Similar cases of premature sexual development are occasionally seen also
in boys. For example, Breschet, in the year 1820, reported the case of a
boy three years of age who exhibited all the signs of puberty. His voice
resembled that of a young man of sixteen to eighteen. The length of the
flaccid penis was 9.6 cm. (3-3/4 inches), its diameter at the root was 7.2
cm. (2-3/4 inches); the length of the organ when erect was 13.5 cm.
(5-1/4 inches). In the presence of girls or women the boy's penis became
erect, his whole manner became more vivacious, and his hands were
directed towards the genital organs of these females. Masturbation was
never observed. The boy showed many additional signs of premature
development. For instance, the central incisors of the upper jaw were
cut at the age of three months. Breschet also quotes a case published by
Mead, in which a boy had undergone the puberal development before the
end of the first year of his life; when five years of age, he died of
pulmonary consumption, attended with all the signs of old age. The same
writer records another case, that of a boy five years of age, whose
genital organs were fully developed, who had a well-grown beard, and
exhibited, in short, all the (physical) characteristics of complete
sexual maturity. In accordance with the theoretical views of that day,
more especially as a result of the wide acceptance of the phrenological
doctrines of Gall, it was generally believed that an exceptional
development of the cerebellum (which was supposed by Gall to be the seat
of the sexual impulse) was the determining cause of such premature
awakening of the sexual impulse.
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