History of Circumcision from the Earliest Times to the Present Part 2

Grotins and Arias Montan at one time advanced the idea that the western coast of South America was peopled by some mutinous sailors from the fleets of King Solomon, who, in their endeavor to go away far enough to be out of reach, were driven by winds and chance to the Peruvian coast.

Others have imagined that some of the lost tribes of Israel found their way eastward to America, by the way of China, to the Mexican coast. The same ideal tradition has made the lost tribes the fathers of the Iroquois Nation in the northeastern parts of the United States. An author, who will be quoted in another part of this work, scouts the idea that the rite, as performed in America, had any connection or common origin with the rite performed in Asia and Africa; but, true to his theory of the climatic causes of the origin of circ.u.mcision, he maintains that it originated here as it did elsewhere, being a performance born of climatic necessity. He is, however, dissatisfied with Father Acosta for not being more explicit in relation to the _modus operandi_ of the Mexican circ.u.mcision. The want of being explicit, and its consequences in this particular regard, may be inferred from a "Diatribe on Circ.u.mcision," by a Mr. Mallet, in an encyclopaedic dictionary of the last century, in which Mr. Mallet informs his readers that Mexicans were in the habit of _cutting off the ears and prepuces_ of the newly born. Herrera and Acosta agree with Clavigero in a.s.serting that the Mexicans simply _bled_ the prepuce. Pierre d'Angleria and other contemporary writers are as emphatic in a.s.serting that in the island of Cosumel, in Yucatan, on the sea-board of the Gulf of Mexico and on the Florida coast, they have observed circ.u.mcision by the complete removal of the prepuce with a stone knife. The Spanish monk, Gumilla, relates that the Saliva Indians of the Orinoco circ.u.mcised their infants on the eighth day. These Indians also included the females in the observance of the rite. The same author tells us of the barbarous and b.l.o.o.d.y performances, in relation to the rite, of the nations on the banks of the Quilato and the Uru, as well as those dwelling along the streams that empty into the Apure. The same is said of the Guamo and of the Othomacos Indians; according to Gumilla, many of these Indians, in addition to the rite of circ.u.mcision, inflicted a number of cuts on the arms, legs, and over the body, to a degree that amounted to butchery, the child being reserved for this inhuman treatment until the age of ten or twelve years, that he might, by his greater powers of resistance and of recuperation, stand some chance of escaping alive from the ordeal.

The friar mentions that in 1721 he found a child dying from this treatment, the wounds having become gangrenous and the child dying of pyaemia; prior to the operation the children were stupefied with some narcotic drink, and were insensible during its performance.[19]

Besides circ.u.mcision, the Americans practiced several other operations that bore an a.n.a.logy to the operation of infibulation, a procedure common to the Orient and to early Europe, and so ancient that, like circ.u.mcision, 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 l.a.b.i.a. 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 chast.i.ty 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 s.e.xual 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 a.s.sociate 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 chast.i.ty; 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 pa.s.sions,--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[20] 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 accomplis.h.i.+ng the object. It was not as barbarous an operation as emasculation on the male, as it only temporarily interfered with his functions.

In the Old World the practice is still performed in various manners. In Ethiopia, when a female child is born the v.u.l.v.a is st.i.tched together, allowing only the necessary pa.s.sage for the needs of nature. These parts adhere together, and the father is then possessed of a virgin which he can sell to the highest bidder, the union being severed with a sharp knife just before marriage. In some parts of Africa and Asia, a ring, as before stated, transfixed the l.a.b.i.a, which, to be removed, required either a file or a chisel; this is worn only by virgins. Married women wear a sort of muzzle fastened around the body, locked by means of a key or a padlock, the key being only in the possession of the husband. The wealthy have their seraglios and eunuchs, that take the place of the belt and lock. Another method is a mailed belt worn about the hips, made of bra.s.s wire, with a secret combination of fastenings, known only to the husband. In the museum in Naples are to be seen some of these belts, studded with sharp-pointed pikes over the abdominal part of the instrument, which was calculated to prevent even innocent familiarity, such as nest-hiding, to say nothing of greater evils.

In the "Les Femmes, Les Eunuchs, et Les Guerrieres du Soudan," Col. Du Bisson mentions a very peculiar custom invented by the careful jealousy that is inseparable from harem life. He had noticed that many of the harem inmates, contrary to the general Oriental custom, were allowed to go about unattended by the usual guard of eunuchs, but that they walked in a painful, hesitating, and impeded manner. This walk was not the conventional, short, shuffling step that peculiarity of dress and shoe-wear imposes on the j.a.panese beauty, nor the willowy, swaying gait produced in the Chinese beauty by the lack of a sufficiency of foot; neither could it be ascribed to the presence of the ancient jingling chain of bells which induced the mincing steps of the virgins of Judea,--an invention which confined the lower limbs within certain limits by being worn just below the knees, and calculated to prevent the rupture of the hymen by any undue length of step or violent exercise; hence a tinkling noise and a mincing step always denoted a virgin. In Du Bisson's cases, however, virgins were out of the question; they might be the victims of enforced continence, but a Soudanese harem contains no virgins. On inquiry he learned that the very peculiar and unmistakably painful gait was due to the fact that each woman carried a bamboo stick, about eight inches in length, three inches or more being inserted in the v.a.g.i.n.a so as to effectually fill the opening, the balance projecting beyond, between the thighs of the person; this bamboo stick, or guardian of female virtue, was held in place by a strap with a s.h.i.+eld that covered the v.u.l.v.a, the whole apparatus being strapped about the hips and waist, and the whole being held in an undisplaceable position by a padlock. This was affixed to the woman whenever she was allowed outside the harem grounds, being placed in position by the eunuch, who carried the key at his girdle. In such a harness virtue can be considered perfectly safe; even safe from any mental depredation or revolution, as, with the plug causing such uncomfortable sensations, it is perfectly safe to infer that the imagination could not be seduced by any Don Juanic or other Byronic unvirtuous revelry. The physical ills that this contrivance must cause are necessarily without number, as the instrument is not as lightly constructed as our modern stem pessaries; but to the Oriental who can replace a woman at any time and who prizes the virginity, continence, and chast.i.ty of his slaves, even if enforced, more than their health or their lives, these are matters of secondary importance. In the Soudan there are no divorce courts, hence the probable necessity of the apparatus, and, as the woman is not obliged to wear it unless she chooses to go out unattended, it can hardly be considered as a compulsory barbarity. In the United States such a practice might do away with considerable divorce proceedings.

Celsus gives a detailed description of the manner of infibulating as practiced among the Romans. According to this authority, it was employed by them on the youth attending the public schools, as well as upon the actors, dancers, and choristers, who were sold to the directors of the plays and spectacles. In the cabinet of the Roman College there are to be seen two small statues representing two infibulated musicians, which are remarkable for the excessive size of the ring and the leanness of the persons to which they are attached. The mode of applying this ring did not differ much from the usual method of preparing the ear for pendants.[21]

Among the Greek monks mentioned, the infibulation serves a manifold purpose; it not only is a sure badge of chast.i.ty, but its weight and size is very often increased so as to render it an instrument of penitence, and considerable rivalry exists at times in this regard.

Virey notices that the Hindoo bonze, or fakir, at times submits to infibulation at the same time that he takes his vows of eternal chast.i.ty. This ring is at times enormous, being sometimes six inches in diameter; so that it is a burden. These saints are held in great esteem and veneration.

Nelaton, in the sixth volume of his "Surgery," mentions the case of a man who presented himself at Dupuytren's clinic with a tumefied, thickened, and somewhat dilapidated and ulcerated prepuce; this prepuce had worn a couple of golden padlocks for five years, a woman having thus infibulated his organ.

In an elaborate work on the subject of circ.u.mcision,[22] de Vanier du Havre relates, on the authority of M. Martin Flaccourt, that with the Madeca.s.ses the children are circ.u.mcised on the eighth day after birth; and that in some portions of the country the mother swallows the removed portion of the prepuce, while in others the father loads the prepuce in some form of fire-arm, which is afterward fired in the air. In the neighborhood of Djezan, in Arabia, as reported by M. Fulgence Fresnel in the _Revue de Deux Mondes_ of 1838, courts.h.i.+p and matrimony are not so great social events as they are with our society beaux. The occasion is probably considered social enough by the rest of the invited guests, but it can hardly be called an agreeable episode in the life of the groom.

Those whose bashfulness prevents them from contracting marriage in civilized communities can have the consolation of knowing that in far-off Arabia, among the fierce followers of the conquerors of Spain and of the Eastern Empire, they have sympathizing fellow-sufferers whom the conventionalities of the country deter from rus.h.i.+ng into matrimony.

In this region, circ.u.mcision is performed on the adult at the time of his candidacy for matrimonial bliss. A more inauspicious occasion could not possibly have been chosen, unless as in another Mohammedan tribe, who circ.u.mcise the bridegroom on the day after his marriage and sprinkle the blood that falls from the cut onto the veil of the bride. The bride is present, and the victim is handed over to what might be called the executioner of the holy office, who proceeds to circ.u.mcise the victim in what might be called its utmost degree of performance and barbarity.

This attention does not stop at the pendulous and loose prepuce. He devotes himself to the skin of the whole organ; beginning at the prepuce he gradually works backward, removing the whole skin of the p.e.n.i.s--a flaying alive, and nothing more. Should the victim betray any sign of weakness, or allow as much as a sigh or groan to escape him, or even allow the muscles of the face to betray the fact that he is not immensely enjoying the occasion, the bride elect at once leaves him for good, saying that she does not wish a woman for a husband. A large proportion of the male population annually die from this operation. So that the Arabs of the Djezin can be likened to those spiders who lose their life while in the act of copulation,--the female making a dinner from off the male,--only the spider is said to die a happy death, while that of the Arab is one of misery.

Margrave and Martyr have recorded a very peculiar practice common among some South American tribes: A kind of a tube is fastened onto the prepuce by means of threads of the _tacoynhaa_, the latter being the bark of a certain kind of a tree. Cabras brought one of the natives, so muzzled, to Lisbon, on the return from his first voyage. Some tribes were observed to wear an apparatus like the old-fas.h.i.+oned candle-extinguisher, the virile member having been forced into this receptacle, which was strapped about the loins.

The travelers Spix and Martius found the practice of circ.u.mcision of both s.e.xes in the region of the upper Amazon River and among the Tuncas.

Squires mentions a curious custom of the aborigines of Nicaragua. They wound the p.e.n.i.s of their little sons and let some of the blood flow on an ear of corn, which is divided among the a.s.sembled guests and eaten by them with great ceremony.

On the fifth day after birth it is the custom among the Omaha Indians of North America to christen the infant, the child being stripped and spotted with a red pigment; considerable ceremony accompanies the act.[23]

Among the cannibals of Australia, Lumholtz[24] observed a practice that seems to have no a.n.a.logue in the wide world, either as an operation or in regard to its purposes. About ninety-five per cent. of the children are subjected to the ordeal. This is no less than the formation of an artificial hypospadias; this abnormality is formed through the p.e.n.i.s into the urethra, near its junction with the s.c.r.o.t.u.m; the wound is about an inch in length and is made with a flint knife which serves for no other purpose; the edges of the wound are burned with a hot stone, and the wound is subsequently kept open by the introduction of a small piece of wood, which, on healing, leaves a permanent opening. These cannibals undoubtedly are inspired by some Malthusian spirit which impels them thus to functionally eunuchize themselves in one sense, as during copulation the seminal discharge flies out backward through this opening, being thereby a most effectual check on further procreation. By some, this practice has been attributed to the unreliability of the seasons in regard to food-production; but Lumholtz observes that where the practice is most in vogue--among the tribes to the west of the Diamantina River and west and north of the Gulf of Carpentaria--the food-supply is not deficient, the region being full of rats, fish, and vegetables. All the tribes are not subject to the practice of the operation at the same time of life; in some, the hypospadias is not produced until in adult life and after the person has married and has become the father of one or two children, when he must submit to the requirements of the law; the operation seems to be invested with some civil or religious significance, as a palisade or stockade of trees is placed around the place where it is performed. A native, aged about twenty years, informed Lumholtz that the operation was performed because the blacks did not like to hear the children cry about the camp, and, further, that they were not desirous of having many children; this native had not yet become a father and had not yet been subjected to the operation. The natives were observed to be fat and in good physical condition.

There is something mysterious in this operation. It can easily be conceived how circ.u.mcision might at times have been suggested by its spontaneous and natural performance without any a.s.sistance from man.

Cullerier reports one case of partial circ.u.mcision through the means of an accident happening to a painter. The man was at work on a ladder, with a small bucket of paint hooked into one of the rounds above him; through some means the bucket lost its hold and in falling struck the p.e.n.i.s on its dorsum with such force that the prepuce was cut through on a parallel with the corona of the glans for fully two-thirds of its circ.u.mference, the glans slipping through the opening and gathering in a fleshy bunch underneath the frenum. This man carried this abnormality for some years, when, desiring to marry and seeing that this appendage would be as much of an impediment as one of the huge rings worn by the Hindoo devotee, he applied to Cullevier for advice, who promptly removed it with the knife.[25] The writer has seen three cases, during his practice, of spontaneous circ.u.mcision, all resulting from phymosis as a secondary affection to venereal disease. The first case occurred when he first entered into practice; it was in a young, stout, and full-blooded man with a violent gonorrhoea. There was much swelling and tumefaction of the whole organ, which seemed to be very rebellious to all treatment.

At one of his morning visits he was horrified to observe a transverse, livid mark at what seemed to be the middle of the organ; by noon this had gained ground to the right and left and there was no mistaking that it meant nothing less than mortification. Never having seen a case, the natural uncomfortable conclusion was that, through some cause or other or the natural result of excessive congestion, the man was about to lose one-half of his organ; and Burnside at Fredericksburg was in no greater state of suspense and uncertainty with the fate of the Army of the Potomac on his hands than the writer must acknowledge he was with this man and his organ apparently liquefying under his treatment. The surprise can be better imagined than described when, on the following morning, the glans made its appearance safe and sound out of its imprisonment, and at right angles with the organ there hung the prepuce, thick and as large and as long as the p.e.n.i.s itself, inflammatory deposit and infiltration having brought it to that shape and consistence; the glans became completely uncovered; the parts gathered underneath, where, in the course of some weeks, they had shrunk to the size of a walnut, which was afterward removed by the knife. In this case, as in the other two cases observed, the corona was very prominent and acted as an internal tourniquet by its upward pressure, the line of demarkation being on the dorsum in the three cases noted.

That such cases would suggest circ.u.mcision is not only probable but possible, as it would point out the manner of performing the operation; but, in the cases of the Australian savages, who performed an artificial hypospadias on themselves for a specific purpose, requiring a knowledge of the anatomical relation of the parts as well as of their physiological functions, it is hard to speculate how the operation was first suggested or how it came at first to be performed. As a Malthusian agent it is certainly an operation of the highest merit, and it should be introduced, by all means, in the United States, where the wealth and luxury in which the people dwell is fast drifting them toward the same whirlpool that engulfed Rome, which was preceded by a dislike to have children. Whenever the writer sees the poor anaemic, broken-down victim of many miscarriages, he cannot help but feel that, if the laws of the Damiantina River savages were enforced on their husbands, it would be a blessing to the poor women without materially injuring the husbands, who, in case of need of a re-establishment of the functions of procreation, might be fitted with a vulcanite plate for the occasion,--something like our cleft-palate patients are supplied with a plate that enables them to articulate.

It was the custom among the Hottentots, when first discovered or known to the whites, to remove one of their t.e.s.t.i.c.l.es. This was supposed to enable them to run more swiftly and to be lighter-footed in the race.

The real reason, afterward found, was a mixture of pure humanitarianism and Malthusianism boiled down to Hottentot ethics. With them a monorchid was not supposed to beget twins; when twins are born in the family, the mother generally smothers the female, if one happens to be such; if not, then the feeblest of the two is sacrificed. In their migratory and nomadic life the mother finds it impossible to either carry or care for the two children. The male Hottentot, rather than have any avoidable infanticide in his family, or that his wife should go through and suffer the annoyance and pangs of an unnecessary and unprofitable pregnancy, generously has one t.e.s.t.i.c.l.e removed; this is something that the ordinary civilized white man would not do, even if his legitimate wife and all his outside concubines were to have twins or triplets every nine months; so that, even as strange as it may appear, civilization must need go to the wild Bushmen in search of that grand old Quixotic chivalry that was in ancient times always ready to sacrifice itself for the welfare of woman.

The old Greek and Roman statues, representing the G.o.ds and athletes of ancient Greece and Rome, are a puzzle to many, owing to the diminutive and phimosed virile organ that the artists have attached to them. Galen represents that the disuse of the organ by the athletes was the cause of its undeveloped form, and that as the organ of these did not figure in the wors.h.i.+p of Venus, or partic.i.p.ate in the festivals of Bacchus, but was used solely and simply for micturating purposes, impotence was often the result, citing the case of a patient who came to consult him for an obstinate priapism resulting from venereal excess, who met, in his anteroom, an athlete who was being treated for the opposite condition, due to the too rigid continence to which he had been for years subjected. Acton does not believe that continued continence has that effect, quoting Dr. Bergeret, who had long been physician to a number of religious societies, as saying that he had never seen serious troubles of the organs of generation in these communities, which denotes that if they indulged in proper fasting and prayer they were in the same condition of flaccid impotence as the athlete in Galen's anteroom. Louis VII, of France, tried fasting and prayer in connection with rigid continence, and, as a result, his wife, Queen Eleonore, was divorced from him and married Henry II, of England, who had not been continent.

Hence, we see that the old sculptors, whether wis.h.i.+ng to represent Jupiter or Plato, aesculapius or Mars, a strongly knit and muscular frame was desired, an athlete, gladiator, or soldier being used as a model; the small, puerile, funnel-prepuced organ belonged to all these muscular or well-trained cla.s.ses, was a natural appendage, as enforced continence and the most absolute chast.i.ty was the rule, to enforce which they even resorted to infibulation. This enforced continence often resulted in impotence, even before the prime of life was pa.s.sed, accompanied by an inevitable atrophy of the male organ, with the resulting prepuce in the shape in which it is found in a boy of from eight to twelve years, precisely as they are found on the statues. How faithful the sculptors and artists were to nature and life in their representations can well be imagined by a critical examination of the Apollo Belvidere, where the difference of the scrotal position that exists between the right and left t.e.s.t.i.c.l.es is carried out to the minutest anatomical detail. In our age it is hard to conceive why their most masculine men should be deified, and all their G.o.ds represented as the most perfect of bodily development, while at the same time the finest physical specimens of manhood were doomed to a life of the most rigorous continence. It is also astonis.h.i.+ng that all this should be done not from any principle or consideration of morality or virtue, but simply as a means subservient in producing at its maximum the highest degree of physical development and endurance.

CHAPTER VI.

ATTEMPTS TO ABOLISH CIRc.u.mCISION.

Probably no rite or practice of a custom has been such a long-standing bone of contention as circ.u.mcision; nor does the Sphynx surpa.s.s this relic of bygone ages in mystery. From time immemorial its practice has been the subject of disputes, and its literature finds oftentimes its friends and foes ranged side by side. At one time a noted Israelite and Voltaire, the scoffer of Judaism, may be consulted on the question as to whether Israelite or Egyptian is ent.i.tled to priority as to its original practice with a like answer; and, again, Christians are found who, after a careful investigation, will accord this to the Israelites. In Rome, the persecuted Hebrew was stopped on the street and compelled to show the mark of circ.u.mcision, that he might be taxed, and in Turkish parts the Christian was subjected to the same indignity to enable the tax-gatherer to harvest the impost which he paid for his liberty of conscience and not being circ.u.mcised. When the monkish missionaries of the Catholic faith first entered Abyssinia, they were shocked to find their converts insisting on their time-honored practice of circ.u.mcision; and later, when the Propaganda sent its own missionaries, they were scandalized to see Christians practicing what they looked upon as an infidel rite; and nothing but the most earnest confession of faith, with the a.s.surance that the rite of circ.u.mcision was only a physical remedy, and that in their conscience it in no wise possessed any religious significance, and that neither did they, in any sense, hold it in any connection with the sacrament of baptism, permitted these Abyssinians to save themselves from excommunication. Later still, when an Abyssinian bishop was present in Lisbon, the clergy of the city refused him the right of celebrating the sacrifice of the holy ma.s.s in the Cathedral of Lisbon, on the ground that he, having been circ.u.mcised, was no better than a heretic. The Abyssinian Christians still practice the rite at the present day.

The Turks, although very fanatical and greater proselyters than the Christians of Rome, seem now and then to relax in favor of general utility, as we find Bajazet II writing to the Pope, Alexander VI, supplicating his Holiness to confer a cardinal's hat on the Archbishop of Arles as a special favor to the Turkish emperor, as he knew that the archbishop _had a secret leaning toward Mohammedanism_. As the clergy of those days, from the Holy Father down, were more politicians than followers of the humble Nazarene, the heaven of Mohammed had probably more attractions for their taste than the ideal Christian paradise, and it is possible that the good archbishop would have submitted to a cardinal's hat and circ.u.mcision at the same time to secure the good things of this world and of those in the world to come. History also relates that his most Christian majesty, Henry III, of France, as a relaxation to the interminable squabble between two Christian religious factions which were rending France, and which in the end cost him his life, actually wrote a letter to the Sultan, asking the favor to be allowed to stand as G.o.dfather at the circ.u.mcision of his son. When it is remembered that the G.o.dfather at a Turkish circ.u.mcision has to make a strong profession of Moslem faith and the answers as sponsor for the child, and must promise that the child will be faithful to the Koran and Mohammed, it will be seen that, however much the lower levels of humanity may quarrel over trifles, the heads of the people easily accommodated themselves to any existing circ.u.mstances. Friar Clemens might as well have let such a liberal-minded monarch live, as any of the existing churches could easily have got along with him.

On the other hand, we have the remarkable tenacity to custom and habit in this regard, as exhibited by the Moslems, who, although having neither ordinance nor authority for its performance, either in their law, creed, or in any order from their prophet, still no more zealous circ.u.mciser exists than the son of Islam, who exacts from all proselytes the excision of the prepuce. Mohammed was circ.u.mcised in his boyhood, and, although he did not order its performance to his followers, he did not see fit to proscribe a custom so general to the Arabians, where the greater development of the prepuce probably renders circ.u.mcision a necessity. From the same reason it is easy to perceive why the rite has found such general observance among the Africans, who are as noted for long and leathery prepuces as for their slim shanks. One author, writing in 1772, in a work ent.i.tled "Philosophical Researches on the Americans,"

treats the subject in a very intelligent manner. His arguments are both ingenious and plausible. This author looks upon circ.u.mcision as of purely climatic origin in its inceptive causes. From a careful survey of the natural history of man in his general distribution over the globe, he finds that circ.u.mcision may be said to be restricted to within certain boundaries of lat.i.tude, equidistant on both sides of the line.

No circ.u.mcised people have ever inhabited northern regions, and the bulk of the circ.u.mcised races are found within certain climates. From this reasoning it is easy to see why the rite should lose its standing under certain climatic conditions, unless bolstered up by some religious significance, as it is equally easy to foresee why it should flourish elsewhere, even without any religious backing or ordinance. It is well known that in Ethiopia and the neighboring countries, excrescences and elongation of either the prepuce or nymphae are as probable as the existence of an enlarged thyroid gland or goitre among the inhabitants of some of the valleys of Switzerland or of those of the Tyrol.

According to the author of the treatise just quoted, circ.u.mcision would be nothing more than a remedy to repair the evils that a faulty construction of the human body developed in certain climatic conditions.

With the Israelites it is observed as a religious rite, although they are not strangers to the physical benefits that circ.u.mcision confers upon them; the fact that even where no prepuce exists, as sometimes happens, the circ.u.mciser nevertheless goes on with the rite, being satisfied with drawing a few drops of blood from the skin near the glans, stamps the operation essentially as being a religious rite.

Persecutions have signally failed to suppress its performance by those of the Hebrew faith. Beginning with the decree of Antiochus, 167 B.C., which consigned every Hebrew mother to death who dared to circ.u.mcise her offspring, they have not ceased to suffer in defense of their rite.

Adrian, among other repressive measures, forbade circ.u.mcision; under Antonine this edict was still enforced, but he afterward recalled it and gave to the Hebrews the right of observing their religious rites. Marcus Aurelius, however, revived the edict of Adrian. Heliogabalus, who ascended the Roman throne in the year 218 A.D., was himself circ.u.mcised.

During the reign of Constantine all the laws that interfered with Hebraic rites were renewed, with the addition that any Hebrew who should circ.u.mcise a slave should suffer death. Under the sway of Justinian, in the sixth century, the persecutions against these people were so oppressive that a Hebrew was not allowed to raise or educate his own child in the faith of his fathers. In the seventh century, the augurs having prophesied the ruin of the Roman Empire by a circ.u.mcised race to the emperor Heraclius, the persecutions were renewed against these unfortunate people. In this century, Hebrews refusing baptism suffered banishment and confiscation of all their property; they were obliged to renounce the Sabbath, circ.u.mcision, and all Hebraic rites if they wished to remain. About this period the success of the Saracens induced persecutions of the Hebrews in Spain, where their children were taken away from them that they might be raised in the Christian religion. In the fifteenth century they suffered the greatest persecution and martyrdom at the hands of the Spanish Inquisition. The persecutions above cited were national and governmental persecutions levelled directly at the Jewish nation and creed; the persecutions that they momentarily suffered at other times had no signification beyond the exhibition of popular spite and fury, but those above cited were moves calculated to extirpate the creed, if not the people, from off the face of the globe. If repressive measures are of any avail, circ.u.mcision as an Hebraic rite should now have no existence. Its present existence and observance show a vitality that is simply phenomenal; its resistance and apparent indestructibility would seem to stamp it as of divine origin.

No custom, habit, or rite has survived so many ages and so many persecutions; other customs have died a natural death with time or want of persecution, but circ.u.mcision, either in peace or in war, has held its own, from the misty epochs of the stone age to the present.

There is something pathetic and soul-appealing in contemplating the early Christians forced to wors.h.i.+p in the catacombs of Rome, hunted like wild animals in their subterranean burrows, and then given the choice of making offerings to the heathen G.o.ds or being thrown into the arena as prey to wild beasts; so are we stirred when we think of the Spanish Jew, who had made Spain his home for centuries, being driven into exile in such droves that no country could receive them; we see them peris.h.i.+ng of hunger by the thousands on the African coast, and dying of starvation on the quays of the ports of civilized Italy. That many, through all these trials, were forced to embrace other religions is not astonis.h.i.+ng. In Spain apostacy was to no purpose, as the Inquisition could not be expected to split hairs in regard to an apostate Jew, when it sent the best of Gothic blood, raised in the Catholic faith, to the _auto da fe_ or the scaffold,--the rack respecting neither faith nor profession that fell into its clutches. In milder persecutions, however, he escaped by outwardly conforming to the demands of his oppressors and history tells us of the circ.u.mcisions secretly performed on the dead Jew, that the spirit of the law of their fathers might be carried out.

In other cases, threatened exile, confiscation, or exorbitant taxation drove them to adopt every possible expedient to eradicate the sign of their Israelitism and make attempts to reform a prepuce. The first attempts in this line were made during the reign of Antiochus, when a number of Hebrews wished to become as the people about them who were not persecuted--_fecerunt cibi praeputia_. This is no easy operation, and in later times by the aid of appliances, both in Rome and in Spain, they undertook to cause the skin to recover the glans. Martial, in speaking of the instrument used in Rome, a sort of a long funnel-shaped copper tube in which the Hebrew carried his virile organ, terms it _Judaem Pondum_, the weight of which, by drawing down the skin, was supposed in time to draw it down far enough to answer the purpose. The apostle Paul, in his epistle to the Corinthians, refers to these practices when he says, "Was any one called being circ.u.mcised, let him not be uncirc.u.mcised." The operation of reforming a prepuce, or of obliterating the marks of circ.u.mcision, does not appear to have been a success.

The writer had one experience that was interesting. On one occasion he advised circ.u.mcision for the relief of a reflex nervous disease, in a tall, athletic Austrian sailor from the Adriatic; although the nature of the operation was explained to the man, he evidently did not appreciate its full nature and importance until a sweeping cut with a scalpel left the excised prepuce in the operator's hand. Most Adriatic sailors have sailed up the Bosphorus and are more or less familiar with both the Greek and Turkish nations; the latter they despise with gusto, "_porchi di Turci_" being the affectionate appellation they bestow on their national neighbors. No sooner did he perceive the real condition of affairs than he began to beat his head, saying that he was disgraced forever, as he never would dare to a.s.sociate with his countrymen again, as he would be liable to be taken for a _porcho di Turco_; his frenzy increased to such a pitch that to spare any unpleasantness it was deemed advisable to replace the prepuce, which was done accordingly, the man making a tolerable good recovery, as far as the grafted prepuce was concerned. It required a secondary operation to overcome some cicatricial contraction, and, on the whole, he had a very serviceable prepuce; but, what was more to the point, it prevented his ever being mistaken for a Turk.

CHAPTER VII.

MIRACLES AND THE HOLY PREPUCE.

What strange fancies have circled themselves about the subject of generation or its organisms during the different stages of moral civilization since the world has existed! The efforts in this regard among different creeds have been something peculiar. Neither Mohammedans nor Hebrews--both zealous circ.u.mcisers--ever went to the lengths reached by Christian churches and their followers in some particulars concerning this rite; this being especially strange when it is considered that the new creed was the one that abolished the rite and through which the Jews suffered such cruel and unjust persecutions. The early Christian Church celebrated and continues to celebrate the Feast of Circ.u.mcision, and history relates some strange events in connection with this circ.u.mcision. Having abolished and repudiated the rite, it would seem inconsistent that it should celebrate its performance on any occasion and consider such an event sufficiently memorable that its occurrence should excite the veneration of the church and be the means of exciting the pious zeal of the faithful. The strangest events in this connection are still more mysterious and incomprehensible, if not amusing, the only excuse for the occurrence being the greedy thirst for relics of any and all kinds that in the middle ages pervaded Europe.

At some remote period--in the thirteenth or fourteenth century--the abbey church of Coulombs, in the diocese of Chartres, in France, became possessed in some miraculous manner of the holy prepuce. This holy relic had the power of rendering all the sterile women in the neighborhood fruitful,--a virtue, we are told, which filled the benevolent monks of the abbey with a pardonable amount of pride. It had the additional virtue of inducing a subsequent easy delivery, which also added to the reputation and pardonable vanity of the good monks. This last virtue, however, we are told, came near causing the loss to the abbey of this inestimable prize, for, as a French writer observes, a too great reputation is at times an unlucky possession; at any rate, the royal spouse of good and valiant King Henry V--he of Agincourt, whom England waded up to its knees in the sea at Dover to meet on his return from that campaign--had followed the example of all good dames and was about to give England an heir. Henry then governed a good part of France. Having heard of the wonderful efficacy of the relic of Coulombs, he early one morning threw the good monks into consternation by the arrival at the convent gate of a duly equipped herald and messenger from his kings.h.i.+p, asking for the loan of the relic with about as much ceremony as Mrs. Jones would ask for the loan of a flat-iron or saucepan from her neighbor, Mrs. Smith. The queen, Catherine of France, was of their own country and Henry was too powerful to be put off or refused; there was no room for evasion, as the holy prepuce could not be duplicated; so the poor monks with the greatest reluctance parted with their precious relic, entrusting it into the hands of the royal envoy, which wended its way to London, where it in due time, being touched by the queen, insured a safe delivery. Honest Henry then returned the relic to France; but so great was its reputation that royalty caused a special sanctuary to be erected for its reception, and a full period of twenty-five years occurred before the monks of Coulombs again regained possession of their prize, during which period the population of the neighborhood must have suffered from the natural increase of sterility and the physicians must have reaped a rich harvest owing to the increased difficulty and complications of labor induced by the absence of the relic. On its return, the relic was found to have lost none of its virtues, and the good people and monks were all correspondingly made happy; in 1870, when the writer was in France, it was still working its miracles. Balzac found ample facts to found his famous "Droll Stories"

without straining his imagination.

So great an attraction was not to go without attempted rivalry or imitators; hence we find in the "Dictionary of Moreri," edition of 1715, in the third volume, at page 108, that several other establishments claim the honor of a like relic,--namely, the Cathedral of Puy, in Velay; the collegial church of Antwerp; the Abbey of our Saviour, of Charroux; and the Church of St. John Lateran, in Rome. All of these have had very adventurous histories. The Abbey of Charroux was founded by Charlemagne in 788, and among the relics with which that monarch endowed the abbey the princ.i.p.al one was a fragment of the holy prepuce. This abbey enjoyed great reputation, and indulgences were granted by Papal bull to all those who a.s.sisted at the adoration of the relics. In the internecine wars of the sixteenth century the abbey fell into the hands of the G.o.dless and heretical Huguenots and the holy relic disappeared.

In 1856, while some workmen were at work demolis.h.i.+ng an ancient wall on the abbey site, they discovered some relic cases. The bishop was at once notified, who immediately proceeded to investigate, when, lo and behold! there, sure enough, was a piece of desiccated flesh, with marks of coagulated blood; nothing more or less than the lost prepuce--long lost, but now found. It was placed in charge of the Ursuline Sisterhood, where it has remained ever since undisturbed, except by a controversy in regard to the propriety of the relic, in which the good bishop ambled about in the most ambiguous manner, the only clearly defined portion of his dissertation being the one wherein he laments "the decadence of that truly Christian spirit which animated the laity of the middle ages with a radiant zeal. A piety also pervaded those gentle Christians of former times, who were possessed of a religious instruction which determined for them the tenets of the creed and its practices,--a happy state or condition of affairs, which prevented the intelligence of the faithful from wandering into the sloughs of unprofitable skepticism." This settled the question as to the propriety of the prepuce being converted into a miracle-working relic; at least, as far as the good bishop was concerned.

It would be an injustice not to mention the other shrines in detail after the prominence that has been given to the abbeys of Coulombs and Charroux; so the history of another will be given. We are not told just how the Church of St. John Lateran in Rome first became possessed of _its_ holy prepuce, but it nevertheless had one; also the only authentic one in existence, like all the others. It disappeared at one of the periodical sackings that Rome has repeatedly suffered at the hands of Goth, Vandal, or Christian. This time it was the soldiery of the eldest son of the church--- Charles V--who did the sacking; it was in the year 1527, a soldier--probably some impious, heathenish mercenary--broke into the holy sanctuary of the church and stole therefrom the box that contained the holy relics, among them the holy prepuce. These impious wretches, as a rule, came to grief in short order; hence we are told that this mercenary and sacrilegious soldier was compelled to secrete his box, when only a short distance from Rome, where the box remains and the mercenary wretch disappears, probably carried off bodily by the devil, as he deserved. Thirty years afterward the box is discovered by a priest, who, ignorant of its contents, carries it to the lady on whose domain it was found. On being opened it was found to contain a piece of the anatomy of Saint Valentine, the lower jaw of Saint Martha, with one tooth still in place, and a small package upon which the name of the Saviour was inscribed. The lady picked up the package, when immediately the most fragrant odor pervaded the apartment, being exhaled by the miraculous packet, while the hand that held it was seen perceptibly to swell and stiffen; investigation proved it to be the holy prepuce stolen by the miscreant mercenary from St. John Lateran. It is related that in 1559, a canon of the church of St. John Lateran, impelled by a worldly curiosity untempered by piety, undertook to make a critical examination of this relic, in the process of which, to better satisfy himself, he had the indiscretion to break off a small piece; instantly the most dreadful tempest broke over the place, followed by cras.h.i.+ng peals of thunder and blinding flashes of lightning; then a sudden darkness covered the country, and the luckless priest and his a.s.sistants fell flat on their sacerdotal noses, feeling that their last hour had arrived.[26]

Wonderful and miraculous cures are performed at these shrines, and some of the cures are of a nature that would baffle the intelligence of the most learned mind to ascertain the intricate and devious way that nature must at times journey to accomplish some of these changes. The writer well remembers seeing, in the Church of Corpus Christi, in Turin,[27] a long hall, covered, from marble pavement to ceiling, with votive tablets, after the manner inaugurated in the old temples of Greece. Modern votaries have the advantage of being able to record their cure, safe venture or escape from peril, by means of faithful representation of the event in painting or drawing, as the material and art is more common now than in the days of ancient Greece, who recorded its cures by simple inscription in laconic terms. Modern medicine labors under the disadvantage of presuming that the people are endowed with an intelligence that was unknown to ancient or mediaeval people, when, in fact, the people are as credulous and as subject to imposition as they were in the earlier centuries of the present era. With all its supposed superior intelligence, there is no fatter pasture for quacks and impostors than that presented by the people of the United States.

Whenever I see the poor, intelligent, broad-minded physician struggling along, barely able to procure for himself the necessaries required to maintain himself with proper books and appliances, while the itinerant quack or dogmatic pract.i.tioner rolls in undeserved affluence, I question the wisdom of our ethical code. Braddock, at the Monongahela, scorned to have his regulars, who had fought under Marlborough and Eugene, break ranks before a lot of breech-clouted savages, and take shelter that the nature of the ground and the trees could afford, thinking it an unfit action for men who had faced the veterans of Louis XIV on many a hard-fought European field. I sometimes think that if _our_ regulars were, for only a season, to follow the example of the provincial militia at that battle, it would be better for the country, the people, science, and last, but not the least, for the profession. The theory that we should not counsel with quacks is altogether mischievous and fallacious, although right and rigidly orthodox in its intent; were we to counsel and meet these gentry, we should expose their ignorance and a.s.sumption, and we should not be exposed to the charge of jealousy and of fear to meet them in consultation. I remember on one occasion a client went to a lawyer for advice as to how he might dispossess some parties who had some adverse claim to some property which he owned, after due deliberation and a protracted siege of the house, in the vain hope of gaining admittance; the lawyer advised his client to go and nail up all exits and fasten them in, which had the effect of driving them out. So with our profession--we should not neglect an opportunity of meeting a quack in consultation, regardless of the nature of the case; it is the only way to nail them up; as it is, we have simply chained up the shepherd-dog and given the wolves full play.