approach of puberty, but a condition which, in the more easily affected organism of the child,--lacking, as it does, that resistance that comes with our prime,--is productive of serious harm; as even the first few years of life, even a few months of infant life, with a phimosis, are sufficient to so change the structures of parts that the poor child will grow into a man with an impaired kidney or sacculated ureter. The strain required to induce a prolapsus of the bowel or a rupture into the inguinal canal is exerted as much on the bladder, ureter, and kidney as on the other localities. Physicians who have taken the pains to observe must have noticed, more than once, how the child afflicted with a phimosis has not only at times to wait for the stream of urine to appear, there seemingly being some obstruction to its starting, but how often such a case is afflicted with a stammering, halting urination. A child thus started out into life, with a defective kidney or kidneys, is sadly handicapped in his usefulness, comfort, or in properly competing in the race of life. No parent would for a moment think of starting his son in life by giving him a business that is heavily mortgaged at the start, but many a parent unconsciously launches the unsuspecting child into a life of such ill health--resulting from a simple narrow prepuce--beside which a heavy mortgage or a heavy yearly tribute would be but a mere trifle. I have seen such men, who in after life, broken-down and perfectly physical wrecks, would gladly have given all their wealth and been willing to have some genii set them down in the middle of the Sahara, shirtless and pennyless, provided they had their health. To say nothing of the trifling loss of the prepuce, these parties would gladly have had a foot or a leg go with the prepuce if necessary, and have their health.