she should determine to stop
it immediately and then take measures to restore her nervous system to
its original state. It never is too late to commence treatment. It is
the continued practice and the mental dwelling on the acts that does the
harm, not the few acts thoughtlessly performed. Of course the longer the
habit has continued, the more firmly it is fixed and the harder to
break.

The treatment is first to absolutely stop the practice, then fill your
mind with other thoughts. Take considerable physical exercise in the
open air. Sleep on a hard bed in a well-ventilated room. Eat plain,
nourishing food without spices and stimulants. Take up some work or play
that will interest you and that will keep your mind occupied. Live in
the open air as much as possible. If you find yourself desiring to do
these harmful things, go immediately and busy your mind and hands with
something else and the desire will pass soon. In young children this
habit often has its origin in some irritation of the external organs, as
a hooded clitoris. So before taking severe measures to break the habit,
it is wise to have the child examined for such a condition.

Now as to mental self-abuse, perhaps I can make my meaning more clear by
again quoting from some of my letters. A young woman from South
Carolina wrote me, "A few years ago I taught school and one of my
pupils, perfectly innocent of the grave results that would befall her,
committed three outrages upon herself, what is known in the medical
world as masturbation or self-abuse. The girl, as I know, was chaste and
a sweeter, nicer, brighter pupil I never taught. But she had the
misfortune to commit these abuses upon herself in all innocence and felt
no discomfort or ill health in any way until about three months
afterward. Then she began to lose interest in her work, to fall away in
her grades, in fact to take very little interest in anything. In this
condition she came to me and told me everything. Since then she has felt
no physical pain whatever, but her mind, though not really gone, is
visibly affected. In this way, she is constantly in dread lest something
dreadful will happen, feels as if a cloud were hanging over her, is not
capable of doing any mental work. At times, has a horror of being shut
up in any place, memory is poor, places and positions change, that is, a
place moves to some other position, for instance, the right side of the
street very often is in the opposite direc