Plain Talks on Avoided Subjects

by Henry N. Guernsey

CHAPTER III.
Childhood.

Childhood is that portion of life extending from infancy to adolescence, which in boys occurs at the age of fourteen to sixteen years; and in girls at the age of twelve to fourteen years. In very warm climates adolescence is reached some two or three years earlier.

Most fortunate the infant who has completed its term of life, thus far, in accordance with the strictest rules of Hygiene, or the laws of health.

“In a state of health sexual impressions should never affect a child's mind or body. All its vital energy should be employed in constructing the growing frame, in storing up proper external impressions and in educating the brain to receive them.” Unfortunately this state of health is not always attained. Impressions may be exhibited in these organs at a very early age either from inheritance, from improper handling or from some morbid condition of the child that could show itself in no other organ of the body and which, like morbid conditions in general, make their appearance somewhere in the mind or body.

Sexual Precocity.—Many parents who are most particular in all other respects, as to the moral and physical training of their children, imagine there is no need to pay any special attention to the genital organs. This, however, is a grave mistake and needs our careful consideration. As is well known, some children evince a sexual precocity which may lead to very serious results. In these it often happens that the sexual instinct arises long before puberty; such children, if males, manifest an instinctive attraction towards the female sex which they show by constantly spying after their nurses, chambermaids, etc.; by seeking as much as possible to play with children of the opposite sex and improperly toying with them.[C]“One case is so remarkable that an abstract of it may be instructive: M. D——, between five and six years of age, was one day in summer in the room of a dressmaker who lived in the family; this girl thinking that she might put herself at ease before such a child, threw herself on her bed, almost without clothing. The little D—— had followed all her motions and regarded her figure with a greedy eye. He approached her on the bed, as if to sleep, but soon became so bold in his behavior that the girl, after having laughed at him for some time was obliged to put him out of the room. This girl's simple imprudence produced such an impression on the child that forty years afterwards he had not forgotten a single circumstance connected with it.”

Parents are remarkably careless on this point. They allow children to play together for hours at a time without the surveillance of an older person, provided only they are removed from any danger. It is sufficient to merely draw attention to such a custom as every reflective mind can easily draw the inevitable consequences. Habits are indulged in and marks of familiarity shown which should not for an instant be tolerated.

Causes which commonly produce sexual impressions on young children are, allowing them to repose playfully on their belly, to slide down bannisters, to go too long without urinating, constipation or straining at stool, cutaneous affections, and worms. Also, thoughtless acts of elder people which are very frequently more closely observed than is commonly supposed. The sliding down bannisters produces a titillation which is agreeable to the sexual organs. Children of both sexes will constantly repeat this act until they learn to become inveterate masturbators, even at a very early age.

Among boys a disease called priapism is often developed; this arises from undue handling of the parts, or from some morbid state of the child's health. The disorder consists of paroxysms, occurring more or less frequently, of violent erections of the penis; these sometimes become very painful and require the attention of a physician. At all events medical aid should be sought at once, because some functional derangement is at work which might, if not arrested and cured, give rise to masturbation. Owing to unknown causes such morbid conditions induce some little boys to pull frequently at the foreskin of the penis until their health is seriously impaired; they pine away, lose flesh, and still continue to worry at the foreskin, till death has been known to result. These cases require the most careful and skillful constitutional treatment, until they are cured.

Sometimes, in other cases, the foreskin becomes inflamed, offensive secretions may form about the end of the penis, etc. All such disorders should be submitted to a judicious physician at once, to avoid irritations which might result in a tendency to sexual excitement—a calamity truly deplorable to the young. The idea which some writers advance—that a long prepuce (or foreskin) often proves an exciting cause of troublesome sensations to the boy, is certainly erroneous. So, too, it is all wrong to state that particular care should be taken to wash under the prepuce. That this objection in regard to washing is true, is proved from the physical fact that in a large majority of boys the orifice of the foreskin is not sufficiently opened to permit of these washings. And the objection is still further proved by the fact that all these unnatural secretions, offensive odors, sensations, etc., which irritate and worry a boy together with all inflammations of these parts are soon relieved and permanently cured by the proper medicament. Needless laving, handling or rubbing the sexual parts should be avoided as strictly as possible. To show how little good such washings really do, even though persisted in, I will mention one out of many similar cases: “In spite of repeated washings every day, a fetid smegma was deposited in considerable quantity on the glans, causing a tiresome burning and itching.” All such cases are utterly intractable by any amount of bathing. But the suitable remedy administered internally cures the trouble permanently in a few weeks and at the same time improves the general tone and health of the individual. This is so because the proper remedy removes the morbific cause which produced that condition of the penis and all concomitant symptoms, at the same time. It must be remembered that the troubles referred to above come from within, and that they are but developments of internal morbific causes. In a similar manner, small pox, measles, chicken pox and all eruptive diseases come out as products from morbific causes within. No sane person ever thinks of washing off these appearances with the hope of curing the case!