insufficiency of the published materials, no decisive opinion can as yet
be given), are explicable in another way. A large proportion of the good
results are certainly fully explicable as the results of suggestion. The
patient's confidence in his physician, and the fact that the treatment
requires much time and patience, are two such powerful factors of
suggestion, that provisionally it is necessary to regard it as possible
that suggestion explains the whole matter.

There are, of course, many other psychological influences to which
attention must also be directed. One of the most important of these is
the avoidance of psychical contagion. A boy who is sexually premature,
or in whom some other striking sexual manifestations have occurred, may
exercise an extremely harmful influence upon other children. We must
endeavour to remove such a boy from the companionship of others, and in
this country this often can be effected through the instrumentality of
the Law of Guardianship (_Fuersorgegesetz_). But it will by no means
always be easy to find the guilty person. It is extremely common for
such an abnormal child to set the tone for the others; and such a child
may be making remarkable progress in study, although its sexual and
moral level is a very low one. A number of other measures will be
inferred from what has been said in the section on etiology. These are
social rather than medical problems. We must avoid letting children have
the chance of seeing others engaged in sexual intercourse; they must not
live in too close and intimate an association with other children; they
must not grow up in the society of prostitutes; children who are past
infancy should not share a common bed. As regards school-life, it is
supposed to be a matter of great importance that there should be
separate closets for the two sexes. I am myself doubtful if this last
matter is one of much moment.

In any case, we can interfere for the special protection of children who
have been exposed to peculiar risks, and have for this reason been led
astray sexually. I have seen children who have been taught sexual
misconduct, either by a nursemaid or by other children, and have
practised such misconduct for a time; but in whom a complete cure has
resulted from separation from the seducer. In some cases, of course, it
will be necessary to do more than this, and to subject the child to some
special treatment; and in rare instances, in which the sphere of the