ore increasingly drawn to his sexual
organs. His attention may, of course, be directed to his genital organs
by such stimuli as those we have described, even though these latter do
not lead to the occurrence of erection. By such sensations, the child is
very readily induced to manipulate his genital organs. Just as the
little child soon learns to scratch other itching regions of the skin,
so also he learns to scratch his genital organs when these are the seat
of an itching eruption, or when in any other way irritating sensations
arise in this region. Pflueger and Preyer[24] have made investigations
regarding the itching-reflex (_Kitzelreflexe_), and although in many
respects their results are divergent, yet one point is clearly
established by both, namely, that within a few months after birth a
distinct itching-reflex is in operation, inasmuch as the child
endeavours to scratch itching areas. Thus, by itching of the genital
organs, a child is readily led to practise masturbation; and this is not
necessarily effected by the hands, but sometimes by the feet, or by
rubbing the thighs against one another, this last being generally done
when the child is in the sitting posture. When erections occur in the
child, we cannot always trace them to external stimuli, for in many
cases they are due to stimuli of other kinds. Erection may, in fact,
result from internal stimuli, connected with the development of the
genital organs, and more especially that of the testicles. Moreover,
such developmental stimuli may induce the child to manipulate the
genital organs, and thus give rise to masturbation, without in the first
instance causing erection. It appears that such stimuli leading to the
practice of masturbation occur, during the first years of childhood,
chiefly, if not exclusively, in children with morbid hereditary
predisposition.

Such processes as these, viz., inflammatory stimuli originating in the
external genital organs, or developmental stimuli proceeding from the
testicles, may lead to the practice of masturbation without having
directly affected the child's consciousness. Just as in the pithed frog,
if we stimulate one foot with acetic acid, the other foot scratches the
irritated area, so a child may, with his hands or in some other way,
scratch itching regions of the body, and, above all, of the external
genital organs, without its being necessary for us to assume that he is
fully conscious of what he is doing. Further,