REPRODUCTION. 669 



passes through the bowels unchanged; apparently because the 

 pancreas has not yet fully developed, and has not commenced 

 to make its starch-converting ferment. Later on, starchy 

 substances may be added to the diet with advantage, but it 

 should be borne in mind that they cannot form the chief part 

 of the child's food; it needs proteids for the formation of 

 its tissues, and amyloid foods contain none of these. Many 

 infants are, ignorantly, half starved by being fed almost en- 

 tirely on such things as corn-flour or arrowroot. 



Puberty. The condition of the reproductive orgarcy 

 each sex described in preceding pages is that found in a* in 

 although mapped out, and, to a certain extent, deveihe 

 before birth and during childhood, these parts grow c 

 slowly and remain functionally incapable during the early 

 years of life ; then they comparatively rapidly increase in size 

 and become physiologically active; the boy or girl becomes man 

 or woman. 



This period of attaining sexual maturity, known as puberty, 

 takes place from the eleventh to the sixteenth year, and is 

 accompanied by changes in many parts of the Body. Hair 

 grows more abundantly on the pubes and genital organs, and 

 in the armpits; in the male also on various parts of the face; 

 The lad's shoulders broaden; his larynx enlarges, and lengthen- 

 ing of the vocal cords causes a fall in the pitch of his voice ; 

 all the reproductive organs increase in size ; fully formed seminal 

 fluid is secreted, and erections of the penis occur. As these 

 changes are completed spontaneous nocturnal seminal emis- 

 sions take place from time to time during sleep, being usually 

 associated with voluptuous dreams. Many a young man is 

 alarmed by these ; he has been kept in ignorance of the whole 

 matter, is too bashful to speak of it, and getting some quack 

 advertisement thrust into his hand in the street is alarmed to 

 learn that his strength is being drained off, and that he is on 

 the high-road to idiocy and impotence unless he place himself 

 in the hands of the advertiser. Lads at this period of life 

 should have been taught that such emissions, when not too 

 frequent and not excited by any voluntary act of their own, 

 are natural and healthy. They may, however, occur too often ; 

 if there is any reason to suspect this, the family physician 

 should be consulted, as the healthy activity of the sexual 

 organs varies so much in individuals as to make it impossible 

 to lay down numerical rules on the subject. The best preven- 



