irl, fourteen years of age,
but about the size of a seven-year-old child, was brought in, who had
never walked nor spoken, but with quite an intelligent countenance, who
was in constant motion, and who presented very many nervous symptoms.
Dr. Sayre examined her, and found the prepuce adherent the whole extent
of the clitoris. He gave it as his opinion that here was the primary and
sole cause of the symptoms, and that appropriate treatment shortly after
birth would have prevented all the serious consequences so painfully
apparent, and which was then too late to remedy.

"I once had occasion to pass a catheter into the bladder of a lady who
presented an innumerable train of nervous symptoms, often bordering on
insanity, but was unable to do so without exposing the parts. Although
the meatus could be distinctly felt, the catheter would not enter. On
exposure to view, an opening was seen in the clitoris, which was firmly
bound down by preputial adhesions near the extremity of the organ.
Entering the catheter at this point, it readily passed through the
clitoris, then down through a passage under the mucous membrane to the
natural site of the meatus, on into the urethra, and through into the
bladder. In the light of recent experience, my opinion now is, that here
was the cause of all the nervous symptoms in this case."

The relative disposition in regard to the irritability of the external
sexual organs as existing in the female, when contrasted with the male,
is, for some reason, not sufficiently considered or understood. The idea
of masturbation or of irritation from the genitals ending in reflex
neuroses is always, as a rule, associated with the male, and that it has
not been more associated with the female has deprived her of the same
benefit that the prosecution of the study in this regard has been to the
male sex. Masturbation among the feeble-minded, which is so common,
must, of necessity, have for its determining cause a foundation of
morbid irritability of the sexual organs. This is well known to be so
among the males, whose hands seem instinctively to be drawn to those
parts. Dr. C. F. Taylor, of New York, in an article on the "Effect of
Imperfect Hygiene of the Sexual Function," published in the _American
Journal of Obstetrics_ for January, 1882, gives us an account of his
investigations in this regard, with the following results: "In an asylum
for the feeble-minded of both sexes, it was found that the habit was