a following among the youth and working-class readers. This is attested by writer Panait Istrati, who grew up reading Medicina Populară. In 1908, Sterian published his best-seller, Educația sexelor ("Sex Education"). It had another edition published that same year, and three more, including a French translation, before 1915. It was complemented by a sex manual, În noaptea nunții ("On Your Wedding Night"), published in two editions in 1909. Popular with the regular public, such works were found unpalatable by Christian critics, who objected in particular to Sterian's claim that sexual refinement was one of "the holy ancestral values". The Greek-Catholic intellectual Teofil A. Bălibanu, who read Educația sexelor in high school, called it "a diabolic work", alleging that "tens of thousands of young men and women" had been driven astray by Sterian. Doctor Ștefan Irimescu dismissed Sterian as a profiteer, noting that the sexology books, rich in "tiny disgusting details", "excite the morbid curiosity of his various readers". Nevertheless, the books took a conservative view on issues such as masturbation. Sterian believed that recluse male youth were driven into compulsive self-stimulation by "lack of exercise, lack of fresh air, [and by] reading sensual stories and novels", as well as by oxalic acid as found in chocolate. Sterian thought that chronic male masturbators could be recognized by their "pervasive scent of sperm", and also by mannerisms, such as laughing for no apparent reason. He also claimed to have cured thousands of "ephebes" with iodine syrup and injections of cacodylic acid. He used similar treatments for impotence, where he also recommended electroconvulsive therapy. Eugenics and natalism His range of interests extended over those years. His topical brochures dealt with life extension treatments, as well as with balneotherapy (at Băile Govora and on the Black Sea Littoral). His proposal that baths could cure tuberculosis was detailed in another 1908 pamphlet, Omul oceanic ("The Oceanic Man"). Also that year, he attended a congress of thalassotherapy in Opatija. First stated in 1909, his claim that he could cure tuberculosis with physiotherapy was met with indignation by the medical establishment. Irimescu, as head physician of Filaret Hospital, called him "illiterate", and suggested that Medicul Poporului was "intoxicating the public" with "repugnant" information. In a March 1910 article for Medicul Poporului, Sterian challenged American eugenicists and their policy of compulsory sterilization, as well as orthodox degeneration theory. In his view, sterilization could provide some form of racial