y to the last year or year and a half of the
second period of childhood.

We must now proceed to ask whether it is possible for ejaculation to
occur in children at a time of life when the formation of spermatozoa in
the testicles has not yet begun; this question must be answered with an
unconditional affirmative. We have seen that the secretions of several
other glands intermingle with the secretion of the testicles. These
glands are the following: the prostate gland, the glands of the vesiculae
seminales and the vasa deferentia, the glands of Cowper, and the glands
of Littre. It is certain that these glands begin to secrete at different
times, and, above all, that some of them begin to secrete before
spermatozoa have appeared in the testicles. Hence it is rightly believed
that the capacity for coitus (_potentia coeundi_) develops much earlier
than the capacity for procreation (_potentia generandi_)--a fact which
was well known to Zacchias.[29] _Quae enim hanc juventutem vel praecedunt
aetates, vel sequuntur aut plane semen non effundunt aut certe
infoecundum aut male foecundum effundunt._ Strassmann[30] considers
that in our climate the capacity for procreation begins at the earliest
at the end of the fifteenth year, and the capacity for coitus at the end
of the thirteenth year. In a number of cases in which in children I
found stains on the underclothing, or in some other way obtained
specimens of the ejaculated fluid, the results of the examination for
spermatozoa were entirely negative. In a case which came under my notice
a long time ago, that of a child seven years of age, I had assumed that
the fluid with which the underclothing was stained was produced by
inflammatory irritation of the urethra consequent upon masturbation.
Subsequent experience, however, in conjunction with the observations of
other investigators, has led me to the firm conviction that even in our
climate we do not need to invoke the idea of such inflammatory
irritation of the urethra in order to account for the ejaculation of
fluid by children--at any rate when these are approaching the end of the
second period of childhood. In the case of twelve-year-old boys, I
believe that such ejaculations of fluid occur in quite a large number of
cases. One instance, which did not come under my own observation, but
was communicated to me by one of our best-known educationalists, relates
to a boy only ten years of age. This boy, endeavouring to climb over a