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 congestion
causes the genital parts to itch terribly. This itching increases
until the desire to manipulate the genitals becomes irresistible. It
will then be indulged in even in the presence of strangers, though the
girl in question at other times may be exceptionally modest. Girls
addicted to the vice also suffer from nocturnal emissions. The general
effect of self-abuse is much the same in the case of a girl as in that
of a boy, for leucorrhea is injurious in somewhat the same fashion as
seminal loss. In the case of girls the greatest injury, however, is
due to the nervous exhaustion which succeeds the unnatural excitement.
WHAT MOTHERS SHOULD DO FOR THEIR GIRLS
A healthy girl should be happy and comfortable in all respects. She