ot any inebriates to assist in their
manufacture, but still the absence of these well-pronounced
cases of reflex neuroses among the race must be largely
ascribed to their practice of circumcision, as that operation
cures the gentiles so afflicted.

[106] I have seen precisely similar conditions resulting from a
sphincterismus being relieved by anal dilatation. I had one
such case who had fallen into the hands of a quack, who made
him believe that he was being affected with incipient
softening of the brain; systematic dilatation or a rupture of
the sphincter _a la_ Van Buren is the appropriate remedy.

[107] In the first volume of the "American and English Encyclopedia
of Law" there is an interesting account of a young child (who
had been bound out by the parish officials) who murdered his
little bed-fellow and, on trial and conviction, was sentenced
to be hanged, but who was reprieved by royal favor on account
of his tender years, the sentence being changed to
imprisonment for life. The little fellow was only eight years
of age. On the trial the boy said he was driven to commit the
crime because the other child soiled the bed. The two children
being both paupers, it may well be imagined that their bedding
was none of the cleanest at the best, or that their bed-room
had the best of ventilation. As at the time the murder was
committed English paupers were not treated in the most humane
manner, it is not surprising that a nervous, sensitive child
would, under such a combination of circumstances, be converted
into an insane murderer.

[108] The study of prematurely acquired impotence in the male is a
most interesting one. I have frequently seen it result from
the presence of anal or rectal irritation, from haemorrhoids. I
have seen cases who could not have erections, and in whom all
sexual desire was extinct at a very early age, who have
informed me that, although unable to have sexual intercourse
because of the total absence of sexual desire, the flaccidity
of the organ, and the want of sound physiological organic
functional activity to suggest the thought, they had,
nevertheless, freq