shortly before the seventh or eighth year of life, while they exhibit the bodily configuration characteristic of the eunuch, are nevertheless capable of experiencing heterosexual feelings, and even passionate love. In Western countries we rarely have an opportunity of studying the full consequences of castration, for with us the operation is hardly ever performed so early in life as it is in the East; and the reports that are available concerning oriental and other foreign eunuchs are to a large extent untrustworthy. None the less, from such reports, and from accounts that have come down to us from earlier days in the West (more especially in the case of the boys who were formerly castrated in Italy for the preservation of the soprano voice), we obtain evidence amply sufficient to justify the statements made above. Even more convincing are observations made on the lower animals. For example, in horses which have been castrated at a very early age the sexual impulse remains undeveloped; but we have to contrast with this the fact that a certain number of geldings possess a well-marked sexual impulse, because in these animals, though they were gelded while still immature, the operation was performed too late. All these observations combine to justify the inference that long before spermatozoa capable of effecting fertilisation are formed in the testicles, changes occur in these glands which are of great importance in relation to the sexual life, both in the human species and in the lower animals. We cannot speak so positively as to the truth of this in the case of the reproductive glands in women, the ovaries, because alike in the human female and in the females of the lower animals oophorectomy is less commonly performed than is castration in the male. The literature of our subject contains few references to this matter. What little information we do possess, derived in part from travellers who have had opportunities for observation in extra-European countries, and in part from students of animal life, leads to the same conclusion as in the case of males, namely, that long before the age commonly regarded as the commencement of sexual maturity, important changes are going on in the reproductive glands. No detailed discussion can be attempted here of the other observations there may be on record to show the existence of such sexual processes during childhood. We may merely refer, for example, to the results of the removal of one testicle before the commencement of puberty; this is followed by a compensatory hypertrophy of the other testicle--whereas removal of one testicle after the attainment of sexual maturity does not lead to any such hypertrophy of the remaining testicle, or if so, only in comparatively slight degree.