s; in one case this happened in the body of a female
infant born prematurely. In a girl five years of age, fifteen follicles
were counted in the ovaries. Liegeois,[55] in post-mortem examinations,
twice found mature ova in girls two years of age.

Similar cases of premature sexual development are occasionally seen also
in boys. For example, Breschet, in the year 1820, reported the case of a
boy three years of age who exhibited all the signs of puberty. His voice
resembled that of a young man of sixteen to eighteen. The length of the
flaccid penis was 9.6 cm. (3-3/4 inches), its diameter at the root was 7.2
cm. (2-3/4 inches); the length of the organ when erect was 13.5 cm.
(5-1/4 inches). In the presence of girls or women the boy's penis became
erect, his whole manner became more vivacious, and his hands were
directed towards the genital organs of these females. Masturbation was
never observed. The boy showed many additional signs of premature
development. For instance, the central incisors of the upper jaw were
cut at the age of three months. Breschet also quotes a case published by
Mead, in which a boy had undergone the puberal development before the
end of the first year of his life; when five years of age, he died of
pulmonary consumption, attended with all the signs of old age. The same
writer records another case, that of a boy five years of age, whose
genital organs were fully developed, who had a well-grown beard, and
exhibited, in short, all the (physical) characteristics of complete
sexual maturity. In accordance with the theoretical views of that day,
more especially as a result of the wide acceptance of the phrenological
doctrines of Gall, it was generally believed that an exceptional
development of the cerebellum (which was supposed by Gall to be the seat
of the sexual impulse) was the determining cause of such premature
awakening of the sexual impulse.

Contrasted with the cases just described, are those in which there is a
retardation of the whole course of sexual development, so that the signs
of sexual maturity are not manifested until an age greatly exceeding the
average "age of puberty." In respect of one symptom or several, many
individuals may remain throughout life in an infantile condition. This
is occasionally seen, for example, in dwarfs. It would be of great
interest, from this point of view, to make a careful study of the sexual
behaviour of dwarfs. In this respect, dwarfs appear to vary great