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PREFACE, iii

INTRODUCTION, 1

NOTES TO TEXT, 323

INDEX, 339

INTRODUCTION.

This book is the amplification of a paper, the subject of which was, "A Plea for Circumcision; or, the Dangers that Arise from the Prepuce," which was read at the meeting of the Southern California Medical Society, at Pasadena, in December, 1889. The material gathered for that paper was more than could be used in the ordinary limits of a society paper; it was gathered and ready for use, and this suggested its arrangement into book form. The subject of the paper was itself suggested by a long and personal observation of the changes made in man by circumcision. From the individual observation of cases, it was but natural to wish to enlarge the scope of our observation and comparison; this naturally led to a study of the physical characteristics of the only race that could practically be used for the purpose. This race is the Jewish race. On carefully studying into the subject, I plainly saw that much of their longevity could consistently be ascribed to their more practical humanitarianism, in caring for their poor, their sick, as well as in their generous provision for their unfortunate aged people. The social fabric of the Jewish family is also more calculated to promote long life, as, strangely as it may seem, family veneration and family love and attachment are far more strong and practical among this people than among Christians, this sentiment not being even as strong in the Christian races as it is in the Chinese or Japanese. It certainly forms as much of a part of the teachings of Christianity as it does of Judaism, Buddhism, or Confucianism, only Christians, as a mass, have practically forgotten it. The occupation followed by the Jews also in a certain degree favors longevity, and the influence on heredity induced by all these combined conditions goes for something. But it is not alone in the matter of simple longevity--although that implies considerable--that the Jewish race is found to be better situated. Actual observations show them to be exempt from many diseases which affect other races; so that it is not only that they recover more promptly, but that they are not, as a class, subjected to the loss of time by illness, or to the consequent sufferings due to illness or disease, in anything like or like ratio with other people.

For my part, I think that people who can go to the theatre and enjoy "As in a Looking-Glass," and witness some of the satyrical or billy-goat traits of humanity so graphically exhibited in "La Tosca," with evident satisfaction; or attend the more robust plays of "Virginius" or of "Galba, the Gladiator," with all its suggestions of the Caesarian section, and the lust and the fornications of an intensely animal Roman empress, without the destruction of their moral equilibrium or tending to induce in them a disposition to commit a rape on the first met,--I think such people can be safely intrusted to read this book.

There is a weird and ghostly but interesting tale connected with the Moslem conquest of Spain, of how Roderick, the last of the Gothic kings, when in trouble and worry, repaired to an old castle, in the secret recesses of which was a magic table whereon would pass in grim procession the different events of the future of Spain; as he gazed on the enchanted table he there saw his own ruin and his country's and nation's subjugation. Anatomy is generally called a dry study, but, like the enchanted brazen table in the ancient Gothic castle, it tells a no less weird or interesting tale of the past. Its revelations lighten up a long vista, through the thousands of years through which the human species has evolved from its earliest appearance on earth, gradually working up through the different evolutionary processes to what is to-day supposed to be the acme of perfection as seen in the Indo-European and Semitic races of man. Anatomy points to the rudiment--still lingering, now and then still appearing in some one man and without a trace in the next--of that climbing muscle which shows man in the past either nervously escaping up the trunk of a tree in his flight from many of the carnivorous animals with whom he was contemporary, or, as the shades of night were beginning to gather around him, we again see him by the aid of these muscles leisurely climbing up to some hospitable fork in the tree, where the robust habits of the age allowed him to find a comfortable resting-place; protected from the dew of the night by the overhanging branches and from the prowling hyena by the height of the tree, he passed the night in security. The now useless ear-muscles, as well as the equally useless series of muscles about the nose, also tell us of a movable, flapping ear capable of being turned in any direction to catch the sound of approaching danger, as well as of a movable and dilated nostril that scented danger from afar,--the olfactory sense at one time having a different function and more essential to life than that of merely noting the differential aroma emitted by segars or cups of Mocha or Java, and the ear being then used for some more useful purpose than having its tympanum tortured by Wagnerian discordant sounds. Our ancestors might not have been a very handsome set, nor, judging from the Neanderthal skull, could they have had a very winning physiognomy, but they were a very hardy and self-reliant set of men. Nature--always careful that nothing should interfere with the procreative functions--had provided him with a sheath or prepuce, wherein he carried his procreative organ safely out of harm's way, in wild steeple-chases through thorny briars and bramble-brakes, or, when hardly pushed, and not able to climb quickly a tree of his own choice, he was by circumstances forced up the sides of some rough-barked or thorny tree. This leathery pouch also protected him from the many leeches, small aquatic lizards, or other animals that infested the marshes or rivers through which he had at times to wade or swim; or served as a protection from the bites of ants or other vermin when, tired, he rested on his haunches on some mossy bank or sand-hill.

Man has now no use for any of these necessaries of a long-past age,--an age so remote that the speculations of Ernest Renan regarding the differences between the Semitic race of Shem and the idolatrous descendants of Ham, away off in the far mountains and valleys of Asia lying between the Mediterranean Sea and the Euphrates, seem more as if he were discussing an event of yesterday than something which is considered contemporary with our earlier history,--and we find them disappearing, disuse gradually producing an obliteration of this tissue in some cases, and the modifying influence of evolution producing it in others; the climbing muscle, probably the oldest remnant and legacy that has descended from our long-haired and muscular ancestry, is the best example of disappearance caused by disuse, while the effectual disappearance of the prepuce in many cases shows that in that regard there exists a marked difference in the evolutionary march among different individuals.

There is a strange and unaccountable condition of things, however, connected with the prepuce that does not exist with the other vestiges of our arboreal or sylvan existence. Firstly, the other conditions have nothing that interferes with their disappearance; whereas the prepuce, by its mechanical construction and the expanding portions which it incloses, tends at times rather to its exaggerated development than to its disappearance. Again, whereas the other vestiges have no injury that they inflict by their presence, or danger that they cause their possessors to run, the prepuce is from time of birth a source of annoyance, danger, suffering, and death. Then, again, the other conditions are not more developed at birth; whereas the prepuce seems, in our pre-natal life, to have an unusual and unseen-for-use existence, being in bulk out of all proportion to the organ it is intended to cover. Speculation as to its existence is as unprolific of results as any we may indulge in regarding the nature, object, or uses of that other evolutionary appendage, the appendix vermiformis, the recollection of whose existence always adds an extra flavor to tomatoes, figs, or any other small-seeded fruits.

We may well exclaim, as we behold this appendage to man,--now of no use in health and of the most doubtful assistance to the very organ it was intended to protect, when that organ, through its iniquitous tastes, has got itself into trouble, and, Job-like, is lying repentant and sick in its many wrappings of lint, with perhaps its companions in crime imprisoned in a suspensory bandage,--what is this prepuce? Whence, why, where, and whither? At times, Nature, as if impatient of the slow march of gradual evolution, and exasperated at this persistent and useless as well as dangerous relic of a far-distant prehistoric age, takes things in her own hands and induces a sloughing to take place, which rids it of its annoyance. In the far-off land of Ur, among the mountainous regions of Kurdistan, something over six thousand years ago, the fathers of the Hebrew race, inspired by a wisdom that could be nothing less than of divine origin, forestalled the process of evolution by establishing the rite of circumcision. Whether this has been beneficial or injurious to the race will be, in a measure, the object of the discussion in this book.

One object of this book is to furnish my professional brothers with some embodied facts that they may use in convincing the laity in many cases where they themselves are convinced that circumcision is absolutely necessary; but, having nothing in their text-books to back up their opinion with, their explanations are too apt to pass for their mere unfounded personal view of the matter. If the patient, or the parents of the patient, ask the physician for his authority, he is at a loss, as there is nothing that deals with the subject in any extended manner; so that this book has been written in as plain English as the subject-matter could possibly allow, so that non-professionals could easily read and understand it. I have often felt the need of such a work; people can understand emergency or accident surgery, military surgery, or reparative surgery, but such a thing as surgery to remedy a seemingly medical disease, or what might be called the preventive practice of surgery, is something they cannot understand. First, and not the least, among the incentives to skepticism on this subject is the unwelcome fact of a surgical operation, which, no matter how trivial it may seem to the surgeon, is a matter of considerable magnitude to the patient, his parents, or friends; there are risks, pain, worry, annoyances, and expenses to be undergone,--considerations which, either singly or unitedly, often lead one to reason against the operation, even when otherwise convinced of its need or utility.

The hardest to convince are those, however, who insist on having a four-and-a-half-foot-gauge fact driven through their two-foot-gated understanding, without it ever occurring to them that the gate, and not the fact, is the faulty article, Some of these gentry are very unconvincible. They at times remind one of that description given by Carlyle in regard to one of the Georges, who found himself, when Prince of Wales, leading an army in Flanders, and actually engaged in a battle. His Royal Highness was on foot, and was seen standing facing the enemy, with outstretched legs, like a Colossus of Rhodes, impassive and stolid,--the very impersonification of Dutch courage and aggressiveness. There he stood, unconscious whether he was at the head of an army or single attendant; he might be overridden and annihilated, overturned and expunged, but there he would most assuredly stand and fall, if need be; overwhelming squadrons, by their impetus and weight, might ride him down and crush him; but one thing was most certain, this certain fact being that he never could be made to retreat or advance, as no impression from front or rear could convince him of the necessity of either.

Then, there is our statistical friend, who cannot discriminate between the exception and the rule by any common-sense deductions. He must have all the authentic, carefully-compiled statistics before he can allow himself to form any opinion. As long as there is the smallest fraction of a decimal unaccounted for in a mathematical way, this individual is inconvincible. These men pride themselves upon being methodically exact; they express their willingness to be convinced if you can present acceptable proofs; but, trying to present simple rational proofs to these individuals is considerably like presenting a meal of boiled pork and cabbage to a confirmed and hypochondriacal dyspeptic,--it only increases their mental dyspepsia.

Had Columbus waited to discover America, or had Galileo waited to proclaim the motion of the earth, until authorized to a serious consideration of the matter by properly-tabled statistics, they would have waited a long, long time; and, it may be added, the inconveniences that attend the proving of a negative will so interfere with the proper arrangement of statistical matter which relates to the prepuce and circumcision that, before such tables could be satisfactorily and convincingly constructed, time and the evolutionary processes that follow it will bid fair to completely remove this debatable appendage from man. It may be at a very far-distant period that this evolutionary preputial extinction will take place,--probably contemporary with the existence of Bulwer's "Coming Race,"--but not at a too remote period for the proper and satisfactory tabulation of the statistics.

The ideas of the etiology and pathological processes through which we journey,--from a condition of health and good feeling to one of disease, miserable feeling, and death,--as described in, or rather as they control the sentiment and policy of, this work, are such as have been followed by Hutchinson, Fothergill, Beale, Black, Albutt, and Richardson, so that if I have totally ignored the old conventional systems, with their hide-bound classification of diseases to control the etiology, I have not done so without some reliable authority. In studying the etiology of diseases we have, as a rule, been content to accept the disease when fully formed and properly labeled, being apparently satisfied with beginning our investigation not at the initial point of departure from health, but at some distant point from this, at the point where this departure has elaborated itself, on favorable ground, into a tangible general or local disease. As truthfully observed by T. Clifford Albutt: "The philosophic inquirer is not satisfied to know that a person is suffering, for example, from a cancer. He desires to know why he is so suffering,--that is, what are the processes which necessarily precede or follow it. He wishes to include this phenomena, now isolated, in a series of which it must necessarily be but a member, to trace the period of which it must be but a phase. He believes that diseased processes have their evolution and the laws of it, as have other natural processes, and he believes that these are fixed and knowable." To do this, the physician must travel beyond the beaten path of etiology as found in our text-books. He must follow Hutchinson in the train of reasoning that elucidates the pre-cancerous stage of cancer, or tread in the path followed by Sir Lionel Beale, in finding that the cause of disease depends on a blood change and the developmental defect, or the tendency or inherent weakness of the affected part or organ; to fully appreciate the inherent etiological factors that reside in man, and which constitute the tendency to disease or premature decay and death, we must also be able to follow Canstatt, Day, Rostan, Charcot, Rush, Cheyne, Humphry, or Reveille-Parise into the study of the different conditions which, though normal, are nevertheless factors of a slow or a long life. We must also be able to appreciate fully the value of that interdependence of each part of our organism, which often, owing to a want of equilibrium of strength and resistance in some part when compared to the rest, causes the whole to give way, just as a flaw in a levee will cause the whole of the solidly-constructed mass to give way, or a demoralized regiment may entail the utter rout of an army. As described by George Murray Humphry, in his instructive work on "Old Age," at page 11:--

"The first requisite for longevity must clearly be an inherent or inborn quality of endurance, of steady, persistent nutritive force, which includes reparative force and resistance to disturbing agencies, and a good proportion or balance between the several organs. Each organ must be sound in itself, and its strength must have a due relation to the strength of the other organs. If the heart and the digestive system be disproportionately strong, they will overload and oppress the other organs, one of which will soon give way; and, as the strength of the human body, like that of a chain, is to be measured by its weaker link, one disproportionately feeble organ endangers or destroys the whole. The second requisite is freedom from exposure to the various casualties, indiscretions, and other causes of disease to which illness and early death are so much due."

In following out our study of diseases, we have been too closely narrowed down by the old symptomatic story of disease; we have too much treated surface symptoms, and neglected to study the man and his surroundings as a whole; we have overlooked the fact that there exists a geographical fatalism in a physical sense as well as the existence of the influence of that climatic fatalism so well described by Alfred Haviland, and the presence of a fatalism of individual constitution as well, which is either inherited or acquired. The idea that Charcot elaborates, that, as the year passes successively through the hot and the cold, through the dry and the wet season, with advancing age the human body undergoes like changes, and diseases assume certain characteristics, are also points that are overlooked; and nowhere is this latter view seen to be more neglected than in the relations the prepuce bears to infancy, prime and old age, as will be more fully explained in the chapters in this book which treat of cancer and gangrene. Admitting that Haviland has exaggerated the influence of climate as an etiological factor in its specific influence in producing certain diseases; or that M. Taine claims more than he should for his "Th?orie des Milieux," or influence of surroundings; or that Hutchinson has drawn the hereditary and pedigreeal fatherhood of disease too finely; it must also be admitted that the solid, tangible truths upon which these authors have founded their premises are plainly visible to the most skeptical; the architectural details of the superstructure may be defective, but the foundation is permanent.

From the above outline it will be easier for the reader to follow out the reasons, or the whys or wherefores, of the views expressed on medicine in the course of the book; and, although I do not wish to enter the medical field like a Peter the Hermit on a new crusade, to lure thousands into the hands of the circumcisers, nor, as a new Mohammed, promise the eternal bliss and glory of the seventh heaven to all the circumcised, I ask of my professional brothers a calm and unprejudiced perusal of the tangible and authentic facts that I have honestly gathered and conscientiously commented upon from my field of vision, which will be plainly presented in the following pages. I simply have given the facts and my impressions: the reader is at liberty to draw his own conclusions.

If I have been too tedious in the multiplication of incidents in support of certain views, I must remind the reader that the verdict goes to him who has the preponderance of testimony, and that many a lawsuit is lost from the neglect, on the part of the loser, to secure all the available testimony. Having brought the subject of circumcision before the bar of public opinion, as well as that of my professional brother, I would but illy do justice to the subject at the bar, or to myself, not to properly present the case; as it was remarked by Napoleon, "God is on the side of the heaviest artillery," and he who loses a battle for want of guns should not rail at Providence if, having them on hand, he has neglected to bring them into action.

The reasons for the existence of the book will become self-evident as the reader labors through the medical part of the work. Our text-books are, as a class, even those on diseases of children as a specialty, singularly and unpardonably silent and deficient on the subject of either the prepuce and the diseases to which it leads, or circumcision; and even our surgical works are not sufficiently explicit, as they deal more with the developed disease and the operative measures for its removal than on any preventive surgery or medicine. Our works on medicine are equally silent, and, although from a perusal of the latter part of the book the prepuce and circumcision will be seen to have considerable bearing on the production and nature of phthisis, this subject would, owing to our strabismic way of studying medicine, look most singularly out of place in a work devoted to diseases of the lungs or throat. Owing to this poverty of literature on the subject, and that the library of the average practitioner could therefore not furnish all the data relating to it that the profession have in their possession, a book of this nature will furnish them the required material whereupon to form the basis of an opinion on the subject.

To argue that the prepuce is not such a deadly appendage because so many escape alive and well who are uncircumcised, would be as logical as to assume that Lee's chief of artillery neglected to properly place his guns on the heights back of Fredericksburg. He had asserted, the night before the battle, that not a chicken could live on the intervening plateau between the heights and the town. On the next day, when these guns opened their fire, the Federals were unable to reach the heights, while many men were for hours in the iron hail-sweeping discharges of that artillery that mowed them down by whole ranks, and yet the majority escaped alive. We take the middle ground, and, while admitting that many escape alive with a prepuce, claim that more are crippled than are visibly seen, as, like Bret Harte's "Heathen Chinee," the ways of the prepuce are dark and mysterious as well as peculiar.

This, in short, with the exception of the sayings of Paul on the subject, which are all secondary considerations, is really all that there is relating to the abolishment of circumcision by the Christians. The real Disciples and Apostles believed in Jesus with as much fervor as Paul, but it is singular that they who were with the Master should always have insisted on the observance of the Law, while Paul as energetically insisted on its abolishment.

From these premises, I have seen fit to inquire into the relative merits of the three religions practiced by what we call the civilized nations, as they affect man morally, physically, and mentally. I have given the facts, my impressions, and reasons for being so impressed; from these, the reader can easily see that religion has more to do with man's temporal existence than is generally believed; its discussion is not, therefore, out of place in this book.

Repetitions in the course of the work have been unavoidable. This is not a novel nor a work of fiction, and wherever the want of repetition would have been an injury, either to the proper representation of a fact or a principle, the repetition has not been avoided. In describing the operations, I had desired to avoid any too numerous descriptions, as that is confusing, but have thought it best to give a number, as the reader will thereby obtain the views of the different operators, the mode of the operation often being an index to the view of the operator in regard to the needs or utility of a prepuce. In the general plan of the work, I have adopted the idea and the historical relation carried out by Bergmann, of Strasburg, who included all the mutilations practiced on the genitals while discussing the subject of circumcision, they being, in the originality of performance, somewhat intimately connected; this also tends to make the subject more interesting as a contribution to the natural history of man,--something in which all intelligent persons are more or less interested.

P. C. REMONDINO, M.D. SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA.

ANTIQUITY OF CIRCUMCISION.

If the ceremonials of the Catholic Church or the High Church Episcopalians carry us back into the depths of antiquity, or, as remarked by Frothingham, that the ceremonies of St. Peter, at Rome, carried him back to the mysteries of Eulesis, to the sacrificial rites of ancient Phoenicia, to what misty antiquity does not the contemplation of the rite of circumcision take us? The Alexandrian library, with its vast collection of precious records, could probably have furnished us some information as to its origin and antiquity; but Moslem fanaticism, with its belief in the all-sufficiency and infallibility of the Koran, was the destruction of that wonderful repository. We must now depend wholly on the relation of the Old Testament or on what has since been written by the Greek and Italian historians as to its origin and practices. The Egyptian monuments and their hyeroglyphics give us no information on the subject further back than the reign of Rameses II; while the oft-quoted Herodotus wrote some fourteen centuries after the Old Testament relation, and Strabo and Diodorus some nineteen centuries after the same chronicler. We have, therefore, in their chronological order, first, the relation of the Bible; then the Egyptian monuments and their revelations; and, thirdly, the information gathered by Pythagoras, Herodotus, and other philosophers and historians. To these three sources we may add the misty mixture of tradition and mythological events, whose beginnings as to period of time are indefinite. These are the sources from which we are to determine the origin and antiquity as well as the character of the rite.

Voltaire found in the subject of circumcision one that he could not satisfactorily make enter into his peculiar system of general philosophy. For some reason, he did not wish that the Israelites should have the credit of its introduction; were he to have admitted that, he would have had to explain away the divine origin of the rite,--something that the Hebrew has tenaciously held for over thirty-seven centuries. Voltaire thought it would simplify the subject by making it originate with the Egyptians, from whom the Hebrews were to borrow it. To do this he adopted the relation of Herodotus on the subject. His treatment of the Jewish race, however, brought out a strong antagonism from those people to his attacks, and in a volume entitled, "Letters of Certain Jews to Monsieur Voltaire,"--being a series of criticisms on his aspersions on the race and on the writings of the Old Testament ,--they proved conclusively that the Phoenicians had borrowed the rite from the Israelites, as they had practiced the rite on the newborn, whereas, had they followed the Egyptian rite, they would have only circumcised the child after its having passed its thirteenth year,--these being the distinctive differences between the Jewish and Egyptian rites.

Although tradition and mythology veil past events in more or less obscurity, they do, in regard to circumcision, furnish considerable explanatory light on matters which would be otherwise hard to reconcile. Circumcision has been performed by the Chippeways, on the Upper Mississippi, and its modifications were performed among the Mexicans, Central Americans, and some South American tribes of Indians, as well as among many of the natives dwelling among the islands of the Pacific Archipelago. There is a tradition, mentioned by Donnelly in connection with the sunken continent of Atlantis, that Ouranos, one of the Atlantean kings, ordered his whole army to be circumcised that they might escape a fatal scourge then decimating the people to their westward. This tradition tells us that the hygienic benefits of circumcision were recognized antediluvian facts, as it also points out the way by which circumcision traveled westward across to the Western World. As Donnelly has pointed out, many of the Americans possessed not only traditions, habits, and customs that must have come from the Old World, but the similarity of many words and their meaning that exists between some of the American languages and those of the indigenous inhabitants that have still their remains in spots on the southwestern shores of Europe--the ancient Armorica whose colony in Wales still retains its ancient words--leaves no room for doubt that at one time a landed highway existed between the two worlds. The Mandans, on the Upper Missouri, have many words of undoubted Armorican origin in their vocabulary, just as the Chiapenec, of Central America, contains its principal words denotive of deity, family relations, and many conditions of life that are identically the same as in the Hebrew, the name of father, son, daughter, God, king, and rich being essentially the same in the two languages. It must have been more than a passing coincidence that gives the Mandans some of their most expressive words from the Welsh, or that gave to Central America many cities bearing analogous names with the cities of Armenia. Canadian names of localities, as well as those of the Mississippi Valley, denote the French origin of their pioneers, as well as the names of Upper California denote the nationality and creed of its first settlers. So that there is nothing strange in asserting that American civilization and many of the customs as found in the fifteenth century by the early Spanish discoverers were nothing more than the remains of ancient and modified Phoenician civilization, among which figured circumcision.

That some terrible catastrophe occurred to divide the hemispheres is evident; the Western World remaining stationary in its civilization and retaining the customs and rites of the times as evidence of their origin. With this view of the case, the existence of circumcision as found among the inhabitants of the West can easily be traced to its origin among the hills of Chaldea. The ancient traditions and mythological relations of the Egyptians in regard to the great nation to the West are amply verified by the deep-sea soundings of the "Challenger," the "Dolphin," and the "Gazelle," which plainly indicate the presence of a submarine plateau that once formed the continent of Atlantis, whose only visible evidence above the waves of the boisterous Atlantic is the Azores and the remains of Phoenician civilization among the Americans.

Professor Worman, of Brooklyn, scouts the idea that circumcision was ever connected in any way or that it originated in any of the rites connected with phallic worship. Bergmann, of Strasburg, however, not only claims circumcision to be a direct result of phallic worship, but looks upon the rite as something that has been reached by what may be termed a gradual evolutionary process of manners, customs, and society, from the time of what is termed the hero-warrior period of traditional history, when war and the clashing of shields and sword or spear were the main delights and occupations of man. It is strange to note what difference must have existed between these hero-warriors in regard to their ideas of manliness; some were brutal and fiendish, whilst others were magnanimous. McPherson, the historiographer of early Britain, cannot help but contrast the superior manliness of the heroes of Ossian in his graphic description of the ancient Caledonians, when compared to the brutality of Homer's Greek heroes. The traditions upon which Bergmann undertakes to found the origin of the rite of circumcision are all connected with the inhuman and brutish passions that animated our barbarous ancestry. The first incident given is the Egyptian traditional tragedy, which was, in all probability, the initial point of that phallic worship which, with increasing debauchery, assisted in the final demoralization of Rome and Greece, after its introduction into those countries.

THEORIES AS TO THE ORIGIN OF CIRCUMCISION.

What Herodotus or Pythagoras may have written concerning the practice among the Egyptians was written, as already remarked, some nine centuries after Moses had recorded his laws; Moses himself having come some centuries after Abraham. Herodotus is quoted as representing that the Phoenicians borrowed the practice from the Egyptians, in support of the theory that Egypt was the central nucleus from whence the practice started, and not that it traveled toward Egypt from Phoenicia. The difference in the ages, already mentioned, at which the rite was practiced--that of Phoenicia and Israel being at one time identical--shows that the testimony of Herodotus in this one particular was the result of faulty judgment, as we find the people who have borrowed the practice from the Egyptians, as well as their descendants, closely follow their practice in regard to the age at which the operation should be performed. Another evidence of the strictly religious nature of the rite, as far as the Hebrews are concerned, lies in the fact that, with all their skill in surgery and medical sciences,--they being at one time the only intelligent exponents of our science,--they never made any alteration or improvement in the manner of performing the operation. It is evident that even Maimonides, a celebrated Jewish physician of the twelfth century, who furnished some rules in regard to the operation, was held under some constraint by the religious aspect of the rite. As a summary of this part of the subject, it may be stated that the Old Testament furnished the only reliable and authentic relation prior to Pythagoras and Herodotus. From its evidence, Abraham was the first to perform the operation, which he seems to have performed on himself, his son, and servants,--in all, numbering nearly four hundred males; he then dwelt in Chaldea. In absence of other as reliable evidence we must accept this testimony in regard to its origin, causes, and antiquity.

SPREAD OF CIRCUMCISION.

From Chaldea, then, in the mountains of Armenia and Kurdistan, the practice of circumcision was, in all probability, first adopted by the Phoenicians, who finally relinquished the Israelitish rite as to age of performance and exchanged it for the Egyptian rite. From Phoenicia its spread through the maritime enterprises of this race to foreign parts was easy. Egypt was the next place to adopt its practice; at first the priesthood and nobility, which included royalty, were the only ones who availed themselves of the practice. The Egyptians connected circumcision with hygiene and cleanliness; this was the view of Herodotus, who looked upon the rite as a strictly hygienic measure. History relates of the existence of circumcision among the Egyptians as far back as the reign of Psamm?tich, who ruled toward the end of the sixth century B.C. The practice must then have been of a very religious and national nature, as we are told that Psamm?tich, having admitted some noted strangers, whom he allowed to dwell in Egypt without being circumcised, brought himself into great disfavor among his subjects, and especially by the army, who looked upon an uncircumcised stranger as one undeserving of favors. During the next century Pythagoras visited Egypt, and was compelled to submit to be circumcised before being admitted to the privilege of studying in the Egyptian temples. In the following century these restrictions were removed, for neither Herodotus nor Diodorus, who visited the country, were obliged to be circumcised, either to dwell among the people or to follow their studies. There is one curious habit that is mentioned in connection with the rite of circumcision among these people, this being its relation to the taking of an oath or a solemn obligation. Among the Egyptians the circumcised phallus, as well as the rite of circumcision, seemed to be the symbol of the religious as well as of the political community, and the circumcised member was emblematical of civil patriotism as well as of the orthodox religion of the nation. To the Egyptian, his circumcised phallus was the symbol of national and religious honor; and as the Anglo-Saxon holds aloft his right hand, with his left resting on the holy Bible, while taking an oath, so the ancient Egyptian raised his circumcised phallus in token of sincerity,--a practice not altogether forgotten by his descendants of to-day. It was partly this custom of swearing, or of affirming, with the hand under the thigh, by the early Israelites, that caused many to believe that their circumcision was borrowed from the Egyptians, especially by M. Voltaire, who insists that it was the phallus that the hand was placed on, and that the translation has not the proper meaning, as given in the Bible.

The present ceremonies attending the performance of the rite among the Arabians are well described by Dr. Delange, a surgeon of the French army, as witnessed by him in the province of Constantine, in Algeria.

With these Arabs, circumcision is performed on a whole class, so to speak, at the same time, regardless of the trifling differences in their ages. It is preceded by feasting, the total length of the feast being for eight days. For the first seven days, all the Arabs of the quarter where the candidates for circumcision reside dress in their best. The poor have their mantles and clothes carefully washed, and the rich deck themselves out in their gold and silver brocaded vests and pantaloons. During these seven days there is general rejoicing, and the Arabs spend most of this time in the village street, racing, firing guns, or engaging in sham battles between the different camps, during which one carries the green, or sacred banner, which is supposed to render the bearer invulnerable. The battle ends by the standard-bearer being fired at by all parties, and falling, but quickly rising again and waving the flag in token of its protecting power. The Arabs now adjourn to another public place, where the notables and strangers are furnished seats on carpets; here a dance to the music of tumtums and the singing of invisible females takes place, the dancers being only males. In the evening the women sing, to which the men listen in silence, this concert being kept up until midnight. On the seventh day, the women, decked out in their best, and with all their personal ornaments, accompanied by all the young men, armed with their guns and pistols, repair to the extremity of the oasis, where they gather plates of fine sand. With this sand they return to the village, where it is exposed overnight to the glare of the full moon on the terraces of the house. This last day closes with a grand banquet, given by the rich whose children are about to be circumcised, to which all the people are invited.

In a very interesting old book, "The Treaties of Alberti Bobovii," who was attached to the court of Mohammed IV, published with annotations by Thomas Hyde, of Oxford, in 1690, there is a description of the Turkish performance of the rite which leads one to infer that they circumcised the children quite young: "Et cum puer prae dolore exclamat, imus ex duobus parentibus digitis in melle ad hoc comparato os ei obstruit; caeteris spectatoribus acclamantibus. O Deus, O Deus, O Deus. Interim quoque Musica perstrepit, tympana et alia crepitacula concutiuntur, ne pueri planctus et ploratus audiatur." Bobovii says that the age at which circumcision is performed is immaterial provided the candidate is old enough to make a profession of faith,--which, however, is made for him by the godfather,--in the following words: "There is no God but God, and Mohammed is his Prophet," or, as rendered by our author, "Non esse Deum nisi ipsum Deum, et Mohammedem esse Legatum Dei." To which he adds that the child must not be an infant, but that he must be at least eight years of age. Like to the Arabs, the Turks celebrated the occasion by feasts, plays, and a general good time; the child was kept in bed for fifteen days to allow complete cicatrization to take place. The circumcision was performed with the boy standing.

Michel Le Feber, writing in 1681, speaks of the tax levied on the Christians by the Turks, that they, the Christians, may enjoy liberty of conscience, and observes that, circumcision not being compulsory among the Turks, it often led to trouble and annoyances, as many of the Turks evaded the operation. The tax-gatherers in Turkey are very industrious, and, as being circumcised was, as a rule, sufficient evidence of not being a Christian, he often witnessed on the streets scenes wherein strangers, arrested by these tax-collectors, were compelled to show their circumcision as an indisputable sign of their exemption from the tax. He also relates that in their zeal for converts to Mohammedanism the Turks often resorted to presents to induce Christians to embrace their faith. While in Aleppo, he saw a Portugese sailor, who, through presents, had forsaken his religion, but who had repented in the most emphatic manner when brought to face circumcision. Finding entreaties in vain, the Cadi ordered the immediate administration of a stupefying draught, and the sailor was then seized and circumcised without further ceremony.

In cases where the new Mohammedan is reasonable and submits like a hero, the ceremonies are more elaborate. Le Feber relates that if the candidate is a man of note or wealth he is mounted on a horse and exhibited all over the city; he is dressed in the richest of Turkish robes and in his hand he holds an arrow with the point directed to the sky; he is followed by a great concourse of people, some dressed in holiday attire and others in fantastic costumes; and general feasting and enjoyment is the rule over the course of the march, where all the people run to swell the crowd. If the man happens to be a poor man, he is simply hurriedly marched about on foot, with a simple arrow in his hand pointed skyward, to distinguish him from ordinary mortals; before him a crier proclaims in a loud voice that the new religionist has ennobled himself by professing the faith of the prophet in this solemn manner. A collection for his benefit is taken up among the booths and shops, which is mostly appropriated by the conductor, circumciser, and his assistants, after which he is circumcised without further ado.

The same author describes the operation as performed on the young Turks and the accompanying ceremonies. They differ in some respects from those employed in circumcising a convert. The parents of the child give a feast in proportion to their means, to which are invited the relatives of the family and personal friends; if of the upper ranks, he is promenaded about the town to the music of drums and cymbals, dressed in rich attire; two warriors lead the procession with drawn swords, and a troop of females who sing songs of joy bring up the rear; the procession now and then stops, when the two gladiators in the front indulge in a fierce set-to, hacking at each other in the most determined and murderous manner, but so studiedly shammy that neither is injured; on the return to the house, the child, who is usually eight or ten years of age, is bound hand and foot to prevent his causing any injury to himself, laid on a bed, and circumcised with a razor, the operation being performed either by a surgeon or the chief of a mosque.

CIRCUMCISION AMONG SAVAGE TRIBES.

Lafargue relates that among the Australians circumcision is held in such importance that tribes at war will suspend all hostilities and meet in peace during the observance or performance of the rite. Here, again, we have a repetition, with a slight variation, of the practices of the Bassoutos,--something which gives some countenance to the hero-warrior idea of the origin of circumcision advanced by Bergmann. The Australian warriors go through a mimic battle, and, after a series of combats, finally capture the boys aged about from thirteen to fourteen years, whom they bear away amidst the cries and lamentations of the mothers and other female relatives, who, in their excess of grief, mutilate themselves by cutting gashes into their thighs, so that they bleed profusely. The boys are, in the meantime, carried to some out-of-the-way place, where an old man, perched on a tree or some rising ground, through the means of a musical instrument made of a deal-board and human hair, announced that the rite is in process of performance, so that neither women nor children might approach. Tufts of moss are placed in the axilla and on the pubis, to represent puberty, and among some tribes the skin of the penis is divided to the scrotum with a stone knife, while others content themselves with simply making a circular incision, which removes the prepuce, after the Jewish manner, the excised portion being placed as a ring on the median finger of the left hand. The circumcised then takes himself to the hills or woods, and there remains until healed, carefully guarding himself against the approach of any female. After this the third part of the ceremonies takes place: the godfather of the youth opens a vein in his own arm, the circumcised youth is placed on all-fours, and an incision is made from the neck down as far as the lumbar region, and the blood of the godfather is made to flow and mingle with that of the godchild; this being in reality a bloody baptism, and a near relation to the blood-compacts of the Arabs.

The Malays, as well as the men of Borneo, are circumcised. The Battos likewise perform the rite. Among the Islanders they sometimes ligate the prepuce so that it drops off. Among the Battos the same object is reached by small bamboo sticks, between which the prepuce is fastened. In New Caledonia and Tidshi the boys are circumcised in their seventh year. The Tonga Islanders split the prepuce on the dorsum with a piece of bamboo or of shell. In the Marquesas and Sandwich Islands the operation is superintended by the priests.

INFIBULATION, MUZZLING, AND OTHER CURIOUS PRACTICES.

It seems a matter of controversy as to whether the Mexicans did or did not circumcise their children. That they had a blood-covenant is admitted by the historians, as well as the fact that this blood was taken from the prepuce; but that the prepuce was actually removed is something that is not agreed upon by all authorities. Las Casas and Mendieta state that it was practiced by the Aztecs and Totonacs, while Brasseur de Bourbourg found traces of its practice among the Mijes. Las Casas states that on the twenty-eighth or the twenty-ninth day the child was presented to the temple, when the high-priest and his assistants placed it upon a stone and cut off the prepuce, the excised part being afterward burnt in the ashes. Girls of the same age were deflowered by the finger of the high-priest, who ordered the operation to be repeated at the sixth year; and once a year, at the fifth month, all the children born during the year were scarified on the breast, stomach, or arms, to denote their reception as servants of their god. Clavigero, on the other hand, denies that circumcision was ever practiced. It was customary in Mexico, according to most authorities, to take the children while infants to the temple, where the priests made an incision in the ear of the females, and an incision in the ear and prepuce of the males.

Besides circumcision, the Americans practiced several other operations that bore an analogy to the operation of infibulation, a procedure common to the Orient and to early Europe, and so ancient that, like circumcision, its source is in the misty clouds of antiquity. It consisted in introducing a large ring, either of gold, silver, or iron, through an opening made into the prepuce, the free ends being then welded together. Females were treated likewise, the ring including both labia. In some countries an agglutination of the parts induced by some irritant or a cutting instrument answered the purpose among females. Dunglison mentions that the prepuce was first drawn over the glans, and then that the ring transfixed the prepuce in that position; that the ancients so muzzled the gladiators to prevent them from being enervated by venereal indulgence. The ancient Germans lived a life of chastity until their marriage, and to their observance of a chaste life can be attributed the superior physical development of the race, as both males and females were not only fully developed, but were not enervated by either sexual excess or inclinations before having offspring, which were necessarily robust and healthy. To obtain the same results in a nation given to indolence and luxury, and lax in its morality, some physical restraint was required, and we therefore find the practice of infibulation coming from the warm countries to the East. The ancients not only infibulated their gladiators to restrain them from venery, but they also subjected their chanters and singers to the same ordeal, as it was found to improve the voice; comedians and public dancers were also restrained from ruining their talents by the means of infibulation. In an old Amsterdam edition of Locke's "Essay on the Extent of the Human Understanding," there is a quotation from the voyages of Baumgarten, wherein he states having seen in Egypt a devout dervish seated in a perfect state of nature among the sand-hillocks, who was regarded as a most holy and chaste man for the reason that he did not associate with his own kind, but only with the animals. As this was by no means an uncommon case, it led the Greek monks, in Greece and Asia Minor, to resort to every expedient to protect their chastity; in some of the monasteries not only were the monks muzzled by the process of infibulation, but they even had rules that excluded all females, either human or animal, from within their convent,--a habit that still prevails among many of the convents of the Orient to this day,--that on Mount Athos especially, omitting the infibulation of the ancients.

Readers living in the climates of extreme ranges and of seasonal change cannot understand the physical temptations that beset mortals in certain climates, any more than they can imagine the faultless condition of the climate itself. The subject of climatic influences will be more fully discussed further on; but climate, as a factor of habits and usages in one part of the world, that are incomprehensible to those living in others, plays a part that is but little appreciated or understood; whether it be the question of diet, dress, or custom, climate exerts its influence in no uncertain manner. As Sulpicius Severus remarked to the Greek monks, when they accused the Gaulish monks with voracity and gluttony, "That which you of Greece consider as superfluous, the climate of Gaul renders into a positive necessity." So of all physical needs and passions,--they are subject to a similar law. Those who have read Canon Kingsley's small work on the "Hermits of Asia, Africa, and Europe" will appreciate the above remarks; and it may be incidentally mentioned that his description of the climate that is common to the hilly country bordering on the eastern half of the Mediterranean Sea gives as vivid and as graphic a description of the physical condition of the climate and of its effects as can well be written. It occurs in the life of the hermit Hilarion, and the description given relates to his last home in the ruins of an old temple, situated on a cliff in the island of Cyprus, where the air is so invigorating that "man needs there hardly to eat, drink, or sleep, for the act of breathing will give life enough." The work gives the best insight also into origin and causes that led to monachism, as well as it tells the benefit that the condition conferred on humanity, showing a phase in the march of civilization that is but little understood.

But, to return to the subject of infibulation, which has, in a manner, necessitated this digression from the main topic. Thwing informs us that in ancient Germany woman was considered the moral equal of man, and that woman might traverse the vast stretches of country unprotected and unharmed. Woman never held such a position in the Oriental countries; neither has man, under the sub-tropics, a like self-command as shown by those ancient Gauls. So that, with the advent of Christianity and the moral revolution that followed, primitive methods, either inflicted on others or self-inflicted, were adopted to insure a chaste life. Infibulation was known, as already stated, for centuries, and in those rude times it seemed as the most natural and effective mode of accomplishing the object. It was not as barbarous an operation as emasculation on the male, as it only temporarily interfered with his functions.

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