Book Reviews

This work, notwithstanding the extraneous matter which it contains, is,111'"" the whole, creditable to the author; and this can be said of few of the J books, pamphlets, and papers which have been printed on the revolting sU jects of which it treats. , ie? It consists of two Parts. The First Part contains much that is quite irre ,g vant to therapeutics, though they are professedly the great aim of the auth0 ̂ investigations. The first twenty-eight pages are occupied with a descript'0? ^ the sexual system in plants, animals, and the human species; and the o fourteen are devoted to a description of puberty and its attendant phenome 'j mental and physical. After this follow observations on the sexual instinct a its perversions. The remarks upon the latter are as curious as they are suitable for translation. We quote them, therefore, in the original Latin. " Nisus sexualis ( Geschlechtstrieb) ut ad quantitatem mutationes nurner<?fjj ofFert, ita et ad qualitatem ah norma aberrat, et diversae rationes exstant j sexuali satisfaciendi et coitum supplendi. Species harum aberrationum s sat numerosae, ast vulgatissimae sunt: onania sive masturbatio; pueroi'^ amor (vix/h{a<r<ria); amor lesbicus; violatio cadaverum; concubitus cum. malibus; expletio libidinis cum statuis. . " Onania sive^masturbatio est impletio nisus sexualis ope manus; in anlllp0sbus obviam venit, ut in eleplianti mare, qui comprimit penem inter crura V tica et ovacuationem spermatis sollicitat; M. Geoffroy observavit (An11, 1 .