practical Treatise on the Diseases of the Testis and of the Spermatic Cord and Scrotum, 4th ed. (London, 1878); J. L. Milton, On Spermatorrhœa: Its Results and Complications, 9th ed. (London, 1872). For more on these figures and on medical attitudes to spermatorrhea, see Porter and Hall, Facts of Life, and Mason, The Making of Victorian Sexuality, especially the appendix on spermatorrhea.
29. F. B. Courtenay, On Spermatorrhœa: How to Treat and Cure It: With Practical Observations on the Professional Fallacies and Popular Delusions Which Prevail in Relation to Its Nature, 7th ed. (1857; reprint, London, 186?); Marris Wilson, On Diseases of the Vesiculae Seminales and Their Associated Organs, with Special Reference to the Morbid Secretions of the Prostatic and Urethral Mucous Membrane (London, 1856); T. B. Curling, A Practical Treatise on the Diseases of the Testis and of the Spermatic Cord and Scrotum, 4th ed. (London, 1878); J. L. Milton, On Spermatorrhœa: Its Results and Complications, 9th ed. (London, 1872). For more on these figures and on medical attitudes to spermatorrhea, see Porter and Hall, Facts of Life, and Mason, The Making of Victorian Sexuality, especially the appendix on spermatorrhea.
30. F. B. Courtenay, On Spermatorrhœa: How to Treat and Cure It: With Practical Observations on the Professional Fallacies and Popular Delusions Which Prevail in Relation to Its Nature, 7th ed. (1857; reprint, London, 186?); Marris Wilson, On Diseases of the Vesiculae Seminales and Their Associated Organs, with Special Reference to the Morbid Secretions of the Prostatic and Urethral Mucous Membrane (London, 1856); T. B. Curling, A Practical Treatise on the Diseases of the Testis and of the Spermatic Cord and Scrotum, 4th ed. (London, 1878); J. L. Milton, On Spermatorrhœa: Its Results and Complications, 9th ed. (London, 1872). For more on these figures and on medical attitudes to spermatorrhea, see Porter and Hall, Facts of Life, and Mason, The Making of Victorian Sexuality, especially the appendix on spermatorrhea.
31. F. B. Courtenay, On Spermatorrhœa: How to Treat and Cure It: With Practical Observations on the Professional Fallacies and Popular Delusions Which Prevail in Relation to Its Nature, 7th ed. (1857; reprint, London, 186?); Marris Wilson, On Diseases of the Vesiculae Seminales and Their Associated Organs, with Special Reference to the Morbid Secretions of the Prostatic and Urethral Mucous Membrane (London, 1856); T. B. Curling, A Practical Treatise on the Diseases of the Testis and of the Spermatic Cord and Scrotum, 4th ed. (London, 1878); J. L. Milton, On Spermatorrhœa: Its Results and Complications, 9th ed. (London, 1872). For more on these figures and on medical attitudes to spermatorrhea, see Porter and Hall, Facts of Life, and Mason, The Making of Victorian Sexuality, especially the appendix on spermatorrhea.
32. Milton, On Spermatorrhœa, 29
33. Ibid., 48 et seq.
34. William Acton, A Practical Treatise on the Diseases of the Urinary and Generative Organs (in both sexes), 2d ed. (London, 1851), 230.
35. Ibid., 236.
36. Lancet, 1851, I, 436.
37. British Medical Journal, 1860, 960-61.
38. Lancet, 1861, I, 413-15.
39. For example, he thought it impossible to "cure animal passions" and considered the medical profession's role to "alleviate, as far as possible, the consequence which mankind suffers from their indulgence." Acton, A Practical Treatise, 21.
40. See Hall, "Medical Attitudes to the Sexual Disorders of the 'Normal' Male, 1900-1950" (Ph.D. thesis, University College London, 1989), chap. 1. See also Hall, Hidden Anxieties (London, 1991).
41. See Hall, "Medical Attitudes to the Sexual Disorders of the 'Normal' Male, 1900-1950" (Ph.D. thesis, University College London, 1989), chap. 1. See also Hall, Hidden Anxieties (London, 1991).
42. Crozier, "William Acton and the History of Sexuality."
43. William Acton, Functions and Disorders of the Reproductive Organs, 4th ed. (London, 1865), 1.
44. Ibid., 1.
45. Ibid., 2.
46. Ibid., 3.
47. Ibid.
48. Ibid., 6.
49. Ibid.
50. Ibid.
51. Ibid., 7.
52. Ibid.
53. Ibid.
54. Ibid., 8.
55. Ibid., 9.
56. Ibid., 10.
57. Ibid., 11.
58. Ibid., 13.
59. Ibid., 11.
60. Ibid., 16-17.
61. Ibid., 17.
62. Ibid., 19. Vern Bullough has warned against mistaking masturbation for homosexuality in mid-nineteenth-century medical texts, so I am basing my conviction that Acton was writing of same-sex behavior by his references to Juvenal, Martial, Ovid, and Byron and to his discussion of "Platonic attachments" derived from Plato's Phœdrus (17). See Vern Bullough and Martha Voight, "Homosexuality and Its Confusion with the 'Secret Sin' in Pre-Freudian America, "Journal of the History of Medicine 28 (1973): 143-55.
63. Ibid., 19. Vern Bullough has warned against mistaking masturbation for homosexuality in mid-nineteenth-century medical texts, so I am basing my conviction that Acton was writing of same-sex behavior by his references to Juvenal, Martial, Ovid, and Byron and to his discussion of "Platonic attachments" derived from Plato's Phœdrus (17). See Vern Bullough and Martha Voight, "Homosexuality and Its Confusion with the 'Secret Sin' in Pre-Freudian America, "Journal of the History of Medicine 28 (1973): 143-55.
64. British Medical Journal, 1857, 279-80.
65. Lancet, 1857, I, 556-57.
66. Lancet, 1862, I, 518-19.
67. British and Foreign Medico-Chirurgical Review 20 (1857): 176-77.
68. La Gazette Medicale de Paris, July 1863, cited in flyleaf of Acton, Functions and Disorders, 4th ed. Thanks to Randall Albury for translating this passage for me.
69. La Gazette Medicale de Paris, July 1863, cited in flyleaf of Acton, Functions and Disorders, 4th ed. Thanks to Randall Albury for translating this passage for me.
70. This is the main argument in my "William Acton and the History of Sexuality."