PUERITIA—_Second Infancy_—_Boy-hood_. At about the age of _Seven_ years, _Detentition_, or the shedding of the temporary or milk teeth commonly commences, in order to make room for the adult set; and this event is considered as marking the arrival of the second epoch, and which, in its turn, is terminated at _fourteen_ or _fifteen_ in boys, and at _twelve_ or _thirteen_ in girls, by that peculiar change which the constitution undergoes, and which we have hereafter to consider under the head of Puberty. Persons of this second age are called _Pueri_, or _Impuberes_, not being considered as yet in possession of the complete powers of reason, although they may be allowed to possess some faint ideas with regard to the customs and habits of society; their memory is also most clear and comprehensive, but it soon becomes governed by the imagination. ADOLESCENCE or _Puberty_.—This important and tumultuous epoch of our existence commences at about fourteen in males, and at twelve in females, and ends at twenty-one, or later according to constitution, habit, and climate. The body having nearly completed its stature, its powers of growth are directed into other channels; and in the male, the beard begins to sprout; the voice becomes fuller, deeper, and more sonorous;[270] the parts of generation acquire the magnitude which they afterwards preserve, and become shaded with hair; the whole volume of the body augments, and at the same time assumes a character so decidedly masculine, as at once to proclaim the sex of the individual in whom it appears; in addition to these general changes, the secretion of the seminal liquor by the testicles commences, and the individual thus irritated by new desires, soon distinguishes the means of gratifying them, and the _life of the species_ may be said to commence its existence. Nor are the moral changes which take place less remarkable, or less characteristic of the period of puberty than those which appertain to his physical condition; his mind acquires increased tone, and his manners and habits assume a more manly character; these changes however do not immediately succeed, and we are much inclined to admit with _Zacchias_[271] the existence of three gradations in Adolescence, _Incipient_ Puberty (at about _fourteen_), Puberty (from _seventeen_ to _twenty_), and _Perfect Puberty_ (from _twenty_ to _twenty-five_). These distinctions are undoubtedly founded in nature, and are admissible both in relation to sexual and intellectual maturity. Important changes likewise occur at this critical age, with respect to the extinction or kindling of disease; in cases of hereditary predisposition, the particular malady will frequently remain dormant until the age of puberty; this is particularly evinced in maniacal affections,[272] in consumption, and other scrophulous diseases. The phenomena which attend the accession of puberty in females are not less remarkable than those