There are two potent causes for the growth of masturbation in later mediaeval and even modem times, both of which I think deserve mention here. Tissot, and a number of other medical writers equally devout, made of the practice, as Havelock Ellis well remarks,1 a colossal bogy, attributing to it a host of physical and other ills, of which madness, premature decay and imbecility, are only a few. On the old Adamic principle that what is forbidden is sure to be desired, many boys take up the practice, who, possibly, would never otherwise have thought of it; and the other reason, far more potent, and which Mr. Ellis takes care not to mention, is the quasi defence of the practice entered into by disciples of the opposite school, of whom he himself is not the least.3

Both Tillier and Venturi, the latter a well-known Italian alienist, have shown a tendency in their writings to regard masturbation with a good deal of indulgence; and it is scarcely to be wondered at that a boy, reading the following, in the light of the high position and reputed scholarship of the author, should be tempted to at least taste the unforbidden fruit: