concerned,
it nevertheless has a very bad effect on the child who is unfortunate
enough to become a victim of the disease. First of all, it is an
extremely long drawn, persistent disease. It usually takes months, and
these months may run into years, before a complete cure, is effected.
Second, relapses are quite common. Third, the treatment is a
disagreeable one for the child, and is occasionally painful. Fourth,
it has a disastrous effect on the child's _morale_; most parents,
though they may love the child most affectionately, look somewhat
askance at it; and continuous vaginal treatment somehow or other has a
humiliating effect on the child, which begins to consider itself as an
outcast, as something apart from other children. Fifth, the child's
education is very frequently seriously and permanently interfered
with, because it must often be taken out of school, whether public or
private, and private tutoring is of course feasible only for the few.
Sixth, and this is a point not sufficiently appreciated by the
profession and the laity, but it is an important point, nevertheless:
vulvovaginitis in children has unfortunately a disastrous effect in
_hastening the sexual maturity of the child_. Whether this is due to
the congestion of the organs produced by the inflammation, or to the
speculum examinations, paintings, douches, applications, tampons,
suppositories, etc., the fact remains that girls who suffer from
vulvovaginitis in childhood become sexually mature considerably
earlier than normal girls of the same class, stratum and climate, and
their demand for sexual satisfaction is much more insistent. Seventh,
a mild vulvovaginitis may be the cause of permanent _sterility_.

It will therefore be seen that vulvovaginitis is a calamity, and
everything possible should be done to guard female children from
contracting it. _All_ children should _always_ sleep alone. Under no
circumstances should a child sleep with anybody else, be it a sister,
a mother, a friend, a governess, or a servant girl. People should be
very careful in sending their children to spend a night or two with
some friends. The friends may be all right, but still a friend of the
friends or a relative of the friends may not be. I have known several
cases where the origin of the vulvovaginitis could be traced to little
girls spending a week at the house of some friends where a boarder or
relative was infected with gonorrhea. That children should be kept
aw