423 



(fontanele) which were situated at the meeting of their edges and angles, 

 disappear. The urine contains exceedingly little phosphate of lime, that 

 salt being entirely taken up in the solidification of the bones. About the 

 middle of the second year, these have already acquired substance and so- 

 lidity enough to support the weight of the body; the child can stand 

 and walk. Before this time, it would be dangerous for him to try it : the 

 pillars of support, yet too flexible, would yield under the burthen, and 

 bead permanently in different directions. It is towards the bead, that 

 the vital motions tend in infancy : accordingly, this part is the principal 

 seat of the affections peculiar to this age, affections in which it is often of 

 use to procure local evacuations. 



The organs of the senses, open to all sorts of impressions, receive them 

 with ease ; but if, in early infancy, sensation is easy, it is very transient: 

 no doubt from the want of consistence in the cerebral organ. As it grows 

 older, the mobility of the child is lessened, without diminution of suscep- 

 tibility : and it is during the years that precede the boisterous season of 

 puberty, that he enjoys, in the highest degree, the faculty of recalling 

 things that have affected him, that his memory is most distinct and ex- 

 tended ; but soon overpowered by imagination, roused up by the power- 

 ful reaction of the sexual organs on the brain, it ceases to have the same 

 exactness. 



CCXXVII. Of fiuberty. Sex, climate, manner of life, have great in- 

 fluence on the earlier or later manifestation of the phenomena of puberty. 

 Women reach it one or two years before men: the inhabitants of south- 

 ern, long before those of northern countries. Thus, in the hottest cli- 

 mates of Africa, Asia, and America, girls arrive at puberty at ten, even 

 at nine years old, but in France, not till twelve, fourteen, or fifteen : whilst 

 in Sweden, Russia, and Denmark, the menstrual discharge, the most cha- 

 racteristic mark of puberty, is from two to three years later. 



The male is known to be capable of generation, and that he begins to 

 live .the life of the species, by the emission of prolific semen, and the 

 change of voice, which becomes fuller, more grave, and sonorous; the 

 chin becomes covered with beard, the genitals with hair, and they attain 

 rapidly their full size. The whole body grows ; the general characters 

 which distinguish the two sexes, and which are so obscure, before puberty, 

 that they may often be mistaken, become very decided, and can no longer 

 be confounded. 



By all these signs of strength and virility, woman, urged by desires 

 which may be termed wants, recognizes the being capable of gratifying 

 them. The change of voice is the most certain of the indications of male 

 puberty. It depends, as the following observations show, on the de\ elope- 

 ment of the vocal organs, which constantly accompanies that of the sexu- 

 al parts. 



CCXXVIII. A boy, aged fourteen, died in 1799 at the Hospital of la 

 Charite. On opening the larynx, I was surprised to see it so small ; and 

 especially the glottis, which was not above five lines in its antero-posterior 

 diameter, and about a line and a half in its transverse diameter, where its 

 dimensions are greatest; an observation that must not be omitted, is, that 

 he was very tall : but that the developement of the genital organs was as 

 backward as of the vocal. I have repeated the same observation on sub- 

 jects further from the age of puberty; I have extended my researches to 

 ihose who had passed it, and I have obtained, as a ; cneral result, that 

 between the larynx and the glottis of a child of three or of twelve, the 



