hment and scoldings for being addicted to
nocturnal enuresis, or of accusing cases of nocturnal and involuntary
emissions as being due to masturbation. The child was allowed then to
grow up paralytic, or with a deformed limb, or continually punished to
correct what was imagined to be a condition of willful carelessness,
irritability, or willful moral perversion. Perversion, stupidity, and
irritability of the mind or temper were not known to depend, in many
instances, on preputial irritation; children were, accordingly, worried
and punished for something over which they had no earthly control or the
least volition. Humanity cannot, at present, sufficiently appreciate
what Louis A. Sayre has done in its behalf. It is here that we realize
the hidden wisdom of the Mosaic law and the truth of the assertion of
the late Dr. Edward Clarke, that, "The instructors, the houses and
schools of our country's daughters, would profit by reading the old
Levitical law. The race has not yet outgrown the physiology of Moses."

These irritations from the preputial irritability are not always so slow
moving as to span over either months or years in their fell work.
Instances of their sudden action have been sufficiently recorded as to
warrant them as being classed as causative agents in acute affections
that instantly threaten life. In the London _Lancet_ of May 16, 1846,
there is a record of a very peculiar case reported to the London Medical
Society by Dr. Golding Bird: "The case was that of a child seven or
eight weeks old only, an out-patient of Guy's Hospital. The child had
become almost lifeless immediately after nursing, and to all appearances
looked as if under the influence of some narcotic. It had not, however,
had anything of the kind given to it, nor had it sustained a fall, nor
was the head so large as to lead to suspicion of congenital
hydrocephalus. On inquiring if the child passed water, the answer led to
an examination of the prepuce, which was found to be elongated, and had
an aperture only of the size of a pin-hole, like a puncture in the
intestines. The urine was dribbling out; it was evident that the child
had never completely emptied its bladder. Mr. Hilton slit up the
prepuce, and all the symptoms were immediately relieved and soon
entirely removed." Dr. Bird referred to a case which he had related to
the Society some years before, which was reported in the _Lancet_ at the
time, of a child who fell a victim to a malform