That this habit of self-abuse existing in early childhood is a danger capable of undermining the health from its tendency to increase is a very serious fact. A little girl of six years old was lately brought to me whose physical and mental strength were both failing from the nervous exhaustion of a habit so inveterate that she fell into convulsions if physically restrained from its exercise. In this case an evil hereditary tendency from both parents was discovered, and malformation existed in the child. Indeed, cases of injury to childhood from self-abuse are so common in the physician’s experience that warning to parents should be given on this subject. The cause should be carefully sought for wherever this vicious practice is discovered, and the trusted family physician consulted if necessary. Now, it is quite true that this habit, when observed in children, may often, and I believe generally, be broken up. It is the mother who must do this by sympathy and wise oversight. When a child is known in any way to be producing pressure or excitement in these parts, the watchful observation of the mother must be at once aroused. If no physical cause of irritation, such as worms or some malformation, appears to be present, the dangerous habit may be broken up entirely; but no punishment must ever be resorted to. The little innocent child, to whom the sentiment of sex is an unknown thing, will confide in its mother if encouraged to do so. If kindly but seriously told that it may make little children ill to do this thing, and the reply being given (as in cases I have known) that ‘the little feeling comes of itself,’ the child should be encouraged to come to its mother, and she ‘will help him drive the feeling away.’ This providential guardianship of the portals of life is a special endowment of maternity, and it is the potential motherhood of all experienced women which fits them to understand and to guide the growth and development of the sexual powers of our human nature. The tact of a mother will never suggest evil to her child, but her quick perception of danger will enable her to detect its signs, and avert it.