about equal in the two sexes, there being only this difference: that the
females began to masturbate one or two years earlier than the males, and
that the habit, once established, was found to be more persistent than
in the males. It was, further, ascertained that the habit came
naturally, without the aid of precept or example to either sex."

It may well be a question as to whether the feeble-mindedness be not a
reflex condition from this excessive morbid irritability of the sexual
organs. There is not much doubt but that, if one of the cases reported
by Dr. Price had not been circumcised, the expressionless, listless
infant would have grown, in time, into a masturbating, feeble-minded,
idiotic creature, as many others, so situated, have done before it. Now,
would it have been logical to have laid the morbid irritability of its
generative organs to its feeble-mindedness, when its feeble-mindedness
was fully demonstrated to have been wholly dependent on the sexual
irritation? From these premises we might take another step forward, and
ask whether, under a proper hygienic prophylaxis,--which would involve a
thorough inspection of the genitals of _all_ children reported to be
either physically or mentally deficient,--such a course would not
greatly diminish the number of paralytics, feeble-minded, and generally
deficient of both sexes? If the results in private practice are any
criterion, it is safe to assert that a strict adherence to the Mosaic
law for the males and to some of the African customs for the females
would most assuredly relieve all these cases that might come under the
caption of results of reflex neuroses. Twenty years ago this subject
was, to the body of the profession, a _terra incognita_ in regard to the
male, and, as the female is similarly subject to the same morbid
influence, it is to be hoped that in the present decade she will receive
the same attention which the profession is now beginning to pay to the
male sex.[105]

In the foregoing parts of this chapter, examples of reflex neuroses have
been given to show the different effects that genital irritation will
produce. The cases given were chosen for the diversity of variety of
symptoms, and as cases representing the affection, without any other
complication. Many more could have been added, but they are unnecessary.
In the writer's practice there has been a number of cases in the adult
that have exemplified that this form of ailment is by no mean