In ancient times and until quite recently, it was considered as a distinct disease, attributed to constitutional debility or an indication of impure blood; these theories are now entirely discarded. The modern school of Gynecology has given it quite a different interpretation, and considers leucorrhœa rather a symptom of some local disease than a disease itself. Experience, and careful research in, the sick chamber fully corroborate the correctness of this view, so that a simple local chronic catarrh is the exception to the rule. The exception applies oftener to children than to adults. We find it in young babies or little girls of all ages as a result of diarrhœal discharges which are acrid and filter themselves into the vagina and by their sharp, irritating action on the mucous membrane, excite at first an acute, and afterwards a chronic catarrh of these parts. Eruptive fevers have induced a similar effect upon the mucous membrane of the child’s vagina and also upon that of the bladder; obstinate catarrhs are frequently traced to these fevers. I have known pinworms to make their way from the rectum into the vagina and by their irritating presence excite in the little child a very distressing vaginal catarrh. The irritation or itching which the inflammation and decomposed secretion cause, makes the child involuntarily dig or scratch her vulva, which of course only aggravates the disease, and which has already been mistaken for precocious masturbation, and will undoubtedly often be so considered again by superficial observers. In later years a subacute inflammation of these parts will undoubtedly develop this pernicious practice, and I have known several cases myself where young girls became physical wrecks from a combination of chronic vaginal catarrh and self-abuse, no one ever dreaming of the real morbid condition, but attributing their decline to everything else but the right cause. There is another complication that may arise from catarrhal inflammation in little children, and that is an adhesive inflammation of the vaginal walls; that means that the sides of the vagina may partly or completely grow together, and thus change the normal diameter of the vaginal canal. In after years this may entail frightful suffering, either by mechanically obstructing the escape of the menstrual blood or otherwise interfering with the normal function of the canal. There are many diseases from which we suffer in adult life for which the foundation was laid when we were young, through the ignorance of our parents.