. It tends to restrain too early development of the sexual
instinct both in small girls and small boys.

SEXUAL SELF-ABUSE IN GIRLS

Small girls, like small boys, display an intelligent curiosity as
regards the phenomena of sex at an early age. And what has already
been said regarding its improper gratification in the preceding
chapter, so far as boys are concerned, applies with equal force to
them. In their case, however, the mother is a girl's natural confidant
and friend. Self-abuse in one or another form is as common in the case
of the girl as in that of the boy. As a rule, girls who live an
outdoor life, and work with their muscles more than their mind, do not
develop undue precocious sexual curiosities or desires. At least they
do not do so to the same extent as those more nervously and
susceptibly constituted. The less delicate and sensitive children of
the country tend less to these habits than their more sensitively
organized city brothers and sisters. Girls who have formed vicious
habits are apt to indulge in the practice of self-abuse at night when
going to bed. If there is cause for suspicion, the bedclothes should
be quickly and suddenly thrown off under some pretense. Self-abuse
usually has a marked effect on the genital organs of girls. The inner
organs become unnaturally enlarged and distended, and _leucorrhea_,
catarrh of the vagina, attended by a discharge of greenish-white
mucus, often develops.

RESULTS OF SELF-ABUSE IN GIRLS

Local diseases, due to this cause, result in girls as well as boys.
Temporary congestions become permanent, and develop into permanent
irritations and disorders. Leucorrhea has already been mentioned.
Contact with the acrid, irritating internal secretions also causes
_soreness of the fingers at the root of the nails_, and warts.
Congestion and other diseases are other ultimate results of the habit;
and these congestions to which it gives rise unduly hasten the advent
of puberty. Any _decided enlargement of the labia and clitoris in a
young girl_ may be taken as a positive evidence of the existence of
the habit of self-abuse. Sterility, and atrophy of the breasts--their
deficient development--when the vice is begun before puberty, is
another result.

PRURITIS AND FEMININE NOCTURNAL EMISSIONS

_Pruritis_ (itching genitals), though not necessarily caused by
self-abuse, may be one of its consequences. Continued c