Boys at school teach each other to perform this manual pollution; and vile servants initiate small boys at a surprisingly early period. I have often gained the confidence of these little ones, and learned things more astounding than amusing. Not long since a boy only eight years of age convinced me, by his confidential description of his little vice, that he realized passion, erection, and as he called it the “goodie feeling” (orgasm); which was evidently the sensation without emission of semen. No small amount of injury is done to the nervous system by the constant titilation of the undeveloped genitalia; and as the habit passes on to the puberty-stage of adolescence, the novelty of the first ejaculation affords great and frequent amusement to the child, and he pursues it as often as he can obtain an obscure corner. This must be the time that the greatest harm is wrought upon the brain and spinal cord. The first five years succeeding puberty, the vice is carried on with great energy in a vigorous youth. Doubtless, the majority of boys have practiced masturbation, to some extent, some time during adolescence, but as they arrive at the age of discretion, become disgusted; or some influential person frightens them, and they quit the practice. Where it has only been an occasional indulgence, no lasting injury has occurred. Masturbation is practiced among men, not so much to the injury of their physical structure, but it is nevertheless a common vice. Miserly bachelors, hermits, and often widowers resort to self-pollution when financial affairs prevent their visiting houses of ill fame. I am credibly informed that the vice of self-pollution, by the hand, prevails largely among soldiers, as well as in convents, and public schools. _Pollution Among Females._――This is less common in childhood than in the male. Small girls are naturally more modest than small boys: they will not so readily fall into such vices, as they do not readily submit to having their genital organs manipulated; they therefore remain comparatively free until puberty, and often later; and then the habit is not common, but occasionally exists. With the limited opportunities for finding out such things, it will undoubtedly be long before an estimate, as to the extent that it prevails, can be made. I cannot better continue this subject, than by giving a case which is typical of many adult cases that I have observed in this peculiar and delicate role of physician; and it is not a “cooked” case, but one in actual life, which cannot be fully portrayed by type or word: