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The predominance of the action of the nervous system over that of the other portions of the human organization, is exceedingly frequent in young children, and is the most powerful predisposing cause of the vice in question. It can never, of course, be attributed to the stimulation exerted on the genital organs by the presence of the spermatic fluid, for in them this secretion does not exist. It sometimes happens that, by a kind of special organic
idiosyncracy, the organs of generation become the seat of abnormal sensitiveness or irritation in young subjects, at once the occasion and the signal for the explosion of this most terrific and fatal passion. This explains the great number of examples in which, even in the nursery, during the "innocent slumbers of childhood," the genital organs are observed to be in a state of erection, or erethism, unnatural at that age, and which can by no possibility be
supposed to subserve any physiological end. It is obvious that, in such a condition of abnormal excitation, the least accidental touch, or even an involuntary mechanical movement, may very easily lead to a most frightful and devouring passion.
However, in all probability, the most common origin of this nervous concentration and precocious sensibility is to be found in the criminality of passionate creatures to whose care the innocent little beings are confided, as nurses or young servants. "Wise women" have been known to adopt this method of quieting the outcries of the youngest infants! Such children never fail, sooner or later, to avail themselves of their frightful discovery. Facts of this nature demand the vigilant solicitude of moralists, heads of families, principals of schools, of all persons, in short, to whom the destinies of the young are confided.
French physicians have already bestowed great atten-
