representatives of the genital organs. I detect the principal source of fallacy in this arbitrary interpretation of alleged symbols. However this may be, there is no justification for the assumption that hysteria or other neuroses are always, or even in the great majority of instances, to be regarded as dependent upon masturbatory or other sexual acts during childhood. We must on no account forget that an illness often has a dozen causes or more; and although one or another of these may have had a preponderating influence in the causation, we have no right arbitrarily to select one of them as the efficient cause. I do not deny that occasionally the sexual life during childhood plays a part in inducing a subsequent neurosis; but this applies only to a comparatively small proportion of cases, and we must guard against exaggeration in the matter. This is all I have to say concerning the relationships of the sexual life of the child to the occurrence of nervous diseases. The sexual life has, of course, important bearings on health in other ways. The venereal diseases, in most cases, result from sexual intercourse; and it will readily be understood that since early sexual intercourse is rendered more likely by a premature awakening of the sexual life, an increased danger of venereal infection will thus arise. Although infection in children occurs comparatively seldom in consequence of spontaneously practised sexual intercourse, and more frequently as the result of the mishandling of children by perverted or criminal adults, still cases are from time to time observed in which infection with venereal disease arises in children from spontaneously sought sexual intercourse. In Jullien's work[94] we find a striking chapter on gonorrhoea in children, illustrated with appropriate cases. He writes. "In other cases, little boys, sexually premature, make early attempts at sexual intercourse. In Paris we see hardly grown youths appearing at the specialist's clinic, quite proud that they need to be treated for gonorrhoea. The very fact that they present themselves so coolly at the places for the special treatment of venereal diseases, suffices to show that they fully understand the cause of their illness." In Jullien's opinion, venereal disease is especially serious in children, because many of them conceal their condition as long as possible in the hope of avoiding punishment. Barthelemy reported a case in which the parents came to consult him because the boy was passing water every few minutes, and because at school he was repeatedly asking to leave the room in order to go to the urinal. Examination showed that he was suffering from cystitis, and that this was a sequel of gonorrhoea. As regards children of the other sex, I have myself seen cases of gonorrhoea in which sexually immature girls have been infected in sexual intercourse of which they themselves had been the instigators. In most cases, infection in children results from intercourse with grown