The winters of 1876-78 were spent chiefly at Bordighera and in Nice. An episode there is worth recording.
My enlarging experience in various countries in respect to the relations between men and women—the customs, the diseases, the social disaster springing from errors as to human physiology and neglect in education with regard to the most important functions—showed me the imperative work which devolved upon the physician in this matter. I realised that the mind cannot be separated from the body in any profound view of the scope of medical responsibility. Under the olive trees of Bordighera, and sitting by its lovely blue sea, I meditated on the duty of the physician, and finally wrote the small work, 'Counsel to Parents on the Moral Education of their Children.'
So little at that time was the importance of sexual education understood, and the necessity of its consideration accepted, that when I read my manuscript to a warm and enlightened English friend staying at Mentone, she assured me that if I published that manuscript my 'name would be a forbidden word in England.'
I sent the manuscript, however, to about twelve of the leading London publishers, who all declined the publication. I therefore printed a small edition myself, which a bookseller consented to keep on sale. A copy of this little book fell under the notice of Miss Ellice Hopkins, who, considering that it would be useful in the special work in which she was engaged,
