Circular No. 140 
THE LIE OF THE WILD OATS. 
Issued by the State Board of Health of Maine. 
The belief is quite general that every youth of stamina 
“must sow his wild oats.” Some go so far as to say that he 
cannot amount to anything unless he does sow more or less of 
them. Many women have been heard to say that penitent roues 
make the best husbands, not recognizing the fact that where 
one man is strong enough to overcome his evil experiences, a 
hundred are wrecked, morally and physically. 
That the average young man sows more or less wild oats 
is indisputable. That the more substantial and manly men are 
often the ones who have paid particular attention to their sow- 
ing is true. That some men who never sowed any were not 
much to begin with'is also true. If fear or lack of animality, had 
not been more prominent in such men than in their erring 
brothers, they would have joined their ranks. That some 
“goody goody” young men, who never have been tempted, fall 
into evil ways later in life cannot be denied. That penitents 
often make good husbands is a matter of common observation; 
whether they have been scared into good behavior or have sim- 
ply matured in judgment matters not. On the other hand, 
many young men who might have been ornaments to society 
have been ruined for life by wild oat sowing. That any youth 
is better for wild oat sowing, save where its terrible results 
bring a naturally weak and vacillating character to his senses 
through mental shock, is false. “Boys will be boys,’’ they say. 
Yes, and dogs will be dogs; but this does not lessen the deadli- 
ness of hydrophobia. The wild oats doctrine was probably in- 
vented by some fake social philosopher, who had sins of his own 
to apologize for and no diseases acquired by early indiscretions 
to modify his opinions. 
Almost every boy at some time in his life is taught by his 
elders the Lie of the Wild Oats. His father and grandfather 
learned it before him and followed where it led. The man 
who escapes its dangers does so by great good luck, or by virtue 
of a strong organization, moral, mental and physical, that noth- 
ing can shake. That any man who sows can altogether escape 
reaping is a fallacy. Physical, mental or moral scars remain, 
and while the world may be satisfied with him, he is never sat" 
isfied with himself. Man’s sexual lapses in afterlife are often due to his chasing some mental will-o’-the-wisp; some youthful 
experience which, like the circus of his boyhood, seems ideal. 
Impressions made upon the highly sensitive sexual brain 
centers of youth at a period when the emotional organization is 
especially impressionable leave a memory that overshadows all 
its future life as a false ideal—an ideal which is merely a reflex 
from a mental scar that will never fade nor become dulled in sen- 
sitiveness so long as physical sexual capacity remains unim- 
paired. 
Should youth be exposed to debauchery to strengthen it ? 
Most emphatically no ! If youth were protected from wild oats 
influences until its judgment was mature, there would not be 
so many brands to be plucked from the burning. For the 
benefit of those who accept the “wild oats” conception of the 
male ideal, here are a few pictures that are only too famaliar: 
Picture 1. A certain health resort—the sink-hole into 
which a large part of the immorality, crime and disease of 
America is dumped—there are a hundred thousand visitors 
annually. Of these, a large proportion go there to harvest 
their “wild oats” crop. He who visits one of the government 
‘ ‘rale holes’ ’ can best appreciate the harvest of the ‘ ‘wild oats. ’ ’ 
Picture 2. A hospital. Here is a group of locomotor 
ataxies; there a group of deformed children; yonder, a girl in 
her teens is nursing a child who never will know its father. 
More “wild oats.” 
Picture 3. An asylum. Here is a case of general pare- 
sis ; there a melancholiac ; in the next room a maniac can be 
heard shrieking. “Wild oats” aplenty. 
Picture 4. A police court; full of drunks, criminals and 
bums. “Wild oats” again. 
Picture 5. A jail. Here are “wild oats” of the striped, 
short-haired variety in abundance. 
Picture 6. A foundling asylum full of children cursed by 
society before they were born as “bastards.” Poor little “wild 
oats !’’ 
Picture 7. A doctor’s office, full of anxious men and still 
more anxious women, who do not gossip much about their ail- 
ments, even among their intimates, save where the women are 
told by the doctor a pretty little fairy tale for home use. 
“Wild bats” growing in the dark. 
Picture 8. A brothel. Around the “reception” room 
sits a collection of poor female creatures, many of whom were 
originally sacrificed in aiding youth to sow its “wild oats.” These women are now getting poetic revenge, as the doctor 
knows. 
Picture 9. A beautiful girl is found dead in the river one 
fine morning. What is she doing there? Washing the “wild 
oats” out of her life. 
Picture 10. A pistol shot rings out in a gamblinghell— 
a man falls dead. The gun was loaded with “wild oats.” 
Picture 11, A defaulting bank cashier flees to Canada ; 
he is looking for a market for his “wild oats.” 
Picture 12. A series of deserted babies are found in the 
snow. Who planted them there? Sowers of “wild oats.” 
Picture 13. A wife, surrounded by her cold and hungry 
children is sitting weeping—eating her heart out. The hus- 
band and father is on a drunk; he has whipped her, is in jail, 
or has deserted her. “Wild oats” make broken hearts; they 
are poor foodjfor babies; they do not buy coal, nor cover naked- 
ness. 
We doctors know the wild oats crop under numerous terms. 
Crime, inebriety, syphilis, paresis, locomotor ataxia and gon- 
orrhea are chief among them. What the consultation room does 
not tell us the operating table does. Youths would better look 
at the specimens of disease taken by the surgeon from innocent 
wives, and see how they tally with the “wild oats” of some hus- 
bands’ youth before they begin sowing their own. 
There are thousands of syphilitics and tens of thousands of 
gonorrheics in every large city in the world. Add to these the 
other wild oats products, crime, pauperism, prostitution, inebri- 
ety and insanity—all the conditions of degeneracy—and we can 
never offset the frightful record with an occasional brand plucked 
from the burning or with the “burnt child who dreads the fire.” 
The Lie of the Wild Oats is based upon the misapplication 
of the theory of a separate standard for men and women. The 
young man may sow his wild oats, but the young woman must 
not. The sowing of the wild oats by the one, however, necessi- 
tates the co-operation of the other. What made the thousands 
of prostitutes in every great city; What supports them ? 
What keeps the supply equal to the demand? Largely “wild 
oats.” Wherever immorality, vice, disease, crime, drunken- 
ness and insanity most thrive, there, if we dig down to the very 
root of these evils, we find “wild oats” the thickest. 
The maimed gray-beards who learned the wild oats lie 
from society’s primer are usually willing to confess that the 
“wild oats” of yesterday are watered with the tears of to-day. 
The vicious roots of the “wild oats” of youth often lie deep in the ashes of manhood’s and womanhood’s despair. The crop 
is garnered with the sickle of regret and threshed with the flail 
of disease and pain. 
The importance of the study of the venereal diseases is tremendous. 
The importance of their relations to the social body cannot be overesti- 
mated. Gonorrhea and syphilis are the chief causes of “race suicide.” 
The cost to society of the veneral diseases is frightful. 
Gonorrhea is probably the most frequent disease experienced by the 
adult male human being. This disease permanently cripples one in one 
hundred of the population and kills one in two hundred. 
Twenty to thirty per cent of blindness is due to gonorrhea. It once 
was eighty per cent, but the modern methods of handling the new-born 
infant have reduced the percentage. 
It has been estimated that seventy to eighty-five per cent, of the 
women operated on for abdominal and pelvic disease in our hospitals are 
brought to the operating table by gonorrhea. 
“Syphilis is responsible for an asserted ninety per cent, of locomotor 
ataxia, a large per cent, of insanity, for a’great number of still-born chil- 
dren and for a heavy percentage of premature deaths of children, for 
apoplexy, paralysis and sudden death long after the disease was supposed 
to have been eliminated. Insurance actuaries hold that on the average 
syphilis shortens life one-third.” 
Briefly: With the exception of syphilis, the germs of venereal dis- 
eases originate in unclean women. As syphilis is frightful in its ravages 
and is most often conveyed by prostitutes, the source of the original germ 
is not an important matter for argument. As all prostitutes are of neces- 
sity unclean, the moral is not far to seek. 
Aside from moral and esthetic considerations, there is no way that 
contact with prostitutes can be made safe. 
Let the young man or boy in search of illicit sexual adventure remem- 
ber this : It is practically impossible for a prostitute to ply her trade for 
even a few months without developing venereal disease. Once she con- 
tracts disease she begins scattering the germs throughout the community 
by infecting all of her patrons, one after the other. 
Another point to be remembered is this : A woman may transmit 
disease without herself having it. The germs of the disease are trans- 
mitted to her by some diseased male, and by her communicated to a sub- 
sequent patron. 
Quacks work in concert—victims are passed on from one to another. 
Most of the quack offices are incorporated under one management. 
When the victim’s stock of confidence in one quack becomes exhausted, 
either a new quack is called in to “cap” the game, or the patient is passed 
on to the next quack shop. 
The “re-fee” man is a recognized appendage of the quack system. 
He is a clever, persuasive rascal who goes about from one syndicate shop 
to another, ‘ ‘re-feeing’ ’ cases of poor fellows whose lack of common sense 
almost prohibits sympathy. And it is lucrative. The operations of one 
“re-fee” man in Chicago are said to have been $15,000 in one week, from 
a single “office.” The “re-fee” man certainly has mastered the art of 
“getting blood out of a turnip.” 
If the laity ever becomes intelligent enough to understand that an 
alleged guarantee is alone sufficient to stamp the quack as a scoundrel, 
quackery will be put out of business. 
This circular is a reproduction of the third chapter and a few other paragraphs of 
“Sex Hygiene for the Male and What to Say to the Boy,” a book for physicians, teachers 
and parents. Through the courtesy of the author. Dr. G. Prank Lydston of Chicago, 
and the publishers, the Riverton Press, of the same city, the State Board is permitted to 
make this reprint.