a later period prove that his feeling is different, and sadly premature. He may be quite healthy, and fond of playing with other boys, still there are slight, but ominous indications of propensities fraught with danger to himself. His play with the girl is different from his play with his brothers His kindness to her is a little too ardent. He follows her he does not know why. He fondles her with a tenderness painfully suggestive of a vague dawning of passion. No one can find fault with him. He does nothing wrong. Parents and friends are delighted at his gentleness and politeness, and not a little amused at the early flirtation. But if they were wise they would rather feel profound anxiety; and he would be an unfaithful or unwise medical friend who did not, if an opportunity occurred, warn them that the boy, unsuspicious and innocent as he is, should be carefully watched, and removed from every influence that could possibly excite his slumbering tendencies.

The premature development of the sexual inclination is not alone repugnant to all we associate with the term childhood, but is also fraught with danger to his dawning manhood. Extreme youth should be attended by complete repose of the generative functions, unbroken by anything like even a desire for their employment. On the judicious treatment of a case such as has been sketched, it probably depends whether the dangerous propensity is so kept in check as to preserve the boy's health and innocence, or whether one more shattered constitution and wounded conscience is to be added to the victims of early sexual tendencies and careless training. For it should not be forgotten that in such cases a quasi-sexual power often accompanies these premature sexual inclinations. Few, perhaps, know how early a mere infant may experience erections. The medical man, however, often notices that a little child's penis towards morning is completely erect, though the fact has escaped the observation of both parent and nurse. They may or not have remarked that the boy on being taken out of bed in the morning cannot make water at once. It would be as well if it were known that this often depends, as I believe, upon a more or less complete erection.

may

PREDISPOSING CAUSES. What the cause of this early sexual disposition in a young child may be, it is difficult to lay down with certainty in any given case. My own belief is, that there are not a few sources, in some or all of which this fatal tendency may take its rise; I should specify hereditary predisposition as by no means the least common. It cannot be denied that as children from their birth inherit a peculiar conformity of features or frame from the male or female parent, so they frequently evince in the earlier years of childhood, mental characteristics and peculiarities, that nothing but hereditary predisposition can account for. And I believe that, as in body and mind, so also in the passions, the sins of the father are frequently

visited on the heads of the children. No man or woman, I believe, can have habitually indulged their own sexual passions to the exclusion of higher and nobler pleasures and employments, without running the risk of finding that a disposition to follow the same course has been inherited by their offspring. It is in this way only that we can explain the early and apparently almost irresistible propensity in generation after generation towards the indulgence of many animal feelings. No doubt vicious tendencies are frequently, perhaps most frequently, acquired. But I firmly believe that, when acquired, moral, as well as physical diseases can be transmitted to the progeny.

EXCITING CAUSES.

There are, however, not a few directly exciting causes which can, and do frequently, not only foster this terrible proclivity to early sexual feeling when acquired by inheritance, but even of themselves alone beget it.

We see in many children, at a very early age, an almost ungovernable disposition to tickle and scratch the sexual organs. This most dangerous habit is not unfrequently, I believe, produced by irritation of the rectum arising from worms. In other instances it arises from some irritability of the bladder. Of the existence of this latter cause another symptom often exists, viz., the constant wetting of the bed at night. Irritation of the glans penis by the collection of secretion under the prepuce is another cause which should not be neglected. Since the time when my attention was first called to this subject I have had abundant evidence that the influence of the prepuce on these sexual dispositions has not been sufficiently noted. In the child the prepuce entirely covers the glans penis, keeping it in that constantly susceptible state which the contact of two folds of mucous membrane induces. We must recollect, moreover, that the child never draws back the foreskin, and that although the smegma is but sparely, if at all, secreted in early childhood, yet that it may under excitement, make its appearance, and have to be removed, as in the adult, by daily ablution.

PREVENTIVE TREATMENT.-My own opinion is that a long prepuce in children is a much more frequent cause of evil habits than parents or medical men have any idea of. The collection of smegma between the glans and the prepuce is almost certain to produce irritation. But I have never heard of any steps ever having been taken by those having the care of youth to induce boys to adopt proper habits of cleanliness in this respect. Children are educated to remove dirt from every other part of their bodies (where it is of less importance in its consequences than it is here). But probably no nurse, parent, schoolmaster, or even doctor, would at first relish the proposal that a boy of twelve in his bath should be told (for if not told he will never do it) to draw back his foreskin and thoroughly cleanse the glans penis every day. In my own experience of children, I have found this practice so beneficial, that I

never hesitate to recommend it in any cases where there is the least sign of irritation from this cause.

The only objection to recommending, and even enforcing, this thorough cleanliness in early childhood is that you run the risk of directing the boy's attention to manipulations, which may excite sexual desires. My own experience in practice all points the other way. Of course it is only when a child has already evinced some irritation of the parts or other derangement in the natural condition of things that any manipulation at all is advisable, or, indeed, that any occasion for peculiar cleanliness arises. And, when any such irritation or derangement exists, if the proper steps (of which cleanliness is the most effectual) are not taken to check it, the child will in ignorance handle the organs, and the dangers arising in this way are much greater than those attendant on mere ablution, especially in cold water. The cases in which an operation may be required on the prepuce are for the surgeon's decision. 1

The foregoing remarks will have already suggested the propriety of carefully guarding against unnecessary manipulation from whatever cause. Children should be early taught not to play with the external organs; without giving any reason, they may be desired to keep their hands away, which will in most cases be sufficient, if there is no physical exciting cause. The smallest sign, however, of the existence of any such cause should never be neglected. If, for instance, a child wets his bed, which is generally almost the first indication the parents have of the presence of irritation, the organs should be examined, and the boy's other habits watched. The irritation is only too likely to determine blood to the part, and the unpleasant symptoms,moreover, shows a nervous susceptible temperament, which always requires careful watching.

Circumcision is never likely to be introduced amongst us, and there is no doubt that cleanliness will suffice in most cases to remove all ill effects arising from the existence of the prepuce; but that the prepuce in man (at least in civilised life) is the cause of much mischief, medical men are pretty well agreed. It affords an additional surface for the excitement of the reflex action, and in the present state of society, aggravates an instinct rather than supplies a want. In the unmarried,

1 In a state of nature the foreskin is a complete protection to the glans penis; nevertheless to the sensitive, excitable, civilized individual, the prepuce often becomes a source of serious mischief. In the East, the collection of the secretions between it and the glans is likely to cause irritation and its consequences; and this danger was perhaps the origin of circumcision. That the existence of the foreskin predisposes to many forms of syphilis, no one can doubt; and, which is more to our present purpose, I am fully convinced that the excessive sensibility induced by a narrow foreskin, and the difficulty of withdrawing it, is often the cause of emissions, masturbation, or undue excitement of the sexual desires, which it becomes very difficult for the sufferer to endure.

it additionally excites the sexual desires, which it is our object to repress; and, although it is possible that it may increase the pleasure derived from the act of sexual congress, there is no evidence that Jews, and those who have undergone circumcision, do not enjoy as much pleasure in the copulative act as the uncircumcised;—at any rate the former do not complain.

In advanced age the prepuce may be necessary to copulation. Without it there might be a difficulty in exciting the flagging powers; those powers should never be excited at that time of life. All men require restraint, not excitement. The old require repose. The organs of animals are generally differently formed from those of man, and in them, not unfrequently, the prepuce, besides protecting the delicate glans penis from injury, seems requisite to enable the intromittent organ of the male to be brought into an erect state.

One cause that, I am convinced, can and does excite sexual feelings in children, I would strongly protest against, as at once dangerous and unnecessary. I refer to the infliction of floggings on the nates. Of late years this form of punishment has gone out of vogue in some quarters; but, in the large public schools, it is urged by very many persons that flogging cannot be dispensed with. This may or may not be so. But I am sure that it ought, if employed at all, to be applied to the shoulders, and not to the nates. The medical objections to this latter practice have not, probably, been stated; and, I think, its ill effects are not sufficiently known. That it has a great influence in exciting ejaculation, no one can doubt. Jean Jacques Rousseau, in his Confessions,' admits that this was his first incitement to masturbation, as the flogging administered by his female guardian first gave him sensual feelings. His words are

"J'avais trouvé dans la douleur, dans la honte même, un mélange de sensualité qui m'avait laissé plus de désir que de crainte de l'éprouver derechef par la même main. Il est vrai que, comme il se mélait sans doute à cela quelque instinct précoce du sexe, la même châtiment reçu de son frère ne m'eut point du tout paru plaisant." (Confessions,' Partie I, livr. 1, 1719-1723.)

The sex, however, of the inflictor of this indecorous punishment has little to do with the feelings it may excite, as the effect is purely reflex and physical. That it has such an effect on the nervous system which supplies the generative organs, there is unfortunately abundant evidence. I am almost ashamed to say there are vile old wretches who, to excite emission, have recourse to this means of stimulating their flagging powers. This fact alone should induce those concerned in the education of youth, if flogging is still to be practised, to see that it is applied on the shoulders, and not on the nates, of youths.

The reader will already have divined the danger against which all

these minute precautions, even at the tenderest age, are thus strongly recommended. The tendency of all irritation or excitement of the generative system, either mental or physical, is to induce the youngest child to stimulate the awakened appetite, and attempt to gratify the immature sexual desires which should have slept for years to come.

In

a state so artificial as that of our modern civilization, the children of our better classes are sadly open to this temptation. An enervated sickly refinement, tells directly on the children that are at once its offspring and its victims, begetting precocious desires, too often gratified by the meanest and most debasing of all vices. Of this melancholy and repulsive habit as it appears in, and affects young children, I shall say something here. Its effects in after-life will be dealt with hereafter.

CHAPT. II.-MASTURBATION IN CHILDHOOD.

This term, like the word Chiromania, can properly be applied only to emission or ejaculation produced by titillation and friction of the virile member with the hand: and in the course of the next few pages, such will be the meaning of the term. Use has, however, given it a larger signification, and it may be, and often is, now used to express ejaculation or emission attained by almost any other means than that of the natural excitement arising from sexual intercourse. This practice in a young child may arise in a variety of ways. The commonest is of course the bad example of other children. In other cases again, vicious or foolish female servants suggest the idea. children as have been described, the least they may, even without any external information, invent the habit for themselves. This latter origin, however, is rare in very early life.

In such sexually-disposed hint is sufficient, or indeed

As to the frequency of the habit at present among children, or even boys at school, I have been unable to obtain any very reliable information. Patients from whom, in the confessional of the consulting-room, the truth on such subjects is oftenest learnt, speak rather of what existed in their day. On the whole, I am disposed to think that in most public schools, the feeling is strongly against these vile practices. Still, every now and then, facts leak out, which show that, even into these establish

'I have heard of a vile habit which some foreign nurses have (I hope it is confined to the continent) of quieting children when they cry by tickling the private parts. I need hardly point out how very dangerous this is. There seems hardly any limit to the age at which a young child can be initiated into these abominations, or to the depth of degradation to which it will fall under such hideous teaching. Books treating of this subject are unfortunately too full of accounts of the habits of such children. Parent Duchâtelet mentions a child, which, from the age of four years, had been in the habit of abusing its powers with boys of ten or twelve, though it had been brought up by a respectable and religious woman. ('Annales d'Hygiène Publique,' tome vii, parte 1832, p. 173.)