ews arose as
follows. From the commencement of my medical practice I was frequently
consulted about masturbation in children. Many of these cases date from
ten, fifteen, and even twenty years back. I have recently instituted
inquiries as to the present condition of my former patients. In so far
as information was obtainable, I have been astonished to learn how well
boys, who from the age of eight, nine, or ten had masturbated for
several years, had developed as youths and as full-grown men. I have had
similar experiences in the case of girls. Among my patients, I have had
girls who masturbated at the age of five or six years; and ten to twenty
years later, when some of them have married, I have gathered information
regarding their subsequent development, either from the patients
themselves or from their associates. Here also it was very remarkable to
learn how rarely unfavourable consequences have occurred from the
practice of masturbation in early childhood, notwithstanding the dangers
commonly supposed to attend thereon. Especially rare have ill
consequences been in those cases in which masturbation was not pushed to
the point of inducing orgasm, but in which the children have masturbated
simply in order to procure agreeable local stimulation. But in some
instances also, in which orgasm without ejaculation had been observed,
no bad results have occurred. Such results are, however, much more
likely to follow in cases in which there has been prolonged sexual
excitement preparatory to the orgasm, whilst this latter has been
artificially deferred as long as possible. Where this has been habitual,
I have, in some of the patients, seen serious consequences, and
especially neurasthenic symptoms, result from masturbation. But the
persons thus affected were in many cases the subjects of such severe
hereditary taint, that it was impossible to decide to what extent their
troubles were due to congenital predisposition, and to what extent they
were referable to masturbation or to other noxious influences. It is,
moreover, probable that when the nervous system is less resistent in
consequence of congenital predisposition, the bad effects of
masturbation will more readily appear than in those whose inheritance is
a sound one.

As a result of these experiences, I feel justified in coming to the
following conclusions regarding masturbation during childhood. _It has
not been proved that masturbation during childhood, with or without
e