The disease is not always confined to the spinal marrow, and its membranes: it frequently extends to the parts adjacent, and particularly to the vertebræ. The latter are then destroyed; and the disease described by Pott, and which takes his name, appears. Sabatier was aware of the influence of masturbation on the bony part of the vertebral column. “The most terrible and most frequent results of onanism,” says he, in a letter to M. A. Petit, “are nodosities of the spine. My opinion has always been regarded as unfounded, on account of the youth of the patients; but I was enlightened by the admission of some of my patients, that many were guilty of this thing before their sixteenth year.” This fact, which was afterward stated by Boyer, in his lectures, is now no longer doubted. The relation, however, between the caries of the bodies of the vertebræ in onanists, and the affection of the medulla, or of its membranes, had not been observed; it had not been remarked that this latter always precedes caries, which in this case is only the result of the extension of the primitive disease. The facts which are to be stated will prove this to be true. L. E. G., twenty-one years old, a turner, of a lymphatic temperament, of a slender and delicate constitution, addicted to masturbation from childhood, experienced, at the beginning of February, 1825, a slight pain in the epigastric region, difficulty of digestion, and constipation: he also had laborious breathing, caused by palpitations, which were much increased by walking, and particularly by going up stairs. On entering the hospital la Pitié, April 28th, 1825, this young man presented all the symptoms of a hypertrophy of the left cavities of the heart: these phenomena, which diminished after a few days, were followed by symptoms of enteritis and peritonitis, which were attributed to excesses in eating. During the continuance of this latter affection, the patient complained of uncommon debility in the abdominal limbs. These symptoms disappeared; and when it was expected to see the patient convalescent, he was affected with complete paraplegia. He lost the use of his legs: they, however, retained their sensibility. As motion in them was lost, this sensibility was even increased; for the patient cried whenever he was touched, or when the position of the lower limbs was changed. The bladder was soon paralyzed, and the sound was used, which caused inflammation of this organ. A broad and deep eschar, followed by ulceration, laid bare the whole posterior part of the pelvis. From this time, the symptoms increased more and more, and the patient died the 11th of August, about six weeks after the first symptoms appeared.