The social dangers of masturbation are very closely connected with the ethical dangers, and we frequently find them appearing concurrently. In isolated instances, as Lombroso and Ferrero have shown,[95] premature awakening of sexuality may lead to prostitution. In the chapter on Biology and Psychology, a special section is devoted to sexual prematurity, and the authors contend that in Italy this factor plays a greater part than it does elsewhere. It is further characteristic that in erotic literature women who are famous or notorious for their love-adventures are commonly described as having been the subjects of premature sexual development. From the beautiful Helen, who at the age of seven, according to one story, and at the age of twelve, according to another, was deflowered by Theseus, down to modern times, we find that premature sexual development is frequently adduced as a characteristic of such women. Although it is true that in many cases of the seduction of children there is no question of sexual prematurity, still, for a part of the cases, premature sexual development is responsible. For it can hardly be disputed that the crime of the child-seducer is greatly facilitated, if the child meets the seducer halfway. In cases in which sexual offences were committed on little girls, Tardieu[96] made a special class of those in which the offence was frequently repeated upon the same individual. Of the 60 cases of this kind, 29 were in little girls under eleven years of age, and 26 were in girls from eleven to fifteen years. He states that in these chronic victims, he was first of all struck by the premature development of the genital organs and the remarkable prematurity of general sexual development, both of these conflicting with the age and the development of the girls in other respects, Tardieu certainly paid especial attention to the physical peculiarities of the genital organs, and he was inclined to refer the premature development to the early experience of sexual intercourse. But it is possible that the real connexion was the reverse of this--and, indeed, many other observations support such a view--in that owing to their sexual prematurity the children experienced a powerful sexual impulse at an unusually early age, and that for this reason they became the victims of sexual attempts much earlier than others. Kisch[97] also believes that in many cases of premature puberty, premature sexual intercourse is observed, and parturition may even occur at a very early age. He writes: "A girl in whom menstruation began at the age of one year, gave birth to a child when she was ten years old (Montgomery). A girl who began to menstruate when at the age of nine years, became pregnant very shortly afterwards (d'Outreport). The well-known case recorded by Haller, in which at birth the pubic hair was already grown, and in which menstruation began at the age of two years, was also one of