There is another cause, which is much more rare, but which deserves to be known: domestic animals, as cats and dogs, have sometimes licked the sexual parts of young children, particularly girls, and have excited a sense which ought to sleep. Hufeland publishes a remarkable case of this character in support of some peculiar views on venereal disease, and adds that Ruggieri some years before, published in the medical journals, a case where, by the licking of a dog, ulcers of a bad character were developed in the genitals of two old maids. (_Bibliot. Med._, May, 1821, p. 250.) Most frequently, however, the habit of onanism arises from direct provocation, from instruction. Sometimes this provocation can be attributed only to imprudence. Thus nurses sometimes titillate the genital organs in children to stop their cries. We have already stated, from Biett, the instance of a young girl who had thus contracted this bad habit, and who was cured by the amputation of the clitoris: this case arose probably only from ignorance. Sometimes, however, servants teach their masters’ children from wilfulness. One should be particularly careful of female servants, as it is to them that young children are generally entrusted. Male domestics are generally to be feared, only for those young persons who are near the age of puberty. The wish to please their young master, often induces them to give the most disgusting lessons. Most frequently, however, these lessons come from their associates, the older boys teaching those who are younger. If among young patients onanism is practised for itself, it is afterward only an apology for the want of more legitimate enjoyments. Celibacy, in adults, is with some few exceptions the only cause of onanism. This practice, and others still more revolting, are common among monastic orders, as the consequence and punishment of vows made contrary to the laws of nature. Polygamy, the quasi celibacy to which the females of many countries submit, also causes great derangements in the system. A kind of consumption has been described to which the Turkish women are subject, and which can be traced to no other cause. (_Journal de Med., Vol._ 44, p. 539.) It is in prisons, however, where there is no moral feeling, that this vice is most prevalent. Villermé remarks, that the amount of this vice in prisons, is almost incredible. Young and old abandon themselves to it so freely, that the physicians of the prisons of the department of the Seine, attribute the frequency of pulmonary consumption, of cramps in the stomach, muscular debility, weakness of sight, and of the intellectual faculties, to this cause alone. This physician considers onanism as one of the causes of the excessive mortality existing in the depots of mendicity. (_Dict. des Sc. Med._, _art. Prison_.)