Hirschsprung (Berl. Klin. Wochenschr. 1866, No. 38) observed three cases of sexual activity in boys in the earliest childhood. The youngest child was only sixteen months old. Membro mentulato, the boy continued for over an hour to make rocking or wriggling movements, until it would fall back exhausted and bathed in perspiration. Deep sleep terminated the attacks which were repeated daily.
Rohleder (Die Masturbation, 3d Edit., p. 58) describes a case of a boy, fifteen months old, qui faciebat motiones voluptarias fricando virilia sua contra mammam matris. The attacks were marked by staring eyes, burning face and oppressed breathing. At the acme of the attack the child would break out in loud sobbing. The paroxysm would last about ten minutes. Thereupon the child would fall asleep.
The early aberration of the sexual instinct in childhood is more frequently met with in girls than in boys. Probably because the means for sensual gratificaton at the disposal of the infant girl are more numerous than that of the boy. The mere thigh-crossing of the infant girl will serve the purpose.
Townsend reports five cases of stuprum manu in girls under one year of age. One, an infant, eight months old, would cross her right thigh over the left, close her eyes, clench her fists, and after a minute or two there would be complete relaxation, with perspiration and redness of face. This would occur once a week or oftener.
In Lombroso’s case a girl of three years of age faciebat stuprum manu aperte et pæne jugiter until marriage, and even afterwards. She bore twelve children, neque desistebat a stupro manu even during pregnancy. Of her twelve children, five died in infancy, four were hydrocephalous, and the three surviving children were confirmed masturbators, the oldest having begun the practices at seven, the youngest at four years of age.
One of the writer’s patients, a young woman of twenty-four years of age, incipiebat masturbari, tres annos nata, ponendo pulvinum in femoribus et premendo eum quoad muliebria humescebant.
In Blackmer’s case, a girl eight years of age impudenter se stuprabat from her fourth year and, at the same time, sollicitans pueros of ten to twelve years of age ad stuprum. She planned to kill her parents that she might devote herself completely to such enjoyment.
Zambaco relates the histories of two sisters, one of whom at the age of seven feminabat cum pueris, corrumpebat sororem, quattuor annos natam, ad stuprum manu, and at the age of ten was given to the practice of cunnilingus.
In Moll’s case, a girl of seven had an impulsive inclination to her brother, three and a half years of age, cujus virilia amabat contrectare et quem inducebat ad contrectandum muliebria sua.
Jacobi (A. Am. Jour. of Obstetr. 1876, p. 597) relates the history of a case of a girl of three who, at irregular intervals, had attacks of stuprum when sitting down. She began by keeping her thighs closely joined or by crossing her legs. She then started to move and rub her limbs violently. The face became purple, and there was twitching about the eyes which looked excited, and the child perspired freely. After the attack she used to lean back exhausted, sighing and breathing hurriedly.
In another case Jacobi saw thigh friction, up and down movements, quick breathing, perspiration, in a female infant of nine months.
Magnan cites a case of a seven-year-old girl who jugiter se stuprabat with great violence. Even in the moment of being photographed, she turned up her petticoat and gave herself up to her favorite pastime.
Rachford (Archive of Pediatry, 1907) has collected 52 cases, 48 occurring in female and 4 in male children, of pseudomasturbation, as he calls it. But since the same symptoms of orgasm, as interrupted panting respiration, flushed cheeks, redness of face, staring eyes, large immobile pupils, perspiration and exhaustion are seen in the infant during its practice, as are found in the masturbating practices of older children, there is no reason to call these infantile manipulations by any other name than masturbation.
Precocity of sexual activity is usually based upon a neuropathic predisposition. Such children are, as a rule, tainted hereditarily. The following case is very instructive on account of the severity of the attacks and the attending circumstances:
Little L’s mother left her husband and went to live with a very rich man. The child is the product of this concubinage. Some time after the death of her legal husband, the mother left the father of the child, deserted the child and married another man. The foundling has been since taken care of by a children’s aid society. The foster-mother, with whom the child has been living for the last six months, brought her to the author for examination, with the following history:
Soon after Mrs. L. received the child she noticed that the same was suffering from hysterical attacks. It sometimes whined and cried for several days in succession. It was always very restless and fidgety, giving the impression as if it was suffering from chorea minor. It was frequently running to the water-closet without any apparent necessity. Mrs. L. went to the society to find out what was the matter with the child and was told there that the child has been a confirmed masturbator since she was two and a half years old. Two other families, to whom the child has been successively given for adoption, have returned her to the society on account of this perversity. She was also told that if she refused to keep the child, the society will have to send it to an insane asylum as the last resort. For this reason, Mrs. L., who in the meantime had become attached to the child, resolved to try to break up the bad habit before she adopted it. Mrs. L., who is a highly intelligent lady and seems to possess an unusual power of observation, describes the attacks as follows:
The usual mode of the child’s practice is volvulam manibus permulcere. The acme of the attack is manifested by the rigidity of the entire body, by the panting respiration, the staring eyes, the immobile pupils, redness of face, perspiration and general excitement. After a short interval of exhaustion, she gives herself again to her favorite pastime. In this way the child jugiter stuprum manu faciebat, even in the presence of others. All punishments by Mrs. L. and in the institution, where her little hands were even burned with hot iron, were of no avail. When her hands were tied so that she could not use them, fricabat muliebria sitting on a chair, by violent circular motions of her pelvis, which simply frightened her foster-mother. When lying in bed the child crosses her legs and rubs the thighs violently against each other.
When the child was asked how it happened to start the performance of such practices, it answered that it had been first taught by her unnatural mother ut tractaret matris muliebria stupri causa. Also the matron of a certain institution is said to have taken the child into a dark closet et adduxit puellam ad matronæ manustuprum. The truth of these assertions cannot be proven, but by some experimenting, undertaken with the child, it has been proven beyond the shadow of a doubt that some adult woman abusa est puella ad stuprum suum.
The examination of the five-year-old girl shows a bright, nervous child, pale, with deeply set eyes, surrounded by dark rings, and somewhat enlarged cervical and inguinal glands. The entire body is covered with blond soft hair of unusual length. The same long hair covers the somewhat enlarged labia majora, so that they make the appearance of that of a girl near puberty. They are quite separated from each other, as found in the adult. The clitoris is somewhat elongated, but the prepuce is not adherent to the glans. Otherwise the genitals do not show any marked anomaly.
Sometimes the masturbatic practices are provoked by irritation at the peripheric region. The boy who has the impulse to touch and pull everything will, if not prevented by mother or nurse, surely play with his little organ. Sometimes there is a phimosis or an inflammation of the prepuce, or an accumulation of smegma in the infant boy; in girls there may be uncleanliness in the vulva, worms, eczema or pruritus. All these anomalies cause a certain itching which incites the child to touching and rubbing these parts. These manipulations produce an agreeable tickling sensation and awaken the feeling of lust. This feeling operates in the memory and excites the child to a state of activity before sexual consciousness has had time to awaken.
The habit of masturbation is sometimes contracted in infancy, by the laxness of stupid servants or ignorant mothers. They often try to calm the infant by tickling the child’s genitals and thus awaken lustful feelings which later on drives the child to renew the manipulation without outside help. In this way masturbation is found in the best and purest homes.
Another practice resorted to by nurse-girls and mothers is to amuse the child by gently striking its buttocks, a region which is highly erogenous. Every one who has read “Les Confessions,” by Rousseau, knows how this savant, when a boy, became sexually excited when his nurse punished him by whipping him on his buttocks. Thus nurses, and even mothers, innocently induce the child to the habit of masturbation. A still greater danger lurks from vicious servants and voluptuous nurse-girls who deliberately handle the infant’s or the very young child’s lumbus libidinis causa. They touch and strike the genitals of boys as well as that of girls for their own pleasure. There are few nurse-girls, says Parke, who do not delight to initiate the boy, committed to their care, in sexual matters. He relates many histories of patients who were induced to abnormal practices by their nurses in early youth. Lawson-Tait, in warning parents against allowing children to sleep with their nurses or with servants, says that in every instance where he found a number of children affected by masturbation, the contagion could be traced to a servant. Freund relates several examples of severe youthful hysteria where the starting-point could be traced to some sexual manipulations by servants, nurse-girls and governesses.
Sexual precocity is, therefore, not seldom caused by tactile stimulation. Still in the majority of cases precocity may be easily traced to a hereditary taint.