Meaning, primarily, sexual satisfaction by the hand,1 this term is intended to cover all those sexual acts in which the hand is used, either directly or indirectly, as a medium of sexual pleasure.

Thus, a man who uses a portion of a woman's dress, her shoe, or her hair, to produce sexual gratification, as noted under fetichism, and a woman who employs an artificial penis, a candle, a carrot,1 or any other article, for a similar purpose, are both masturbators. Animals, also, which have no hands, masturbate. As I have intimated, there is no other way of expressing this, as well as many other forms of solitary sexual indulgence; and for all practical purposes the term is sufficiently accurate.

■ M anus—the hand, and stuprum-—sexual defilement. French, mastupraiion. Italian, maslurbazione. Spanish, masiurbacum.

* The relations which carrots, parsnips and other vegetables have to the art of masturbation are well shown in Burton's "Anat. Mel.," p, 643, when he says that the women of the seraglio at Constantinople are so "penned up that they may not confer with any living man,nor even with the younger women, nor have a cucumber or carrot sent in to them for their diet, unless it be finely sliced, for fear—" etc.